Short Summary : Indigenous People, Savages?

Christopher Columbus describes Indians in his journal as ignorant people with handsome features. He mentions in his journal that he looked forward to have a good relationship with the Indians. He also described how easy it was to trade with Indians because they didn’t care about money. Columbus didn’t care much about how Indians felt all he wanted from them was their help to find gold. He mentions how they didn’t speak the same language so they had to do mimics to understand one another. Columbus saw that Indians were wearing gold as earrings so he asked them with body language where was the gold and they showed him. Christopher also mentioned how different was their culture because they would go out naked without being ashamed. Columbus saw

From beginning to end, any mention of the Natives by the French was usually linked to the word “savages.” This was shown in several scenes in the film. Towards the beginning, before Father Laforgue and Daniel leave on the Hurons mission, two men are talking to one another about how they would not go on such a mission with “savages.” Another example of this reference is near the end of the film when Father Laforgue finds Father Jerome in the Huron village and even Father Jerome refers to the ailing Natives as “savages” when speaking about them. Father Laforgue’s mission in the film clearly represents the French’s view that Natives were in need of salvation.

When the colonists came to America, they classified the Native Americans as complete brutal savages. But was that a correct assumption? The Native Americans lived a life that was a complete opposite from the way that the Europeans were accustomed to. The Native Americans believed that the land was shared by everyone and not one person could own it. The Native Americans also had a polytheistic religion which completely went against the beliefs of the colonists. The colonists viewed the Native Americans as savages and barbarians because their ways of living were different.

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.

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.

As the encroachment of settlers on Indian lands continued, so did the inevitable conflicts. "To the Indians, the arriving Europeans seemed attuned to another world; they appeared oblivious to the rhythms and spirits of nature" (Jordan, 1991). Nature to the Europeans was something of an obstacle, even an enemy, and these disrespectful attitudes were quite apparent to the Indians. The wilderness was also a commodity however: "a forest was so many board feet of timber, a beaver colony so many pelts, a herd of buffalo so many hides" (Jordan, 1991). The Europeans' cultural arrogance and ethnocentrism, and their materialistic view of the land and its inhabitants were repulsive to the Indians. "Europeans, overall, were regarded as something mechanical - soulless creatures wielding diabolically ingenious tools and weapons to accomplish selfish ends" (Jordan, 1991).

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed west and found himself on the shores of a new world. His mission was to secure new land for Spain. Other European countries heard of his findings, they too crossed the ocean in hopes of securing new opportunities in this newly discovered land such as fur trading and gold mining. Little did they know that a community of indigenous people had already settled in this land thousands of years before. The Europeans decided to negotiate with the natives in order to set up their own communities in the land but the Native Americans held beliefs about society and religion that were far different from their European peers. Europeans thought the Indians to be “Noble Savages, gentle and friendly, but uncivilized, brutal, and barbaric” (citation). They could not see past their own

Also another thing european settlers viewed natives as savages and not being civilized is in how they functioned in their daily life. In my opinion John White trumps these allegations to prove it i found a few things. In one painting John White showed the indians as sharers when he paints a man and women sharing their meal together as one. Another way he trumped it was he showed them hunting for their food in painting where it shows them hunting for fish to provide as one group striving for same goal

In 1783, Benjamin Franklin wrote Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America. He did this to show how illogical it is to call Native Americans savages. Franklin offers several narratives in which the natives were less “savage” than their accusers. Franklin mentioned how their views differ. He did this by including several types of literary devices to get his point across.

Upon Columbus’s arrival, approximately 30 million Native Americans populated North America. Since then, 90 to 95% have been wiped out. Throughout the 1700’s, a number of wars broke out between Native Americans and whites. A population of 200 million people inhabiting the Americas found themselves subject to the will of foreigners who happened to have relatively lighter skin tones than them. The barbaric subjugation of indigenous peoples by whites is illustrative of the impact

The purpose of Franklin's "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America" was to increase the tolerance of Native Americans by the English settlers. He uses many forms of "tongue-in-cheek" writing, like sarcasm and irony, to compare the ways of the Natives and the ways of the settlers. He takes on the very uncommon mindset that the Native Americans were not as savage and barbarous of many claimed them to be. He aimed to prove that the Natives were just as civilized as the settlers even at times saying that they were more civilized like in this excerpt here: "Having frequent Occasions to hold public Councils, they have acquired great Order and Decency in conducting them. The old Men sit in the foremost Ranks, the Warriors in the next, and

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.

Sebastian LeBeau on The Great Sioux Nation Website says that, “The two stereotypes most often portrayed of Native Americans are the heroic noble savage or the ignominious drunken Indian.” LeBeau tells us that, “The noble savage stereotype is generally seen as a male who is resplendent in full regalia, and proudly sitting astride his war pony and gazing fiercely out across the rolling plain” (The Great Sioux Website). It was one of the ways Europeans looked at Native Americans before coming to the New World and has apparently stayed with us. After Columbus discoveries, Europeans idealized the

Some questions that came to mind when thinking about this unjust act was what did the Indians do to display any act of being savage? How did these tribes live and prosper in their surrounding environment? What was the reaction of the Indians when first encountered by the Europeans? The first European settlement in America was established in 1565 in what is present day St. Augustine, Florida. American Indians have been here for much longer and had no clue as to who or why these foreign people began flooding onto their

They belittle the the Native people and by doing that they have control over them, they can bend them to their will and make them do what they want. The European people did this to the First Nation peoples as well. That's all the First Nation people were called were savages just because their way of life was different from their own. They treated them horribly because their way of life was different. People don't like to embrace differences so they try to change them into something like themselves.