Coercive mass-scale population relocation is a prominent historical feature of state- building. Regimes move racial, ethnic, or linguistic groups through various means but the most common political dynamic underlying displacement is intent: consolidation of political control. We evaluate the long-run consequences of mass-scale displacement leveraging a historical episode in Afghanistan: the relocation of Pashtun communities during the rule of Emir Abd-al Rahman. This relocation effort was intended to extend the political authority of the Pashtun majority in areas of ethnic diversity in the north. Using historical records, we reconstruct the map of relocated tribes and leverage novel, microlevel survey data on more than 80,000 subjects to study how contemporary atti- tudes towards the central government, the Taliban, and identity salience differ across co-ethnic communities separated by the Emir’s state-building effort more than a cen- tury ago. Contrary to prior work, we find that relocated Pashtuns are more critical of the central government and the Taliban yet are more likely to identify as Afghans (relative their ethnic or tribal affiliation). These results survive a battery of robustness checks and clarify the long-run political consequences of mass-scale resettlement in a highly relevant political context.