The Impacts of Capitalist Incorporation and Terrorism on Indigenous Americans

This article critically explores the essence of colonial terrorism and its consequences on the indigenous American peoples during their colonization and incorporation into the European-dominated racialized capitalist world system between the late 15th and 19th century. It employs multidimensional, comparative methods, and critical approaches to explain the dynamic interplay among social structures, human agency, and terrorism to explain the connection between terrorism and the emergence of the capitalist world system or globalization. Raising some complex moral, intellectual, philosophical, ethical, and political questions, this paper explores the essence, roles, and impacts of colonial terrorism on the indigenous Americans. First, the paper conceptualizes and theorizes colonial terrorism as an integral part of the capitalist world system. Specifically, it links capitalist incorporation and colonialism and various forms of violence to terrorism. Second, the paper examines the structural aspects of colonial terrorism through connecting it to some specific colonial policies and practices. Third, it identifies and explains different kinds of ideological justifications that the Euro-American colonial settlers and their descendants used in committing crimes against humanity.