if that's the case, what are we to think for north american early settlers who almost destroyed native americans and it continued even after american independence.
early american settlers were not led by anyone, they did it on their own.
People love to bring this double standard up and blame settlers. Almost all those settlers moved WITHIN their nation! Of course they had a leader, supposed "Royals", Gov'ts, and Heads of Corporations.
Who was first to the New World? Portuguese and Spanish. Who had an empire of plunder in the New World for hundreds of years? Spanish. Go look at what their empire encompassed.
You would just speak about the Spanish and Portuguese. If you were concerned about genocide of people.
I repeat, those settlers moved WITHIN their nation! They didn't make the nation. For the most part, Americans BOUGHT or traded for land and signed treaties as did the British/Canadians. They did this even though Native tribes didn't even have the concept of land ownership.
Until a treaty was signed settlement of the North-Western territory was forbidden.
Did the Portuguese or Spanish do that?
Did the Chinese do that with the indigenous people in what is now China? How about the indigenous people all through South and SE Asia do the nations there all have treaties with them?
btw how many people do you think could live in Canada without electricity or large forests? Even today less than 50000 people live in the North West Territories. MOST Canadians live huddled up against the US border. It is MUCH warmer now than it was in the past. First settlements were abandoned. Settlers died. Even the now nice EAST was nearly uninhabitable.
Central US was the Great American Desert. California, Arizona, New Mexico are still deserts. How many people can a desert sustain? Big populations were in Mexico and South America because that is where natures bounty and ease of life were.