Andrews, Tarren. "Early medieval settler colonialism." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/early-medieval-settler-colonialism. [Date accessed].

Early medieval settler colonialism

How history gets made, and how it makes us

Download the transcript
Tarren Andrews
Yale University

Settler colonialism is not a strictly a modern phenomenon. Its logics were already present in the early medieval North Atlantic. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History narrates a divine mission and conversion project to legitimize conquest and settlement. By framing medieval sources alongside Indigenous critiques and theories, students can begin to trace the historical continuity of colonial structures.

Further learning

Recommended

Video

The Doctrine of Discovery

A brief history of how the Doctrine of Discovery became legal precedent for the seizure of Native lands across the world.

Scott Manning Stevens
Syllabus

Indigenous women and the law in the Anglophone Empire

Tarren Andrews offers insights and methods on her class about on the law as linguistic technology, the history of personhood and belonging.

Tarren Andrews
Essay

The legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery

How an obscure piece of Renaissance era religious doctrine—the Doctrine of Discovery—infiltrated the United States’ legal system and justifies the seizure of Native lands to this day.

Scott Manning Stevens