Land to Levy: Taxation as a Tool of Settler Colonialism

In both the United States and Canada, the taxation of Indigenous people is often viewed as an innocent tool for financing government operations. In the settler colonial context, however, taxation is not strictly a tool for financing the government – it is a powerful instrument for racial domination and forced assimilation of Indigenous people. This paper examines how colonial legal systems have utilized taxation not purely as a method of revenue collection but as a means to both secure white settler possession and to force assimilation on Indigenous people in order to delegitimize Indigenous sovereignty and enforce the Eurocentric definition of economic productivity and citizenship. Additionally, these taxations cause disproportionate financial effects on Indigenous communities and limit their economic opportunities. Drawing on the works of scholars Brenna Bhandar and Cheryl Harris, this analysis will reveal how taxation serves not solely as a method of revenue collection, but as an apparatus for upholding settler colonialism. From historical policies that explicitly categorized Indigenous people as “civilized” or “uncivilized” based on their tax status to contemporary rhetoric that frames Indigenous communities as economic burdens, taxation’s purpose is to maintain racial and economic inequities and reinforce the legitimacy of the settler colonial project.