Settler-Nativism & American Identity

Collage featuring settler-nativist images like so-called Mount Timpanogos with it's official false Native mythistry, Boy Scouts & the Order of the Arrow patch which are both examples of settler-nativism.

“I come from ancestry that are Cherokee Indians so I definitely am sympathetic"
- UT Rep. Birkeland, as she voted to block Utah HB-40, a bill protecting Indigenous families, children, and Nations.

“You don't just get to decide you're Cherokee if the community does not recognize you as such. Ancestry is different from tribal membership; Indigenous identity…(is something) that Indigenous communities alone have the right to…define.” 
- Dakota scholar Kim Tallbear talking about Elizabeth Warren’s claim of Indigeneity.

Birkeland’s claim––like the Lamanite identity––is a form of settler-colonial violence called Settler-Nativism.

“Settler Nativism...is a Settler Move To Innocence… an effort to mark oneself blameless in the attempted genocides of Indigenous peoples…to deflect a settler identity, while continuing to enjoy settler privilege & occupying stolen land.”
- EveTuck & K. Wayne Yang, “Decolonization is not a metaphor”
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Mormons have been Settler-Nativists from their beginnings.

When Joseph Smith claimed to find an ancient record about the ancestors of contemporary Indigenous Peoples–Settler-Nativism. Whenever Mormons weaponize the Lamanite curse to suggest that white Mormons are the true heirs of this so-called Promised Land–Settler-Nativism. Everytime a Mormon dresses up as a Book of Mormon character–Meta-Settler-Nativism

“Do they need some blood tie with the frontier & its dangers in order to experience what it means to be an American? Or is it an attempt to avoid facing the guilt they bear for the treatment of the Indians?”
- Vine Deloria Jr.

Settler-Mormons even claim an ancestral relationship with Indigenous Peoples through their philosemitic Israelite identity.

My G-Grandma Hale wrote that Euro Mormons & Lehi’s People (Ancient Mormon Patriarch of Indigenous Peoples) are both descendants of the same Tribe of Israel & are destined to be the  “leaders of the whole anglo-saxon race.” Mormonism is itself Settler-Nativism.

These fabricated blood ties not only perpetuate the “custodian” role that Mormons assigned themselves over Indigenous people & this land, but also nativizes white-settler-Mormons by inventing a blood connection to this land, deflecting their “settler identity while continuing to enjoy” the settler rights & privileges taken with this imagined relationship. 

Thus, through Settler-Nativism Rep. Birkeland is openly able to harm Indigenous Peoples & justify that harm by claiming Cherokee identity & sympathy with no relationships with Cherokee People. She is able to enact settler-violence & “mark herself blameless” simultaneously. (Like the entire Lamanite Placement Program).

In what ways do you internalize this land as your own? – In what ways do you “mark yourself as blameless” for historic and ongoing settler colonial violences. In what ways do you nativize yourself as a (ex)Mormon, American, conservationist, REI shopper, tree hugger?  –  How have you internalized “what it means to be an American?”

​In what ways are being accountable to the ongoing genocidal histories that allow you & I to live in this land? Land I imagine you also love.