What the faces on Mount Rushmore said about Indians:

“Indians and wolves are both beasts of prey, tho’ they differ in shape.”

~George Washington, 1778

“If ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe we will never lay it down til that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi . . . in war they will kill some of us; but we will destroy all of them. Adjuring them, therefore, if they wish to remain on the land which covers the bones of their fathers, to keep the peace with a people who ask friendship without needing it, who wish to avoid war without fearing it. In war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy all of them.”

~Thomas Jefferson, August 28, 1807

“I suppose I should be ashamed to say that I take the Western view of the Indian. I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”

~Theodore Roosevelt, January, 1886