The motion picture community has been as responsible as any for degrading the Indian and making a mockery of his character, describing his as savage, hostile and evil. It's hard enough for children to grow up in this world. When Indian children watch television, and they watch films, and when they see their race depicted as they are in films, their minds become injured in ways we can never know.
— Marlon Brando, March 30th 1973, New York Times.
I've killed more Indians [in my Westerns] than Custer, Beecher and Chivington put together...Let's face it, we've treated them very badly—it's a blot on our shield. We've cheated and robbed, killed, murdered, massacred and everything else, but they kill one white man and, God, out come the troops.
— John Ford, book of interviews by Peter Bogdanovich, 2nd Edition.
