Colonialism and Settler Colonialism: Know the Difference

In his essay “Introducing settler colonial studies“, Lorenzo Veracini explains the difference between Classical Colonialism and Settler Colonialism, and why both need to be studied together but also separately. Veracini says:

“Both colonizers and settler colonizers move across space, and both establish their ascendancy in specific locales. While significant, the similarities end there.” (Veracini, p.1)

The main difference between both lies in the kind of logic that drives each. Understanding the logic of each allows us to further understand how each form of colonialism unfolds and impacts indigenous populations. Furthermore, by understanding their logic we are also able to develop methodologies to dismantle the power structures and institutions that support them.

Classical Colonialism

Also referred to as Extractive Colonialism, Classical Colonialism (CC) operates on the logic of reproduction, and is ultimately tied to the enslavement and exploitation of the Native or Indigenous people of a land; specifically the exploitation of their labour.

Under CC the scenario looks like this: A bunch of people, let’s stay from Britain, decide to sail the ocean in search of other lands to conquer. They find a place, encounter the native people of that land and say “Hey you, work for me!” (Veracini, ISCS)

Then, through barbaric, uncivilized, and oppressive means, including torture, murder, kidnapping and incarceration, the colonizers force the Native people to work (without pay or compensation of course).

As such, the colonizers reap all the benefits of what the Indigenous people sew; the resources of their land, their labour power, culture and practices etc. The colonizers force the oppressed population to build structures and institutions to maximize the efficiency of exploitation, and keep the subservient to the invaders.

Once the colonizers have served their time, maybe they’re getting old or sick, they pack up and leave back to Britain. However, they don’t leave before teaching the next generation how to perpetuate and reproduce the cycle of exploitation and oppression. This ensures that the cycle of labour and resource extraction will continue on, in the hands of their offsprings and descendants. (Veracini, ISCS)

Therefore, the objective of CC is to maintain the relationship of colonizer and colonized, and ensure that it always works in the favour of the colonizer.

Settler Colonialism

The scenario under SC starts out in pretty much the same way. A bunch of colonizers from Britain travel to new lands and encounter the Native population. However, the logic of SC isn’t about reproducing labour exploitation but rather it is a logic of Elimination. Instead of “hey you, work for me!”, the logic of Elimination tells the Indigenous people “Hey you, go away”.

SC isn’t concerned with exploiting the labour of the Indigenous people, it is interested in completely getting rid of them and it does so in four different ways:

• 1-Through Genocide
• 2-Through Displacement
• 3-Through Famine and disease
• 4-Though Assimilation

In the first case, the settlers go on a murderous and barbaric killing spree. In the second case they push the native population of their lands into smaller sections where they can be imprisoned and controlled, just like Israel did and continues to do to the Palestinians in Gaza. In the third case, they restrict and cut off food, water, medical supplies and infrastructure to the colonized people, forcing on them famine, drought and disease, which slowly kills them. Finally in the fourth case, they force the Indigenous people to adopt and practice the colonizer’s history, language, and laws, much like Canada did with residential schools, to the Indigenous people of Turtle Island. (Veracini, ISCS)

Suffice it to say that all of these barbaric, uncivilized and inhuman methods have the sole purpose of annihilating as much of the Indigenous people as possible.

Unlike the relationship between colonizer and colonized under CC, the aim under SC is to obliterate the relationship between the settlers and the Indigenous people.

Resistance to Classical Colonialism

The colonized Indigenous people under CC will resist the logic of Reproduction in many different ways including the withholding of labour, direct anti-colonial attack, insubordination, self-mutilation, evasion, ostensible collaboration, to name a few.

The purpose of this kind of resistance is to disrupt the extractive machine of colonialism that seeks to exploit the people’s labour and resources of their land. The liberation of South Africa is a perfect example of what it took to end extractive colonialism.

Resistance to Settler Colonialism

Since the logic of SC is different than that of CC, applying the same forms of resistance to it will not work in the same way. The settlers don’t care about exploiting the labour of the Indigenous people. As such, the withholding labour and other means to disrupt worker exploitation and slavery only exacerbates the horrible material living conditions of the colonized.

Remember that the logic of SC is the elimination of the Indigenous population, so it wouldn’t make sense to employ and exploit their labour and risk having them around.

As such, resistance to and under SC must take on a different form. As Veracini further explains,

“If colonialism ends with the colonizer’s departure, settler colonialism ends with an indigenous ultimate permanence.” (Veracini, ISCS)

To put it another way, if the logic of elimination/annihilation aims to extinguish the settler colonial relationship, the struggle against settler colonialism must be to keep the settler-indigenous relationship ongoing.

Concluding Thoughts

I wrote this post with the intension of highlighting the basic similarity between CC and SC: both kind of colonizers move across space and time in their bloodthirsty and uncivilized quest to assert their domination and existence at the expense of other people they stupidly believe are sub-human.

My broader point was to draw attention to the different logics between CC and SC, because while both impose barbaric and uncivilized level of harm on the Indigenous people of a land, both aim to do different things.

One logic attempts to reproduce and perpetuate the extractive and exploitative relationship between colonizer and colonized, while the other attempts to annihilate the relationship and the Indigenous people with it.

The methods and tools for liberating ourselves from CC will not work when we try to apply them to SC. It would be like using Advil to get rid of a tapeworm, when we really need anti-parasitic drugs.

Understanding how both logics operate allows us to develop methods of resistance that are specific and appropriate to disrupting and dismantling each system.

This post barely scratches the surface of the intricacies, relationships, narratives, power structures and institutions that empower CC and SC. Instead, what I hope you’ll will get from this is that we need a different language and different solutions to engage with SC.