Contested settler societies featured large scale European settlement despite the existence of large, indigenous populations; generally resulted in clashes over land rights, resource control, social status, and differences in culture, typical in South Africa, Hawaii, New Zealand, Kenya and Algeria.

Europeans chose the specific places listed above and settled regardless of who was already there. Despite these effects on the countries, the indigenous peoples did not decrease in population, but increased rapidly. As a result, the areas in which the Europeans had settled were named contested settler societies. The history of contested settler societies has been dominated by the interaction between European settlers and indigenous people. A pattern of of the colonization involved the white dominion.