this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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it could be. but i have the impression imperialism is a subset of this type of violence, when a nation does it to another.
so, just walking through your own argument as I understand it: situations that are similar to the treatment of indigenous North Americans by the US can be considered imperialism, if it's done by one nation to another nation. but the actual treatment of indigenous peoples by the US doesn't meet that condition. the result of that syllogism must be: between the US and the indigenous peoples, one of them is not a nation. I assume you're not saying that the US is not a nation. so the conclusion must be that the indigenous North American peoples were not a nation, or multiple nations; that there was no political or societal organization in the Americas before Europeans came. is that what you mean, or have I misunderstood?
more like imperialist and settler ideology are subsets (variations?) of a bigger settler-colonial mindset, but different in the sense that one is mostly genocide, and the other is mostly enslavement.
ie. when the us coups bolivia, they don't want to annex the land, but rather enslave it's people through their imperial machine. when israel invades palestine, they don't want to make palestinians their vassals but rather just kill everyone and keep the land underneath their feet. these are mostly similar but different things.
i'm not that well versed about north america before the europeans but it's safe to say there was societal organization before they came, but they decided to settle that land instead of making them european vassals.
edit: to bring this closer to my mentality with this: i'm from a colony and i find what they do to palestinians qualitatively different to what they do to us.
ok I see. my understanding of imperialism is that it encompasses both of those, meaning broadly, expansion of influence, especially (but not necessarily) by claiming areas of land, in order to gain control of resources currently held by others. but I agree, there are two types within that, and the distinction between them is whether the people currently occupying the land (or in particular their labor) are part of the resources that the empire is trying to claim