I do think you’re a bit confused here. The artisans, yeoman, etc. are petite bourgeoisie. The chief idea here is that sole proprietors are petty bourgeois, not proletarian. Settler-colonialism allowed Europe to expel part of its population with the promise of petty bourgeois class security. The petite bourgeoisie is a broad subcategory of the bourgeoisie, but one that is traditionally pushed towards proletarianization, hence the description “middle classes” used by Marx:

The lower strata of the middle class—the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants—all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.

The “middle class” in liberal ideology is the more well-paid proletariat, the petite bourgeoisie, etc. It’s a lie based on income, rather than social relations. In reality, the proletarian and bourgeois divide is a bimodal category. Within the bourgeoisie and proletariat are numerous subclasses, which are not independent classes, but all of which have their own contradictions within the broader class. The petite bourgeoisie are a broad category of bourgeois subclasses that exist in terms of wealth closer to the proletariat than the haut bourgeoisie, hence the Marxist understanding of the reductive term “middle class.” It does not actually mean these subclasses stand outside of the bourgeoisie and proletariat.

Second, the bit on the coalescing of a class. This is a retread of the concept of “labor aristocracy,” what Engels calls the “bourgeois proletariat.” Settlers that are proletarian do not form a coherent proletarian class due to their privledge from the settler-colonial system. This is what Sakai’s point is, settler-colonialism itself prevents the development of proletarian consciousness by making the entire settler proletariat labor aristocracy.

In reality, to understand Statesian settler-colonialism is to recognize the modern settler-proletariat as an oppressing nation, and the indigenous proletariat as oppressed nations. The national question is at the heart of decolonial Marxism, and I will direct you to our favorite Georgian philosopher and political activist in Marxism and the National Question to begin the basics of this critical theory.

Essentially, as imperialism decays, the settler proletariat is increasingly aligned with the oppressed proletariat, but the oppressed proletariat is the engine of the revolution in the settler-colonial context. This is an intra-class contradiction, not an inter-class contradiction, because over time the petite bourgeois nature of settlers has broken down as land and property have been stripped from them. This does not mean the settlers have trancended their settler status. This does not mean settler-colonialism is “complete,” like J Skyes of FRSO argues. Settlers still benefit from settlers colonialism in the short-term, so political education needs to center decolonization primary, as this also directly opposes the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie most closely.

It means that settler-colonialism is the principal contradiction within the US, and so any movement must be decolonial in nature as primary. It means that we must recognize the contradictions within the proletariat, without squashing it down to a unified “proletariat” devoid of any connection to the national struggle, feminist struggle, queer struggle, etc. To do so would be class reductionism.

Also worth reading is Losurdo’s Class Struggle.