Unsettling Settler Societies: Introduction & Chapter 5

In the introduction of the book what was clearly defined was what the definition of what a settler society really is, in which is the area that the Europeans have settled entering the Americas. It is the area in which the Europeans took over and became dominant, caring very little about the civilians that were there before. Since then and through out history they have remained politically dominant over the indigenous people by genocide and other forms of removal with in their own home. All this involved the development of ethnic and racial terms clearly stating that Eurocentric was essential. Not only that but the European capitalist culture has been the dominant one in which automatically gained what we call "white- privilege" a disruptive world.

Going into chapter 5: Gendering, Racializing and Classifying: Settler Colonization in the United States 1590-1990; clearly explained the arrival of the Euro-American settlers into the settler societies and the development of the different forms of racial domination. How these Europeans were granted full citizenship within themselves excluding those natives that were already there. We saw how the Native Americans, Mexican Americans and African Americans lost any power that they had to the unrealized dominant culture. Yet before that during the colonial America, Native Americans were entitled to share power between the both the female and male something that was not common with in the Europeans. As the Europeans came to the Americas they had no respect towards its natives many were slaved, and risk of extinction within tribes was expected. Unlike the Natives the Mexican American settlers were the first to establish divided lands or "haciendas." A class system that was developed in which will continue till this day, yet that did not happen for a long time being that they ended up losing their land to the Europeans. The United States manipulated both the Natives as well as the Mexican Americans to lose control over their land. African Americans also lost much of their dignity. Since their skin tone was darker they were automatically given a racial system of slavery. They were unable to do many things and needed to obey the Europeans. Their labour system clearly described the line between Europeans and what they would call "visible African ancestry." While all this was happening the Europeans became the successful white privilege group. They had many privileged positions in which they took advantage of making other ethnic groups become or lose much of themselves to the Europeans. In the end the formation of the United States was truly based and interlined race, gender and class relations all these factors contributed to what we call today the United States.