History has always been seen as valuable. This can be seen through the construction of monuments and memorials some standing for hundreds of years. Museums play a large part in this by preserving old artifacts and keeping them on display. For a long time, these types of exhibits were seen as largely uncontroversial and factual or otherwise truthful. More recently though this view has been called into question. It seems like the entire South is within a mile of the nearest protest to remove a Robert E. Lee statue or counter protest to keep the same statue standing. The statues are themselves an anomaly as history is generally “told by the winners” as the saying goes. As museum preservation techniques improve, this only becomes truer.
In fact, museums might even be viewed as a holdover from times when imperialism dominated the world. The greatest former empires no longer hold colonies as they once did, but they do control the history of those former colonies as anything seized during colonial times remains with the imperial nation. This is why British and French museums, for example, exhibit, or at least own, artifacts from Africa. These same museums can either display said artifacts or not as they please. This makes some people angry, like this guy from Black Panther.

Try to ignore the part where he conspired to rob the exhibit and kill all the guards. He makes a fair point. North American and European countries, at one point, were imperial nations that held control over smaller poorer nations, and, as Killmonger from Black Panther stated, the empires “took” everything by force. It’s unsettling to think about, but the former empires still control the histories of their former colonies even if they no longer control the land. This is not problematic if the objects are displayed in a respectful and accurate way, which is a museum’s intent, but ownership of foreign historical artifacts could take a darker turn. Museums don’t display everything. What if instead of exhibiting African artifacts the British museums instead kept them in storage? That would be hiding away that portion of history. An even more sinister case would be where these objects are destroyed. Now some history is erased. Even a well-intentioned display may create misconceptions or spread misinformation. After all, these exhibits display the history of a colony from the point of view of a conqueror.
The only true way to prevent one country from warping the history of another in this way is to repatriate the objects that were seized away from colonies. Let them control their own history. Unfortunately, that approach is too idealistic. Many of the countries that would receive these artifacts lack the resources to keep and preserve them and some objects might even be too fragile to travel. Until these practical issues can be solved, we have to hope that the current owners of history do the right thing by preserving and displaying an accurate collection.