Among the thousands who cross the Plains, there are many who have never been refined by either mental or moral culture. The sum total of their religious and political faith consists in Squatter Sovereignty – the right to do as they choose, regardless of all but selfish interests. When such as these get beyond the range of Law and Civilization, a slight cause often makes them reckless and abusive; and many are the cases of violence and murder, of which the world never hears; and as the Authorities at the Forts exercise neither civil nor military jurisdiction over the Emigrants, any outrage may be committed with comparative impunity. But it is the Indians who are generally their most numerous victims. At first they find more excitement in shooting bears and buffaloes, than they did in the States killing rabbits and deer. They grow ambitious and begin to think it would be a great achievement to kill an Indian; and, as most of them are armed with rifles and revolvers, the desire becomes strong to slay one of those whom their own savageness has converted into an enemy […] Thus the poor Indian, by being spoken of as a brute, is cast beyond the pale of a common humanity – where the killing of him ceases to be murder, and no atrocity is considered cruel or unjust.

John Beeson, A Plea for the Indians, 1857.