Do Native Americans Have The Right To Claim Areas As Their Sacred Land

My argument is simple. Might makes right. The colonists won many wars against the natives, as such, to the victor go the spoils. It was not stolen, it was rightfully claimed under threat of military force. While modern Americans may regret past actions towards Native Americans, they only have valid claims to their reservations. All other claims are void. We fought them and pushed them out, and they were decimated by warfare and disease to which they had no immune system. The American Government is content to let them have reservations as pieces of sovereign territory owned by the respective tribes. They have control over it. It is simply illogical and impractical to allow native tribes to reclaim what they originally had. Let us use an example, Let's say the Apache tribe wants to reclaim some of their land they lost, but they have no written records or maps depicting the boundaries. And the only documents found are maps of colonial settlements. Do you refuse since they have no proof? Do you take them based on word? Let's say the Cherokee want to take back some land. They have a verified historical map of their boundaries. Oh,oh, it is now the capital of a state. Do we simply hand over the capital city of a state to them? I say no. Any tribes reclaiming land would displace modern Americans with no connection to the past grievances that were levied against the natives. Modern natives also did not directly experience warfare or disease. They experience the long term results, but not the actual hardship. Drug abuse and alcoholism on reservations is nothing compared to the epidemic of disease and violent warfare experienced by natives during colonialism and on-wards. While modern natives may experience racism, racism has decreased and is less present than in the past. The situation is improving, quite a few Americans are not racist. Some may be insensitive, but not directly a hateful racist. So, modern Natives have experienced alcoholism, drug abuse, gambling, and poor quality reservations, but they did not experience the much worse conditions faced by their ancestors. There is no reason why modern Natives cannot improve reservation life with help from Uncle Sam, or choose to leave the reservation and assimilate to mainstream American culture. You can still keep your traditions alive while being college educated and working a job. In Summary, Native Americans should not be able to reclaim lost ancestral lands due to the following reasons: 1. It is sometimes not clear if it was truly a Native area, or if it was confused due to the process of oral traditions and history. 2. It could possibly displace many modern Americans who were not responsible for any tragedies suffered by Natives during colonialism. 3. Native Americans do experience hardships as a result of the outcome of Colonist interaction and warfare with natives, including racism, alcoholism, drug abuse, and poverty on reservations. However, in comparison to what their ancestors actually suffered (war, racism, disease, forced migration), their problems are nowhere near as damaging. 4. Native Americans have the ability to assimilate into mainstream culture and still maintain native traditions. Natives can work, go to school, and raise families just as the rest of us do, while still keeping alive their traditions.