Wayne defended the seizure of Native American land as survival.

Evidence

His views on Native Americans were no more enlightened: “I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from [the Native Americans]… . Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival.” People needed land “and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.” — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 135

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Defending indigenous sovereignty helped legitimate colonial dispossession; Colonists survived by seizing what Indigenous peoples had already built. — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 113; Colonial treatment of native peoples was justified by claims about their essential humanity — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 648 (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Defending indigenous sovereignty helped legitimate colonial dispossession; Colonists survived by seizing what Indigenous peoples had already built. — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 113; Colonial treatment of native peoples was justified by claims about their essential humanity — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 648 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Defending indigenous sovereignty helped legitimate colonial dispossession #complicates (0.72)