As the Lakota writer and political leader Luther Standing Bear described it, Lakota people moved through their land, following buffalo herds. Lakotas, for example, had developed a way of life organized around the expansiveness of the Plains and of the life on it, especially the massive buffalo herds. The railroad did not impact Native peoples in a uniform manner.
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It is important to distinguish between different nations and their relationships to the railroad. What roles did Native Americans play during the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad? Railroads were a core infrastructure of imperialism in North America, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Du Bois and Lenin argued that the hyper-concentration of wealth led to the territorial division of the world. This results in the increasing concentration of wealth under fewer hands, through corporate trusts and mergers. Du Bois and Vladimir Lenin to understand imperialism as a process through which finance capital becomes ascendant over industrial capital. This colonization was an extension of what I call “continental imperialism.” I draw from the work of W.E.B. The Transcontinental Railroad facilitated the colonization of western territories by encouraging new settlements on Indigenous lands. The Oxford English Dictionary defines colonialism as “colonization by settlement.” In the case of the U.S., Canada, and other settler colonies, colonialism is a process that replaces existing, Indigenous communities and ways of relating to the land with settler populations, and settler ways of life. How are they different, and how are they related in your analysis of the Transcontinental Railroad? Your book also challenges readers to consider the Transcontinental Railroad as a form of “continental imperialism.” Colonialism and imperialism are two very distinct processes. Your new book reinterprets the building of the railroad as a colonial project. Courtesy of Archives Center, Warshaw Collection of Business Americana. That is literally the case in this illustration of the Transcontinental Railroad created for a souvenir booklet.
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“Indigenous people are often present in railroad histories, but they form a kind of colorful backdrop,” explains Karuka. Focusing on Indigenous histories reveals how Indigenous nations have survived colonialism. Rather than analyzing Indigenous peoples’ commitments to their communities and their homelands, railroad histories have emphasized market competition and westward expansion. Rarely, if ever, do we get an understanding of the interests that drove Indigenous peoples’ actions in relation to the railroad. Indigenous people are often present in railroad histories, but they form a kind of colorful backdrop that establishes the scene. How does including Indigenous peoples and nations transform these familiar narratives? Traditional histories of the Transcontinental Railroad often exclude Native Americans. A Native American man looking at the Central Pacific Railroad, about 1869. Manu Karuka, American Studies scholar and author of Empire’s Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad, about the impact of the railroad on Indigenous peoples and nations.
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For others, however, the Transcontinental Railroad undermined the sovereignty of Native nations and threatened to destroy Indigenous communities and their cultures as the railroad expanded into territories inhabited by Native Americans. In 1800s America, some saw the railroad as a symbol of modernity and national progress.
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The Transcontinental Railroad was completed 150 years ago, in 1869.