I was gonna ask “Are Mestizos settlers?” but I quickly realized that the answer to this question probably isn’t black and white. If the answer to this isn’t just “Yes” or “No” then what determines whether or not a Mestizo person is a settler?
I was gonna ask “Are Mestizos settlers?” but I quickly realized that the answer to this question probably isn’t black and white. If the answer to this isn’t just “Yes” or “No” then what determines whether or not a Mestizo person is a settler?
In a different, but related context, I’ll describe my own heritage.
My father’s ancestry derives from African slaves in the American Southeast. My mother’s ancestry derives from Norwegian settlers in the American PNW. From my father’s side I’m a member of the New African nation of the American Southeast, which through no fault of their own were forcibly settled into that territory. Their existence as a nation cannot be described as “indigenous”, but the Africans there have no other place to call home. Through the contradictions and actions of humans in history, the New African nation was born in the American South East.
Now, that happened in there, but I live in the PNW where my mother was born in a family settled 100 years or so ago. Welcomed into American settler nation already present, for being white, they have participated in the land theft (streets named after my mother’s family) and general expropriation of North West Coast indigenous peoples’ livelihoods. Through this I have inherited the settler status of my ancestors. Further more, my father was brought to this region through the Settler nation’s economy. Since he left his own nation in the South East, he is more of an immigrant to the Settler territories in the North West (Settler territory laws limiting the migration of Black people into the territories were called “Immigration” laws, clues into this reality).
While in some parts of the territory ruled by the USA I do feel is an ancestral “homeland”, in the context of the PNW I’m full settler. This isn’t my homeland and the indigenous peoples don’t need to differentiate me from other settlers. I exist fully within the settler economy here. If I were in the “homeland”, I see this as a very similar history to the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe historically. We are a subjugated people that exists in contradiction (opposed but also bound) with an oppressor people, we have no real homeland and I think it’s better to describe ourselves with the concept of “here-ness”. We as a nation may not have claims to any land, but we as a nation exist in many lands and in many economies alongside many nations. We New Africans are “here” and will remain so.
Perhaps if you really want, you can dig down into the histories of the individual “mestizos” to determine proximity to the indigenous populations. Or you can treat their history as a fluid and living concept and who they are and where they are is defined by the cultural, political, and economic relationships between the settler, indigenous, and enslaved peoples within a territory.
Wow, that’s some aristocracy grade stuff.
Yeah my hometown has this very class divide. My mother’s family was among the first Europeans to arrive and settle the island I grew up on in the Salish Sea. We are told lies that no natives lived on the island, yet when remodeling our downtown street we found a Salish grave. Subsequent waves of Dutch settlers arrived and built the settler towns on the island. Later the US Navy turned the island into a base where there’s an imported labor class (like my father, and maternal grandmother) and a class of European settlers who’s ancestors conquered and settled the land and now make millions off of land speculation. There’s a lot of “old money” Dutch folks with last names the same as our streets who all run real estate companies, are doctors, are dentists, are lawyers, their own bougie economy. My mother’s distant cousin was the last of their family name to sell his farm for a few million dollars, which was being turned into a suburban development when the 08 crash happened and sat an unfinished lot for years until the naval base expanded and brought new laborers to buy and rent that property.
My mother’s father abandoned my grandmother, my mother, and uncle, and the distant family “disowned” her when she married a black person, so the family wealth has been guarded through racism. They send their sons to be officers in the military. This is precisely why these people were let into America in the first place. As their home countries were being enclosed and the middle classes losing their land to wealthier landlords, the sons of the middle classes were sent to America to regain the family’s place on street signs. They were loyal to the Settler nation and remain loyal to it. Even when reduced to workers they have privileges over other workers (the Indigenous, Asian, Black, and Latino workers) for their proximity to the Settler nation.
These patterns explain much of the development of the American West.