U.S. conquest has long been framed as benevolent rescue.
Evidence
The original settlers of Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded in 1630, adopted an official seal designed in England before their journey. The central image depicts a near-naked native holding a harmless, flimsy-looking bow and arrow and inscribed with the plea, “Come over and help us.” Nearly three hundred years later, the official seal of the US military veterans of the “Spanish-American War” (the invasion and occupation of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines) showed a naked woman kneeling before an armed US soldier and a sailor, with a US battleship in the background. — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 121
Categorization
- XREF: The ‘colonizer as savior’ trope seen across U.S. military interventions through the present. — connects to: U.S. leaders have increasingly embraced imperial ambitions in an era of unprecedented military strength; American postwar empire legitimized itself through ‘benevolent supremacy’ rather than old colonialism. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 144; US overseas bases extend an ancient imperial strategy of encircling domination
- SEED: A visual essay comparing sealf imagery across centuries of U.S. empire — the native figure degrading from ‘come over and help us’ to the kneeling woman.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 121
Related
- U.S. leaders have increasingly embraced imperial ambitions in an era of unprecedented military strength (similarity 0.85)
Broader Connections
- US overseas bases extend an ancient imperial strategy of encircling domination
#complicates(0.60)