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

Indigenous sovereignty

Scott Manning Stevens dives into the history of sovereignty and indigeneity, defining the relationship these concepts have to the past, present, and future of Native peoples' self-determination across North America.

Scott Manning Stevens
Video

Teaching law and literature across time

Tarren Andrews teaches law and literature as a pedagogical exercise in transtemporality. This approach resists rigid periodization and instead traces how legal and literary forms resonate across centuries.

‍

Tarren Andrews
Video

The real work of centering Indigenous voices

In 2023, Larissa FastHorse, Michael John Garcés, and Ty Defoe collaborated to produce For the People, the first ever full-length Native American production at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They share their insights on how institutions can reorient to honor and center Indigenous communities.

Larissa FastHorse

Selected annotated bibliography