« Integrating indigenous and settler law: Rodrigo Míguez Núñez, ‘Indigenous Customary Law in a Civil Law Context: Latin America and the Chilean Case’, Rechtsgeschichte/Legal History, 24, 2016, pp. 302-313
Settler colonialism in Uruguay: Gustavo Verdesio, ‘Ethnic Reemergence in Uruguay: The Return of the Charrúa in the Light of Settler Colonialism Studies’, in Juan G. Ramos, Tara Daly (eds), Decolonial Approaches to Latin American Literatures and Cultures, Palgrave, 2016, pp. 163-179 »

How were they dispossessed? Michael Warren Murphy, ‘”No Beggars amongst Them”: Primitive Accumulation, Settler Colonialism, and the Dispossession of Narragansett Indian Land’, Humanity & Society, 2016

25Sep16

Abstract: This article explores historical processes of land dispossession through an in-depth case of the Narragansett Indians of present-day Rhode Island. Using an eventful historical methodology, I uncover three primary mechanisms, each temporally situated, that dispossessed the Narragansett tribe of their land: violence, debt, and state governance. I proceed by first considering Narragansett life before the incursion of settler colonialism. Following this brief exploration, I turn to an analysis of both the historical events and processes that dispossessed the Narragansett of their land. This analysis contributes to the literature on empire and colonialism, as well as theoretical debates on primitive accumulation and settler colonialism, by exploring and identifying the mechanisms by which primitive accumulation operated within a specific settler-colonial context. In the end, I argue that sociology must expand analytically and conceptually to include indigenous experiences of ongoing dispossession in order to end the disciplines complicity in the elimination of the native.


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