The United States has rarely called what it did colonialism. The territory it acquired, the populations it displaced, and the bases it maintains do not require the word to be one[9].
- Indigenous nations recognised today
- 574 federally recognised + many unrecognised
- Indigenous population, 1492 estimate
- 5 – 18 million north of Mexico
- Indigenous population, 1900
- ≈250,000
- Enslaved Africans transported to British North America / US
- ≈388,000 direct (and millions internally trafficked)
- Overseas territories acquired 1898
- Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii (+ Cuba protectorate)
- Overseas military bases today
- ≈750 in 80+ countries (David Vine, 2021)
Phase one
Continental settler colonialism
From 1607 (Jamestown) and 1620 (Plymouth) through to the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre, the British colonies and then the United States expanded westward through treaty-breaking, dispossession, and direct military violence. The 1830 Indian Removal Act forced ≈60,000 people of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee, Chickasaw, and Seminole nations from the Southeast. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States traces the policy continuity from the colonial militia tradition to the Indian Wars of the late 19th century[7].
From the 1490s to ≈1900 the Indigenous population north of the Rio Grande fell from ≈5–18 million to ≈250,000. Disease accounts for the largest share; war, dispossession, and starvation account for the rest.
Phase two
1898 and the explicit empire
The Spanish–American War of 1898 transferred Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to direct US sovereignty. The Filipino independence movement that had been fighting Spain immediately turned to fighting the new occupier. The Philippine–American War (1899–1902) killed an estimated 250,000–750,000 Filipinos. General Jacob Smith's order on Samar — "Kill everyone over ten" — and the policy of "reconcentration" camps in Batangas are documented[8].
Hawaii had been seized by US business interests in 1893; formal annexation followed in 1898. The 1900s saw the construction of the Panama Canal Zone on land taken from Colombia.
“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.”
Phase three
The post-1945 architecture
After 1945 the United States became a global hegemon in a different idiom. Direct territorial empire (the Philippines independent in 1946, Puerto Rico a "commonwealth" from 1952) was partially replaced by a network of military bases (≈750 today, in 80+ countries), military alliances (NATO, ANZUS, MD-T), and the willingness to overthrow governments judged hostile[3].
Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow counts at least 14 governments overthrown by the US in the 20th century — Hawaii 1893, Cuba 1898, Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Congo 1961, Brazil 1964, Indonesia 1965, Chile 1973, and on. Vietnam alone killed an estimated 1.5 to 3.8 million Vietnamese (and ≈500,000 Cambodians) between 1955 and 1975.
The unincorporated territories
The empire is not past tense
Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa are still "unincorporated territories" — US sovereign land whose residents pay federal taxes but cannot vote for the president and have only non-voting representation in Congress. The 1901 Supreme Court Insular Cases that established this status are still good law.
Chronology
Key dates
1607
Jamestown founded.
1830
Indian Removal Act.
1864
Sand Creek massacre.
1890
Wounded Knee massacre.
1893
US business interests overthrow Kingdom of Hawaii.
1898
Spanish–American War — Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii.
1899–1902
Philippine–American War.
1903
Panama Canal Zone acquired.
1953
CIA-backed coup in Iran (Operation Ajax).
1954
CIA coup in Guatemala against Árbenz.
1973
US-backed coup in Chile against Allende.
2001 / 2003
Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.