The Native Americans believed that nobody owned the land. Instead, they believed the land belonged to everybody within their tribe. The Europeans, on the other hand, believed that people had a right to own land. They believed people could buy land, which would then belong to the individual.
Natives believed that land could not be owned, whilst the settlers believed that owning land, making a claim, or starting a business would give them a stake in the country. The settlers argued that Natives forfeited their rights to the land because they did not settle down to "improve" it. Concluding that the plains were deemed "unsettled", migrants kept coming west along railroad and wagons to claim the land.
