Colorado was built on stolen tribal land worth $1.7tn, report finds

Report published by Native American-led non-profit identifies 10 tribal nations tied to land and how it was taken

A report published this week by a Native American-led non-profit examines in detail the dispossession of $1.7tn worth of Indigenous homelands in Colorado by the state and the US - and the more than $546m the state has reaped in mineral extraction from them.

The report, shared first with the Associated Press, identifies 10 tribal nations that have aboriginal title, congressional title and treaty title to lands within Colorado" and details the ways the land was legally and illegally taken. It determined that many of the transactions were in direct violation of treaty rights or in some cases lacked title for a legal transfer.