Colonial sovereignty over North America was asserted without regard to actual Indigenous presence.

Evidence

European powers used conquest and treaties to claim vast territories in North America, regardless of Indigenous occupation. Synthesizing the law of colonizing powers, Marshall traces the outlines of the “discovery doctrine”— namely, that a European power gains radical title (also known as sovereignty) to the land it discovers. As a corollary, the “discovering” power gains the exclusive right to extinguish the “right of occupancy” of the Indigenous occupants, which otherwise survived the assumption of sovereignty. — Wikipedia contributors, Johnson v. McIntosh, 12

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes Maps (Farah Nuruddin) and Things Fall Apart — colonial claims layered over land already meaningfully inhabited. — connects to: Naming the land Rhodesia was an act of colonial violence that denied African presence. — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists:…, 41