Settler Colonialism Uncovered

The majority of present-day states are former colonies or colonial metropoles, a number of which were or still are settler colonies. Consequently, it is essential to know where and how such colonies formed to understand current geopolitics and to raise

awareness of their legacy, especially inpresent-day settler colonies, such as the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. The Settler Colonialism Uncovered project is the first step toward making information about two prototypes of settler colonization – the United States and French Algeria – available for high school and undergraduate students and educators, as well as early-stage researchers and the general public through a website

This project focuses on where, how, and why settler colonies developed in these locations and allows users to explore the regions’ geography, how the landscape and demographics changed over time due to the influx of settlers, and how colonial administrators, settlers, and Indigenous communities experienced these changes. Using the geospatial and temporal visualization capabilities of Omeka/Neatline the interface of the Settler Colonialism Uncovered project is an interactive temporal map of the focus regions with accompanying narrative, collections of primary sources, including sketches, news articles, treaties, transcribed speeches, correspondence, and selections from military reports and memoirs. In the future, the site will also serve as a repository for oral histories from colonized Indigenous populations so that their voices may be heard (literally and figuratively) alongside text-based sources that have historically been produced primarily by the colonizers. As such, the Settler Colonialism Uncovered will be one step toward decolonizing historical memory and present the story of settler colonialism as it unfolded in two significant regions from multiple perspectives to encourage users to think critically about the past, especially that which feels most familiar, and develop informed perspectives about present socio-political debates.