Tarrant’s massacre repeated settler-colonial violence against indigenous peoples

Evidence

The form of colonialism that the Indigenous peoples of North America have experienced was modern from the beginning: the expansion of European corporations, backed by government armies, into foreign areas, with subsequent expropriation of lands and resources. Settler colonialism is a genocidal policy. Native nations and communities, while struggling to maintain fundamental values and collectivity, have from the beginning resisted modern colonialism using both defensive and offensive techniques, including the modern forms of armed resistance of national liberation movements and what now is called terrorism. In every instance they have fought for survival as peoples. The objective of US colonialist authorities was to terminate their existence as peoples—not as random individuals. This is the very definition of modern genocide as contrasted with premodern instances of extreme violence that did not have the goal of extinction. — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 17 (#expands, via linked claim)

Grenier argues that rather than racism leading to violence, the reverse occurred: the out-of-control momentum of extreme violence of unlimited warfare fueled race hatred. — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 141 (#expands, via linked claim)

Following World War II, the United States was at war with much of the world, just as it was at war with the Indigenous peoples of North America in the nineteenth century. This was total war, demanding that the enemy surrender unconditionally or face annihilation. Perhaps it was inevitable that the earlier wars against Indigenous peoples, if not acknowledged and repudiated, ultimately would include the world. According to the origin narrative, the United States was born of rebellion against oppression—against empire—and thus is the product of the first anticolonial revolution for national liberation. The narrative flows from that fallacy: the broadening and deepening of democracy; the Civil War and the ensuing “second revolution,” which ended slavery; the twentieth-century mission to save Europe from itself—twice; and the ultimately triumphant fight against the scourge of communism, with the United States inheriting the difficult and burdensome task of keeping order in the world. — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 37 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Colonial violence destroyed traditional mourning rites by making every death colonial; Colonial and settler hysteria differ in that settlers translate fear into murderous acts — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 281; Frontier violence fueled racism, not the reverse — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 141 (+5 more)

Related

• Contemporary US imperial racism echoes the founding wars against indigenous peoples (similarity 0.82)
• Settler colonialism aims to terminate peoples’ existence, not individuals (similarity 0.82)
• Unacknowledged wars against Indigenous peoples preceded global US total war (similarity 0.80)
• The first European settlement in the Americas quickly collapsed into violence with indigenous peoples (similarity 0.79)
• US Indian policy constitutes settler colonialism rather than mere discrimination (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Settler colonialism aims to terminate peoples’ existence, not individuals #expands (0.65) — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 17
• Frontier violence fueled racism, not the reverse #expands (0.60) — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 141
• Unacknowledged wars against Indigenous peoples preceded global US total war #expands (0.60) — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 37
• Contemporary US imperial racism echoes the founding wars against indigenous peoples #complicates (0.55) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 7
• Land entitlement claims rest on race rather than history in settler colonies #expands (0.50)
• Tarrant attacked citizens as invaders in a nation where he held no citizenship #complicates (0.45)