Focusing on three governmental and political factors, this project examines the relationship between governance and violence in the context of the American Early Republic (specifically the Northwest Territory, 1787-1858), and the transition of Australia from crown colony to dominion (specifically New South Wales und Victoria, 1788-1851). It analyzes governmental terms and conditions as well as small-scale, every-day events that determined when and where peaceful cohabitation of white settlers and indigenous populations transformed into low-intensity warfare. This perspective allows us to reconstruct the slow processes of land seizure, dislocation, and extinction of indigenous societies. Ultimately, the project aims to explain the distressing ‘success’ of settler imperialism as a genocidal socio-economic and socio-ecological system.