Coming from a feudal society, Europeans had long-held beliefs that land equaled power. To control land was to control the resources and the people on it. Land could be bought and sold, exploited or left fallow. Wars could be fought over the right to land. Those who did not own land were essentially powerless.

When they first arrived in the Americas, Europeans were confronted with a seemingly endless amount of land that they felt was ripe for the taking. Part of this belief in land ownership came from Judeo-Christian values that impart the idea that land is given to humans by God for their use. The English, for instance, developed a policy known as vacuum domicilium, which meant that if they felt that a piece of land was not being used in a way they saw fit or appeared empty, they could occupy and develop it, without concern for the other people there.

Native Americans, on the other hand, usually did not believe that land could be owned in the same sense as Europeans did. They had territories but did not feel that they had any claims of ownership over them. Rather, land had ancestral importance and was central to a particular tribe's identity. Most Native Americans practiced animist religions. Animism is the belief that all natural objects, including the land itself, have a soul or divine element. Therefore, they cannot be owned. Resources of the land can still be used, but they are seen as something given by the land, not something taken from it.

Basically, Native Americans viewed land as something that was to be used communally by all the members of a tribe.  There was no idea among the Indians that land was something to be divided up, sold, and owned by individuals.

This view of land ownership can be seen in a speech given by the Indian leader Tecumseh, in which he is addressing William Henry Harrison, who would later be President of the United States.  Tecumseh is quoted as saying that Indians needed to

...unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was at first, and should be now -- for it was never divided, but belongs to all.

By saying this, Tecumseh is laying out a much different understanding of land use than we have now.  He sees the land as a communal resource that is to be used by all.  He does not see it as Europeans saw it (and as we see it now), as a resource that could and should be owned by individuals who could keep it as their own and exclude others from using it.

This tension between Native American and European views of land use and ownership was a major source of conflict between Natives and Europeans for much of the history of what is now the United States.