ABSTRACT

Settler colonialism links the colonized past, the present and the future. Settler colonialism profoundly shapes and may even be said to create a particular type of society. As the United States is at its core a settler colonial state, American history should be conceptualized within that context. However, a thick cloud of nationalist mythology has long obscured identification of the United States as fundamentally a settler society. It has also occluded more complete understanding of the continuities between continental and overseas empire. Denial and elision of the colonial past are thus fundamental to the United States, as with other settler societies.2