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Colonial erosion: unearthing African American history in the settler colonial West

ABSTRACT In ‘Colonial Erosion: Unearthing African American History in the Settler Colonial West’, Anthony W. Wood argues that scholars of African American studies and the American West must consider the sedimented legacies of US settler colonialism if those fields are to articulate a distinctly western narrative of African American history. Wood’s colonial erosion thesis draws on postcolonial theories to examine the history of African Americans in the West after emancipation. As a non-indigenous, community of color, black westerners fall into an uncertain space in settler colonial theory. As an ongoing structure, settler colonialism continues after the violent appropriation of Indigenous lands appears to culminate. The thesis of ‘Colonial Erosion’ is two-fold: The logic of settlement together with the logic of anti-blackness created distinctly western categories of racial exclusion. This western, colonial racism acts as an erosive force across the American West, targeting the stability and place identity of western black communities. Moreover, the society that develops in tandem with colonial erosion necessarily continues to live with the sedimented legacies of settler colonialism via its process of racial exclusion. The second point contends that this provides scholars of African Americans in the American West a method to discern a distinctly western black historical narrative. The paper is divided into two parts, a theoretical overview and argument, followed by three short case studies illustrating the potential of this new methodology.