Conquest and annexation (race relations)

SIGNIFICANCE: Conquest and annexation are two processes by which one group may be subordinated to another following contact. To maintain social stability, the subordinate or minority group must either be excluded from or integrated into dominant society.

The types of relations that exist between racial or ethnic groups in culturally diverse societies depend on how the various groups are brought into contact with one another and on how their cultural distinctiveness relates to gaining access to resources and power. Race or ethnicity is often the basis for social stratification. Barriers to the full societal participation of racial or ethnic subordinate groups include attitudes of prejudice, the practice of discrimination, and the existence of institutional structures and norms that limit the options of subordinate groups. Such systemic barriers are referred to as institutional discrimination.

Functionalist vs. Conflict Theories

Sociologists attempt to explain the maintenance of such stratification through functionalist theories (also called structural-functional theories) and conflict theories. In the former, the focus is on how stratification systems maintain stability and social order. In the latter, the focus is on the struggle for power and resources and the means by which the powerful maintain and enlarge control. These two types of explanation are not mutually exclusive. They can reflect different points in historical time or different perspectives on the same experience of social inequality. In South Africa, for example, dramatic social stratification called apartheid existed, with the dominant White society (a numerical minority) controlling most of the land and mineral resources, technology, and the military until 1989, when apartheid ended. Elaborate laws controlled the freedom of movement of Black South Africans and ensured the availability of a Black labor force. From the dominant White perspective, a stable system existed, one that was justified by an ideology that was grounded in a belief in White superiority. From the Black South African perspective, the structural injustices maintained unequal access to food, healthcare, education, and jobs; this lack of access prohibited social mobility. Both nonviolent resistance and violent confrontation resulted as Black individuals struggled for access to resources and self-determination.

Processes of Subordination

A variety of processes can lead to the formation, annexation, or conquest of racial or ethnic subordinate groups. These subordinating processes can be distinguished from one another according to the degree to which the racial or ethnic group participates voluntarily and according to whether migration is involved. Voluntary migration characterizes immigrant groups that may be seeking greater access to personal freedoms and economic resources. It also characterizes refugee groups that may be fleeing armed conflicts, persecution, or natural disasters. Involuntary migration characterizes the experience of enslaved people or indentured servants. In annexation, once-dominant peoples may become subordinate without migrating from their homelands. This occurs when nations expand their borders to incorporate neighboring lands and their inhabitants. Finally, colonization occurs when a foreign power usurps and maintains political, social, economic, and cultural domination over land and peoples without annexing them into its national structure. Even following a country’s independence from a colonial power, it may be controlled by that power because of economic and social dependence on the former colonizer. This is referred to as neocolonialism.

Subordinate-Dominant Group Relations

Racial or ethnic groups can relate to the dominant group in a society in a number of ways. These ways can be characterized according to the degree to which the racial or ethnic group maintains a distinct identity and the degree to which these subordinate groups experience intergroup contact with the dominant group. Genocide is the ultimate loss of racial or ethnic identity coupled with separation from the dominant group. This may be a deliberate and systematic killing of group members with the intent of obliterating them, as was Adolf Hitler’s policy toward Jews in Nazi Germany. Genocide also may be less intentional but no less complete. Disease and brutal treatment by the Spanish in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries wiped out the Indigenous Indians of what is now the West Indies. This loss of a forced labor pool required that the Spanish began to import enslaved African people.

Expulsion describes the subordinate form in which a racial or ethnic group’s identity is maintained but the group is completely forced from the lands conquered by the dominant group. The Bosnian Serb “ethnic cleansing” of Bosnian Muslims during the early 1990s is a contemporary example of expulsion. Through massacre, rape, and the razing of villages, Muslim people were forced to flee their country.

Segregation describes the subordinate form in which group identity is maintained, and separation from the dominant group occurs; however, complete removal of the racial or ethnic group from its homeland does not necessarily follow. Segregation may be voluntary, as with Amish Christian communities in Pennsylvania. It may be involuntary and enforced by law as was the case for African Americans in the southern United States until the 1960s, or it may be involuntary and enforced by social norms, as continues to be the case for African Americans, particularly for those living in poverty in urban settings.

Sometimes, substantial interaction occurs between members of subordinate and dominant groups. In assimilation, racial or ethnic groups relinquish their distinct identities to take on characteristics of the dominant group. In cultural assimilation, a racial or ethnic group adopts the cultural patterns of the surrounding society without necessarily being fully accepted into that society. In structural assimilation, a racial or ethnic group enters into close relationships with members of the dominant group and full participation in mainstream society.

Amalgamation or fusion describes the combining of a racial or ethnic group with the dominant group to form a new group. The mestizos of Latin America are an amalgamation of Spanish and Indigenous Indian peoples. Societies in which this is a predominant occurrence are sometimes described as melting pots.

Finally, cultural pluralism describes societies in which ongoing intergroup contact occurs but ethnic or racial groups maintain distinct identities.

The Cowlitz Nation Peoples

One example of a subordinating process involves the Cowlitz Nation of what is now southwestern Washington State. Before the arrival of the “White man,” this tribe was a powerful and independent dominant group. In the early 1800s, explorers, trappers, and traders provided the Cowlitz with their first contact with White individuals, who were moving westward and annexing more and more land. By the 1830s, the White settlers’ numbers, technology, and access to military support (as well as the effects of their diseases on the Indigenous population) permitted them to become the dominant group, while the Cowlitz were transformed into a subordinate group. Land and other natural resources were no longer adequate to support both the dominant White economy and the Cowlitz aboriginal economy. A struggle for power and resources now characterized the relationship of the Cowlitz (and other American Indians) to the White settlers. This struggle led to armed conflicts, with White society ultimately retaining control. A plethora of treaties followed in the 1850s, with some tribes being segregated on reservations located in their ancestral lands. All treaties presented to the Cowlitz, however, required that they be expelled from their lands. Consequently, the Cowlitz refused all treaties. With the continued encroachment of White society, the Cowlitz lost their land base and could no longer maintain their aboriginal economy. They were forced to enter the mainstream economy of the White society to survive.

The early 1900s was a time in which the dominant White society, both formally through law and informally through social norms and social censure, attempted to force assimilation on the Cowlitz. The Cowlitz were pressured to change their names, to cease practicing their cultural ways, and to speak English. In the mid-1900s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the United States government administratively terminated the Nation on the grounds that the Cowlitz people were completely assimilated and no longer constituted a distinct cultural group. This termination cut off the Cowlitz from those services and resources reserved for American Indians by the United States government.

In reality, the Cowlitz have not assimilated. Although their lack of a land base forced them into the economy of the dominant society, they have retained their ethnic identity and tribal government. They still gather socially as a tribe, own acreage on the Cowlitz River as a tribe, and regularly represent Cowlitz perspectives on local and state issues relevant to their ancestral lands. They and the White society within which they live form a plural culture. The Cowlitz petitioned the US government for recognition of their tribal status, which came in 2000. In 2010, the Cowlitz were granted a reservation.

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