Franklin's Savages

John Smith, from book 3, chapter 2 of his book, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, wrote about his adventures in the new land of the Indians where he experienced new people, a new governance system and a new culture (Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England & the Summer Isles 43). Smith, who was an English soldier, explorer and author, ventured into a new and unfamiliar territory where he experienced many unknown and unusual conditions and his writings depict his initial experience with the natives of this new and hostile land. He referred to the indigenous people as “savages” based on their hostile nature and brutal behavior towards him and his men. Initially the native chief, Powhatan, wanted to torture and Kill Captain Smith but he

The Europeans and the Native American’s come from very different customs and cultures. The colonists had very

He also portrays the natives with lucid terms so as to shed an innocent light on them in an attempt to instill into his readers why it is so wrong for the Indians to be treated as they are by the Europeans.

Beginning in the sixteenth century, Europeans made the voyage to a “new world” in order to achieve dreams of opportunity and riches. In this other world the Europeans came upon another people, which naturally led to a cultural exchange between different groups of people. Although we commonly refer to European and Indian relations as being between just two very different groups of people, it is important to recognize this is not entirely true. Although the settlers of the new world are singularly referred to as Europeans, each group of people came from a different nation and with different motives and expectations of the new world. Similarly, the Indians were neither a united group nor necessarily friendly with each other. Due to the

By explaining this, he is attempting to persuade people to follow his lifestyle, citing that by doing so, it is possible to cleave oneself of the hindrances that prevent a flawless surface and by not doing so, it is impossible to grind that axe to perfection, which solidifies Franklin’s position as the archetype for neoclassicism and

During the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Europeans started to come over to the new world, they discovered a society of Indians that was strikingly different to their own. To understand how different, one must first compare and contrast some of the very important differences between them, such as how the Europeans considered the Indians to be extremely primitive and basic, while, considering themselves civilized. The Europeans considered that they were model societies, and they thought that the Indians society and culture should be changed to be very similar to their own.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Europeans started to come over to the new world, they discovered a society of Indians that was strikingly different to their own. To understand how different, one must first compare and contrast some of the very important differences between them, such as how the Europeans considered the Indians to be extremely primitive and basic, while, considering themselves civilized. The Europeans considered that they were model societies, and they thought that the Indians society and culture should be changed to be very similar to their own.

Within the Native culture and the Colonial cultures in North America, there are confusion, misjudging, assumptions and conflicts among the two.

college because the Indians felt that the white man had no moral values when it

The frequent depiction of the “Noble Savage” trope has many functions, with its main function being to portray Native Americans as sinless uneducated humans and to make their abusers and torturers seem evil and superior, which in most cases the torturers are indeed evil. Bartolomé de Las Casas and Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca use the “Native Savage” trope for different reasons, which makes their portrayal different, and not because they are writing about different tribes and groups of Native Americans. The “Noble Savage” is a very common adaptation of Native Americans, but the definition isn’t as pretty as the name of the trope may seem to be.

Every colonist that came to America had their own perceptions of its inhabitants. The majority of these people believed the Native Americans were savages because their culture differed from the colonists. To the colonists, everything needed to be proper. The way they dressed, whether or not they went to church, or how they raised their children needed to be up to code. If not, their fellow colonists looked differently at them. The natives were entirely different. Their goal was simply to survive, and they were conducting survival the best way they knew how to. The differences between the two cultures led to many severe problems. Mary Rowlandson and Benjamin Franklin had two entirely different views of the Native Americans, based upon their encounters with them.

In the “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” Benjamin Franklin writes about the Native American people and their way of life. In Benjamin Franklin’s essay he shows that the Native American people are far from savages. He explains how they are indeed civilized people. He says “perhaps, if we examine the manners of different nations with the impartiality, we should find no people so rude, as not to have some remains of rudeness.” The reason the Native Americans were called “savages” was because their rules of common civility, religion, laws and culture were different from the American culture and being that we were just socializing we did not understand their way of life.

?savagery? (Takaki, 44). The natives were then considered to be an unimprovable race. They were incapable of being changed, their traits were inherent and their descent caused them to be this way. The thinking of the Americans was that the Indians had to removed off their lands. One of the leaders in this movement was Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was a man who pushed for the advancement of his

The poem, “The Theft Outright” by Heid E. Erdrich, a Native American poet, refutes claims made in another poem, “The Gift Outright” by Robert Frost, that America was empty before the colonists. In his poem, Frost claims that America was “unstoried, artless, [and] unenhanced,”(Frost 15) demonstrating blatant racism by erasing the entire Native American culture and race from American history. Erdrich counters his beliefs by citing the colorful, full lives of Indians in the past and now, directly juxtaposing his work by saying that the Americas are “still storied, art-filled, [and] fully enhanced”(Erdrich 30) because of the Native Americans that lived there then and now. Similarly, the book “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by

The essay “Letter to President Pierce” written by Chief Seattle in 1855 lays out some of the biggest differences between white American culture and the culture of Native Americans. The essay is very brief in length but it does address many points that can be take farther. Chief Seattle begins the essay with simple stating the obvious; that everyone already knows white men and natives do not understand each other’s ways of living. He continues this by saying that even though the land that each of them hold is the same the way that it is handled could make you think otherwise. Chief Seattle believes that white man tires to fight and pillage everything rather work with it. This is the start of one of the biggest differences between the two cultures. By acting this way Seattle thinks that white man has no real connection to his culture because he continuously moves on from place to place leaving behind anything that was built by his ancestors. However, he contradicts himself by saying that maybe his thoughts are wrong because he is only a savage. The next main point that Seattle addresses is how he compares the silence of nature rather than all of the manmade noise of cities. He questions his stance on the noise pollution made by cities and asks if the only reason he does not like it is because he has not learned the “civilization” of it. Seattle believes in working with nature and what the world has given us, so that humans will last. He makes a strong point that if something