It's also missing that the vast majority of indigenous people in the Americas were dead from smallpox, and then conquest by the Spanish, Portuguese, French and English long before the "US" was a thing, or remotely close to being one. The US such as it was did a lot of terrible things to the scattered and shattered remnants of the natives, but the primary actions leading up to that, the majority of death, destruction, and slavery occurred long before.

This might seem like a nitpick, but I think it isn't in the context of an article making a point about "institutions."