ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on states subject to lower levels and degrees of colonial formation, including more isolated and less accessible regions of the country as well as those initially controlled by neighboring powers. Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico represent highly isolated or island settings in which intergroup conflict has been relatively low since colonial domination was established. In essence, they involve external territories subject to relatively low levels of colonialism. Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Texas represent states originally part of and/or subject to the control of external powers such as Spain or Mexico. Many of them were once part of the latter, eventually ceded to the United States. Obviously, they continue to involve high rates of ethnic and religious diversity, particularly Catholic Hispanics. Such initial, adjacent external control and pluralism has mediated the process of American colonialism in these cases, limiting the process largely to external migration, restricted subordination of indigenous groups, and largely voluntary immigration.
