From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishassert your rights/independence/superiority etcassert your rights/independence/superiority etcSAY/STATEto state very strongly your right to something Native Americans asserting their rights to ancestral land → assert
Examples from the Corpus
assert your rights/independence/superiority etc• And the revolution in the structure of services and management meant elderly frail people found it increasingly difficult to assert their rights.• Power gives us the ability to control, to choose and to assert our independence.• Stickers are available throughout the county to help squeezed out pedestrians assert their rights.• You need to be selective and judge when it is appropriate to assert your rights.• But she sought not so much to break a taboo as to assert her independence from the male yoke.• Mrs Armitage's heir is already asserting his rights in the matter but that is not my concern.• Athens asserted her rights over her citizens temporarily exiled, as she did over those at home and liable for service. 