William F. Cody

“I am and always have been a friend of the Indian. I have always sympathized with him in his struggle to hold the country that was his by right of birth. But I have always held that in such a country as America the march of civilization was inevitable, and that sooner or later the men who lived in roving tribes, making no real use of the resources of the country, would be compelled to give way before the men who tilled the soil and used the lands as the Creator intended they should be used.”
― William F. Cody, An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill

“In concluding, I want to express the hope that the dealings of this Government of ours with the Indians will always be just and fair. They were the inheritors of the land that we live in. They were not capable of developing it, or of really appreciating its possibilities, but they owned it when the White Man came, and the White Man took it away from them. It was natural that they should resist. It was natural that they employed the only means of warfare known to them against those whom they regarded as usurpers. It was our business, as scouts, to be continually on the warpath against them when they committed depredations. But no scout ever hated the Indians in general.”
― William F. Cody, An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill