Calvinist predestination let colonizers rationalize Native dispossession as divine judgment.
Evidence
Although individuals could not know for certain if they were among the elect, outward good fortune, especially material wealth, was taken to be a manifestation of election; conversely, bad fortune and poverty, not to speak of dark skin, were taken as evidence of damnation. “The attractiveness of such a doctrine to a group of invading colonists … is obvious,” Akenson observes, “for one could easily define the natives as immutably profane, and damned, and oneself as predestined to virtue.” — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 119
Categorization
- XREF: The theological engine behind what gets called ‘manifest destiny’ — a mechanism that recurs in settler-colonial theory. — connects to: Missionaries interpreted imperial conquest as divine endorsement of Christianity. — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear:…, 113; Colonial reformers’ ethical indignation coexisted with colonial privilege; Colonial officials rationalized domination by claiming trusteeship over the colonized (+4 more)
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 119
Broader Connections
- Colonial officials rationalized domination by claiming trusteeship over the colonized
#expands(0.60) - Colonial reformers’ ethical indignation coexisted with colonial privilege
#complicates(0.50) - Scholars have treated colonial sentiment as ornament rather than substance of rule
#expands(0.50) - Colonial sentiment discipline targeted colonizers themselves, not only the colonized
#complicates(0.45)