Reply #49: A Multidimensional Theory of Colonialism: [View All]

The Colonial Context of North America
Political competition, economic incorporation, cultural exchange, and biological resistance are major features of the colonial context. By political competition, I mean the strategic and diplomatic bargaining between nations by which they ensure their own protection, and effect and protect their strategic interests. Geopolitics is the realm of study undertaken by those who study international relations or by historians of diplomatic national policy (Rawlinson i). As to economic incorporation, world systems theorists and economists have long argued for the relative autonomy of markets, or a pattern of relations based largely on material interests, which drives the expansion of markets or explains exchange and market relations. Economists, and many economic anthropologists, believe that the urge to truck and barter is part of human nature (Frank; Wallerstein; Jorgensen). Cultural exchange refers to the transfer and internalization of symbolic codes between colonized and colonizer. Such symbolic codes include language, information, norms, economic ethics, worldviews, religion, and many other aspects of culture (Champagne, "Transocietal Cultural Exchange within the World Economic and Political System" 120-153; Durkheim; Parsons,The Evolution of Societies 25-31). Biological resistance refers to the capability of the colonized to resist the diseases of the colonizer (Dobyns; Duffy; Thornton).

While there have been colonial systems in many historical periods and in many places, the colonization of North America exhibits several characteristics that can shed some information on processes of colonialism in general. A major distinguishing feature of North American colonialism was the colonial rivalries among European powers. Multiple European powers struggled for control of North America. The British, French, Spanish, Dutch, Swedes, and, to some extent, the Russians struggled for control of land and trade. The situation of competitive rivalries reflected the situation of competing nations in Europe, and these rivalries usually resulted in armed conflicts and wars in North America (Hintze, "Economics and Politics in the Age of Modern Capitalism"; "Military Organization and State Organization" 160-188; Skocpol 19-24). The intense political and economic competition led to treaties of alliance with Native nations, which held important trade, diplomatic, and military assets capable of tipping the balance of European colonial relations. (Native leverage on rival European contenders ended by about 1820.) Europeans made trade and diplomatic agreements and treaties of alliance with Indian nations, and thereby gave these nations international recognition. These early treaties later became the precedent for the treaties negotiated for land by the United States and Canada with their respective Native peoples. There are few other places in the world where colonizing nations negotiated similar treaties.

Like that of many non-European peoples over the past 500 years, the colonization of Native North Americans occurred in association with the rise of capitalism in Europe and with the increasing emergence of world markets. Furthermore, the United States ultimately emerged as a central player among the core capitalist countries. Consequently, Native North Americans were colonized by a major capitalist force in the world system. This proximity to the capitalist core is not the same experience as that of the African nations, the Native peoples of Latin and South America, Australian Aborigines, or the peoples of India, China, Japan and other non-western nations who were forced to respond to the world expansion of capitalism. In some ways the future of non-western peoples, increasingly incorporated into a world capitalist market, can be seen in the experience of Native North Americans.

Cultural exchange in the colonial situation was carried by interpersonal interaction with missionaries, traders, colonial officials, slaves, and other colonists. To varying degrees both the indigenous peoples and colonizers got to know each other's language, culture, economy, political norms, and social relations. Ideas, words, economic techniques, forms of dress, and many other cultural and normative items were selectively appropriated by each group (Weatherford; Grinde and Johansen). In recent years, some cultural theorists have focused on the effects on subject peoples of cultural domination (Findlay 18-32; Foucault; Biolsi). But, it is also critical to understand the extent to which the colonized internalized selected aspects of the colonizer's culture. The cultural knowledge gained from the colonizer by the colonized was used to build resistance to colonization and/or promote acceptance and participation in the colonizer's new order.
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