Settler colonists not only took over the lands that were already occupied by native americans, they also incited violence and mass genocides against those who did not have the same color skin as them. This continued for decades, but this conquest can often be referred to as brave, courageous, and heroic inside the textbooks of young Americans across the country. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz addresses the fact that these glorified colonizers were also the ones who were “killing the unarmed women, children, and old people and burning homes and fields” (59 Dunbar-Ortiz). This type of violence against Native Americans during colonization is commonly attributed to the rampant racism that polarizes our country consistently through the centuries.

While it is commonly known that European imperialism took over the sacred homes of North American indigineous people, Qwo-Li Driskill additionally describes a concept he refers to as “colonized sexuality” in his essay entitled “Stolen From Our Bodies” (Driskill). This can be defined as how we as the American society have internalized the sexual values of a dominant, caucasian culture (Driskill). Qwo-Li Driskill claims that the impact of European colonization has also shifted the way that we regard concepts of gender and sexuality. Driskill claims that this has gone so far to the point that Two-Spirit people are likely to commit suicide or become drug abusers as a coping mechanisms to deal with the shame and trauma that colonization has implemented onto their lives (Driskill). In addition to the shame that have left bruises on the darker skin of indigenous people, white people commonly practiced the involuntary sterilization of Native American women throughout the 1970’s (Davis). This technique was commonly forced upon women without their knowledge in a way to limit the Native American population. In this way, doctors and medical officials were “eliminating the ‘unfit’ sectors of the population” by the practice of compulsory sterilization" (223 Davis).