Violence, coercion, and settler colonialism

Abstract

Previous game-theoretic analyses of the settlement of the United States assume that Indigenous peoples and settler colonizers either engaged in free exchange or total war for land. We reframe the model to consider that violence, including coercion, was present in most of their interactions; that is, we allow for the settler colonizer to engage in coercion to strategically lower their appropriation costs for Indigenous peoples’ lands. We find that the settler strategically uses violence to pay less in exchanges for Indigenous peoples’ lands. In addition, we examine how uncertainty, about whether an agreement can ensure the avoidance of all-out conflict, affects initial violence and resistance. We find that the likelihood of all-out conflict affects settler violence and it critically depends on whether the Indigenous people can seek compensation.