Unsettling Settler Societies (Intro & Chapter 5)

In the introduction of this reading, Settler Societies were described and defined as so many different things. It represents "home" to the dominant group. In the introduction Settler Societies were often referred to the Europeans who settled and how they remained politically dominant over the indigenous peoples but became complicated between Europe and the rest of the world. The process of establishing the settler societies was accompanies by levels of physical and cultural genocide, disruption of settler societies, economies and governance, and movements of indigenous people. Today there important differences among the settler societies in demographic ratios of indigenous to non indigenous populations. Some of the main points in the introduction touch base on understanding the social relations within the settler societies and the struggles they have politically and economically. After the Civil War there was so much conflict going on in the United States; Mexican Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans were not considered apart of the dominant culture and lost control over their land to the United States who seized their territory by war and legal manipulations. Before the arrival of the European Settlers there were more than three hundred Native-American societies and they displayed a wide range of gender relationships. The Native American women shared decision making power with men and they shared positions of spiritual power with men. They were also chief agriculturists and controlled and distributed the crops they produced. This reading really shows how in each society whether it was Native American, Mexican Americans, or African Americans, women had a very important role to fulfill and the men and people of their colony depended on them especially in the Native American society. The Native women were all important especially in the labor force.
This reading really focuses on the time periods each group went through specifically, the Mexican-Americans, Native Americans, Euro Americans, and African Americans. It points out during Colonial America how each group functioned, the importance of women especially, and how they specifically contributed to the success of their society. During the Expansionist Republic the Native Americans were struggling through Indian Wars, the African Americans especially were experiencing hard times through slavery and the Mexican Americans were experiencing a heavy flow of Immigrants into their land. In Modern America the Native Americans went through a heavy loss of land but in 1934 the Indian Reorganization Act was created. The Mexican Americans were continuing their efforts to perfect the incomplete conquest. The African Americans were able to expand their middle class and became the institutional and financial support of the civil rights movement. The Euro-Americans gained much momentum and made a rise to the core of the world economy in structural relations with third world nations.