Settler-colonial societies eliminate the indigenous population. Thomas Jefferson said, well, we have no choice but to exterminate the indigenous population, the Native Americans; the reason is they’re attacking us. Why are they attacking us? Because we’re taking everything away from them. But since we’re taking their land and resources away and they defend themselves, we have to exterminate them.

The settler-colonial societies are a striking illustration of, first of all, the massive destructive power of European imperialism. If some extraterrestrial observer were watching this, they’d think the species was insane. And, in fact, it is. But the insanity goes back to the basic institutional structure. That’s the way it works. It’s built into the institutions. It’s one of the reasons it’s going to be very hard to change.

The U.S. was founded on two racist principles: the system of slavery, the source of much of its wealth (and England’s too), and the need to rid the national territory of Native Americans, whom the Declaration of Independence explicitly describes as “the merciless Indian savages,” and whom the framers saw as barring the expansion of the “superior” race. Immigrants were supposed to be basically “Anglo-Saxon,” in accord with racist myths of the founding fathers that persisted through the 19th century.