Indians “owned” no land so it’s impossible to compensate them. Show me a title.
They stole the land from somebody else.
Yes, the property deed did as much to eliminate the Indians as disease and technology. Just as a thought experiment, though, wonder if the Indians could have hired an attorney back in the 1700s to argue for them that the lands, say, west of the Allegeny’s or the Ohio River valley were theirs by tradition, basically a property claim “hallowed by usage and consecrated by time.” They could point to their burial grounds for proof of their long-term occupancy. Probably no colonial court would come down on their side though.