Native Americans believed that land couldn't be owned, the settlers defined a better life and prosperity in terms of personal property. Owning land and a house, making a mining clam or startin a business would give them a stake in the country. Prospectors, settlers and ranchers argued alike that Native Americans had forfeited their rights to the land because they hadn't settled down to improve it. They concluded that the plains were unsettled, settlers started to move in.