Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz

“This is not a history of the United States. This is a history of the United States as a colonialist settler state.”

“Understanding the historical reality of the U.S. is not a matter of patriotism or lack thereof. It's a matter of historical literacy.”

“The history of the United States is a history of settler colonialism—the founding of a state based on the ideology of white supremacy, the widespread practice of African slavery, and a policy of genocide and land theft.”

“History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our histories with us. We are our histories.”

“Everything in U.S. history is about the land—who oversaw and cultivated it, fished its waters, maintained its wildlife; who invaded and stole it; how it became a commodity.”

“To say that the United States is a nation of immigrants is to whitewash the brutal history of settler colonialism.”

“Not everything is a story. Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'The Sound of Music' is a story, a feel-good story. The history of the United States is not a story. It's a tragedy.”

“Genocide is not a single event. It is a process.”

“The logic of settler colonialism is to disappear the Native.”

“So, was the United States founded on a genocide? The answer is yes.”

“The form of colonialism that the Indigenous peoples of North America have experienced was modern from the beginning.”

“In order to understand the present, you have to know the past.”