Steven Newcomb: Rejecting domination over the original nations

Property (despotic dominion) has been characterized as the foundation of “civilization.” This makes perfect sense when we consider that “the process of civilizing” is a process by which “men” first of all claim “absolute dominion” over an ever-larger geographical area, and then use violence and force to make despotic dominion as an experienced reality over that geographical area. What is the reason or purpose for expanding despotic dominion? It is to increase the wealth that results from domination (dominium, ownership). An expanding domination is the background frame of reference for the metaphors “progress” “advancement” and “Manifest Destiny” (the ‘divinely destined’ domination gets manifested).

Colonization is one of the principal means by which despotic dominion is moved forward or “advanced” over lands not yet colonized, meaning “not yet dominated.” When the dominating society characterizes free and independent nations and peoples as being “uncivilized,” it is, in effect, declaring them to be “not yet dominated,” or not yet forced under the despotic dominion of the colonizers. Colonization and civilization go hand in hand when we remember that “civilization” is defined as “the forcing of a particular cultural pattern on a population to which it [that cultural pattern] is foreign.” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary).

Colonization is one of the means of forcing such a cultural pattern on a foreign population. Historian Samuel Morison, in The Oxford History of the American People (1965), made this imagery quite clear. He defined “colonization” as “a form of conquest in which a nation takes over a distant territory, thrusts in its own people, and controls or eliminates the native inhabitants” (p. 34). This describes some of the activities involved in the first establishment of a “despotic dominion” over the nations and peoples living in an area that had not been previously under such domination.