The entire Europe conspired and cooperated to colonize North America.
Say this to Norwegians and Swedes, they'd get mad and act as if they have nothing to do with it
This belief is tied to the misconception that colonization was undertaken by states, and thus that only countries whose states had colonies were involved. The importance of companies and venture capital in colonization is vastly unknown and frequently underestimated. When you look into it, you'll see that even some European countries without colonies had colonial companies. And even when that wasn't the case, the states themselves or large part of their capitalist class could own stakes in foreign colonial companies.
And even more indirectly, they could have stakes in trades that were fed by colonialism, like industry developing thanks to cheaper material from the colonies, which fueled the industrial revolution
This belief also limits the slave trade to the actual act of kidnapping humans and shipping them across the globe. But none of that was possible without the industry that supported it.
In 'humans kidnapped and shipped' figures, Sweden was a small fish in the slave trade, but Sweden was the main supplier of iron chains used in the slave trade. The Swedish iron industry thrived and brought wealth to Sweden because stolen children were cuffed in child-sized Swedish chains.
