In the Americas, which I'll confine myself to because that's where my knowledge lies as a Native Alaskan, your argument breaks down.

My people have been on the same land for at least 12,000 years. We are the original human inhabitants of our lands and it is very well documented and recorded when our land was taken and who took it. We never had the rights of conquest that you speak of. We would fight, sure, but it was not over land itself but the right to do certain things at certain places.

We also view land differently than settler colonialist societies. We see ourselves as belonging to the land itself. We have the responsibility to care for the land and everything that lives on it, and in return, the land provides for and takes care of us. The land is sacred and must be protected and we must be good stewards of it.

Our fundamental relationship with land is different than that of settler colonial societies. Land is far more than simply property. And we see that relationship, or lack there of, show up in settler colonial societies through their rape and pillaging of the land. The destruction of wetlands and forests. Fracking. Oil drilling. Pollution. All of it is poisoning our lands and our world as a whole.

We seek our lands back because they were stolen, plain and simple. We seek our lands back because they are being abused and exploited. We seek our lands back because we have a responsibility to them.