In the early twentieth-first century, settler colonialism emerged as one of the most identifiable paradigms of social and cultural analysis. This chapter assesses this paradigm’s conceptual origins and identifies the study of Indigenous genocide at its center. Drawing from readings of Patrick Wolfe’s work, this chapter highlights the utility of settler colonial studies for the study of genocide and identifies sets of problematics within certain works of genocide. It examines in particular the inability of historians of the United States to reconcile celebratory and/or exceptionalistic visions of North American history with the genocide of Indigenous peoples.