6.4a Colonialism

Colonialism has transformed the world. A century ago, Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands were major colonial powers. Most of these countries have since given up their colonial claims, though some still control former colonies and current territories. The United States also colonized – primarily the land which is now the United States, but it continues to hold five inhabited territories: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Colonization occurs when people migrate to an area and settle, displacing the people who already live there. The settlers or colonizers gain control of the land and other resources and subjugate the Indigenous people (Steinmetz, 2014). Settlers justify their actions through their beliefs that Indigenous people were inferior, less than fully human, and less evolved than the settlers (Meghji, 2021). Colonialism can take different forms, including settler colonialism and internal colonialism.

Types of Colonialism

In settler colonialism, the settlers either replace the Indigenous people, make them dependent on the settlers, or both (Steinmetz, 2014). The British Empire, for example, sent people to their colonies in what is now the United States, Australia, South Africa, and Canada. After independence, the United States expanded and sent people out west to settle – permanently displacing the Indigenous people already living there.  

In internal colonialism, the dominant group intentionally under-develops, economically exploits, or both the geographic areas within the borders of a nation that are reserved for Indigenous people. The U.S. reservation system is a type of internal colony. Indigenous people do not have full political sovereignty on or off reservations. Still, the U.S. government allows them to keep some aspects of their way of life even when they clash with state or federal law. For example, they might retain hunting of fishing rights that conflict with state or federal law. Figure 6.6 shows the few remaining areas in the United States where Indigenous people have some sovereignty.

Settler colonialism is not something that happened only in the past but is ongoing  (Wolfe 1999). For example, the Morrill Act of 1862 allowed the U.S. federal government to give to every state Indigenous land the government had obtained through treaties and force to fund the formation of 52 land grant universities (Lee & Ahtone, 2020). Universities sold the land and used the profits to build and develop their universities. Indigenous people, however, have not benefited from land grant universities. Only 16.8 percent of American Indian or Alaska Native people and 19.1% of Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders aged 25 or higher have completed a Bachelor’s degree (Postsecondary National Policy Institute, 2025a, 2025b). The national rate is 36.2% (Postsecondary National Policy Institute, 2025b).