The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signaled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief moments of prior accumulation.

—Karl Marx, from “Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist,” Capital

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' Hist…, loc. 79098