Well, when we start talking about the conquest of North America, we need to be very careful about which political actors we're talking about.
There were numerous Native American nations organized into distinct political units before Europeans began arriving. We'd call these political units "states" today, as they were independent political units with the legal right to make binding law on their members within the jurisdiction of their own territory.
By the time the Kingdom of England began to establish its colonies, however, most of the Native American nations had vacated the east coast of Central North America because of disease from prior European contact. So I for one reject the idea that the English did not have the right to set up its colonies.
I do think that the expansion of those colonies westward was illegitimate, but the fact remains that the English and their colonies did so.
Now, since I don't contest the right of the Thirteen Colonies to exist, and since I don't contest the right of the Thirteen Colonies to secede from the Kingdom of Great Britain (the Kingdom of England's successor state) because of British abuses against the colonies, I do think that the United States has the right to exist.
I do not think that the United States had the right to expand across all of Central North America the way it did -- or at least, that it did not have the right to do so without the consent of those living there.
If, for instance, the United States had chosen to expand by negotiating with Native American nations, treating them as equals, refusing to engage in discrimination, and offering them membership as states in the Union? That I think it would have been perfectly legitimate. Of course, had the U.S. followed that course, the make-up of the Union would be very different today -- there might be a State of Cherokee or a State of Choctaw, for instance, and Indian reservations wouldn't exist. But I think it would have been a legitimate form of expansion.
As for whether or not Native Americans are American citizens by choice -- well, at the time, there was controversy within the Native American nations about whether or not they should acquire U.S. citizenship. So it's really not fair to characterize them as all or mostly having been for or against it.
But I rather imagine that most Native Americans today would not want to give up American citizenship.
And I'd argue that the descendants of Europeans and Africans who came to North America have as much of a right today to Central North America as Native Americans do, just as I'd argue that Palestinians and Israelis both have a right to the Land of Palestine/Land of Israel. Two groups with centuries' worth of history on the land have an equal right to live there.
* * *
As for the Federation and Ba'ku...
There is no evidence that Ba'ku was a Federation planet.
None whatsoever.
There is evidence that it was within Federation space. That does not mean that it was Federation territory. The State of the Vatican City is within Italian territory, but that doesn't mean it is Italian territory -- it means it's surrounded by it.
The relevant question is, "Is Ba'ku (the planet) Federation territory, or is it merely surrounded by Federation territory?"
Since there's no evidence that the planet was Federation territory under Federation law -- because if it were, why would the Federation need to hide itself from its inhabitants? -- then it logically must be a sovereign and independent world that happens to be surrounded by Federation territory.
Always happy to hear an imperialist tell me I'm a horrible person.
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