An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

important to understand how the white settler state helped construct the
image of Black and Indigenous peoples in ways that allowed them to
continue to be dehumanized and treated as separate political, economic, and
social structures.
An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States explores how Black and
Indigenous histories have intersected in important ways; this intersection
helps us better understand the broader contours of US history. It examines
the links, both solidarities and tensions, between people of African descent
and Indigenous people in the United States. This book argues that the twin
oppressions of antiblackness and settler colonialism have been a central site
through which racial and gender formations have occurred in the United
States. Moreover, it demonstrates how Black and Indigenous peoples, in
spite of presumed differences—that is, the different ways they were treated
by the settler state—have sought solidarity with each other. They have
always sought to disrupt, dismantle, and reimagine US democracy; they
have even sought to radically transform how this society operates.
In using a phrase such as “radical transformation,” I don’t intend to focus
on political violence and more volatile means of resistance. Nor do people
only protest, for instance, at the point of production. There are many forms
of resistance, and Black and Indigenous people have used a variety of
tactics. They have used movement to new geographic spaces, new ways of
communicating with one another, counter language; they have attended
congressional hearings, participated in rallies, written poetry and other
forms of literary production, all to demonstrate that they were sick and tired
of being sick and tired of colonialism and white supremacy. 23 They have
always resisted in little and subtle ways. As Kelley notes, “While the
meaning and effectiveness of acts differ according to circumstances, they
make a difference,” and “daily acts of resistance and survival have had
consequences for existing power relations, and the powerful have deployed
immense resources in response.” 24
Black people have, in many ways, sought to belong within, outside, and
next to US democracy. Black belonging in this society has really been about
imagining home and longing for a return home, or at least trying to create
home. Black folks have found numerous ways to try to do that. They have
used Black nationalism, which was a call for the US government to give
them land as compensation for their enslaved labor. Before the ratification
of the Fourteenth Amendment, some claimed that being born in the US