Race and Exploitation: What If the U.S. Had Remained a British Colony?

    Two of the books I'm reading are about the subjugation of foreign people as a colonial power takes over. One is called Open Veins of Latin America, a nonfiction book about resource extraction and the history of exploitation of pretty much every Latin American country. Trinity is a fictional book about the quest for Irish independence when it was occupied by Britain. 

    What strikes me is how similar the story of Ireland is to the various countries of Latin America that were taken over, raised for natural resources, sucked dry by a foreign conqueror (some had multiple), and fought a successful war for independence. The most important thing it tells me is that race is hardly a factor when it comes to exploiting people; whites and blacks have been exploited through history. If the Native Americans had looked white like us, the same thing would have happened. A better question is, does race increase the likelihood of civil rights violations during such exploitation? History's answer is a resounding yes. The people in Trinity were not enslaved, executed en masse, or forced into dangerous resource extraction. Most were not raped and their villages weren't pillaged. 

    The situation in Ireland was more along the lines of the American Revolution, which saw the colonies have lesser rights and unfair tax laws. But their situation was far worse, for they couldn't defend themselves against the British for decades. Ireland is somewhere in between; it's what would have happened to the US if it had lost the Revolutionary War. However, because the citizens of the colonies were mostly white, the US got off relatively easy compared to Latin America and Africa, and was able to defend itself sooner.