Settler nations were built on stolen land and enslaved people.

Evidence

We who live in settler colonial states like the United States, Canada, and Australia have, for the most part, never truly reckoned with the fact that our nations exist only because of the twin thefts of stolen land and stolen people, that slavery and genocide were the bloody subsidies that allowed colonists, many of whom were themselves in debt peonage, to engage in their self-making adventures. And neither have the European nations that launched those colonial crusades in the first place. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 763

Categorization

• XREF: Relates to the article ‘Grafting & Growth: On Trees as Infrastructure’ only thematically—closer to a historical claim about settler economies. Also note: reader is tracking how Klein’s political analysis lands the Israel/Palestine chapters, and this is part of the setup. — connects to: Land-hungry settlers drove Anglo-Americans to provoke the Seven Years’ War; Natives were rightful occupants but lacked power to sell their land. — Supreme Court of the United States (Marshall Court, 1823), Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. M’Intosh,…, 169; Yellowstone National Park was seized from Native people promised the territory — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 753 (+5 more)