Not an Indian Tradition: The Sexual Colonization of Native Peoples

Abstract

This paper analyzes the connections between sexual violence and colonialism in the lives and histories of Native peoples in the United States. This paper argues that sexual violence does not simply just occur within the process of colonialism, but that colonialism is itself structured by the logic of sexual violence. Furthermore, this logic of sexual violence continues to structure U. S. policies toward Native peoples today. Consequently, anti-sexual violence and anti-colonial struggles cannot be separated .[Rape] is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear -Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will Rape as "nothing more or less" than a tool of patriarchal control undergirds the philosophy of the white-dominated anti-violence against women movement. Anti-violence activists generally understand rape solely as gender violence. This philosophy has been critiqued by many women of color, including critical racist theorist Kimberle Crenshaw, for its lack of attention to racism and classism. Crenshaw analyzes how male-dominated conceptions of race and whitedominated conceptions of gender stand in the way of a clear understanding of violence against women of color. It is inadequate, she argues, to investigate the oppression of women of color by examining race and gender oppressions separately and then putting the two analyses together because the overlap of racism and sexism transforms the dynamics of both. Instead, Crenshaw advo-

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