I fail to see the demise of the American natives or the natives of any other country as a bad/good thing. A culture that is several thousand years behind the civilization curve must modernize or face extinction, that’s just nature.

We see this from the animal kingdom to the Roman Empire to the British Empire. Even today there are those who say American culture is "destroying native habits". Is that bad? No. Is that good? No. Its simply the way things work on this planet.

Consider the alternatives. Europeans would still all be living in Europe and the rest of the world would be in several different stages of development. How long would that last? How long could even the most enlightened Europeans hold back the inevitable human desire for cultural advancement? How long could an ever-expanding European population be expected to live in squalor while vast lands with relatively tiny populations lay just beyond the horizon? It simply ignores basic human nature.

Dominant cultures, whether intentionally or unintentionally, will progress. It’s unstoppable. The real question, which pertains to the original post is: Is that such a bad thing? Are the natives of today who are asking for compensation for things that occurred hundreds of years ago really that worse off than their ancestors, or have they benefited from the culture that surpassed that of their ancestors?