 |
LITR 4328 American
Renaissance Research Posts 2015 (research post assignment) Research Post 1 |
 |
Elizabeth Myers
2
April 2015
The Start of the Noble Savage and Ignoble Savage Stereotypes
James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last
of the Mohicans has been one of the most thought-provoking texts that I have
read this semester. This text has intrigued me due to my maternal family being
descended from Native Americans. After reading
The Last of the Mohicans, I had many
questions regarding the Native Americans’ portrayal in this piece of literature.
For example, Cooper’s descriptions of the Native Americans as being either noble
savages or ignoble savages caused me to wonder when these opposing images of
Native Americans first originated. This semester is the first time that I have
learned about this Native American dichotomy, and my first step in answering my
question was to try to find more detailed information about these two terms.
I
began my search by searching for noble savage vs. ignoble savage on the
Internet. I used YAHOO’s search engine, and my noble savage vs. ignoble savage
query pulled up a large number of results. Brian W. Dippie’s essay, “American
Indians: The Image of the Indian,” located on the National Humanities Center web
site, provided a helpful starting point for my quest. In his essay, Dippie
discusses the historical noble and ignoble savage views of Native Americans, and
he notes how these opinions align with how Uncas and Magua are portrayed in
The Last of the Mohicans. Dippie
asserts that these stereotypes originate “back to the earliest European contact
with American natives.” Dippie’s article enabled me to narrow down the time
frame for when the noble and ignoble savage views first appeared in America.
Moreover, Dippie gives readers a substantial number of additional reference
texts in his article, which proved helpful in my research. I checked out many of
the books that Dippie discusses through the University of Houston-Clear Lake’s
library.
One
of the books that I checked out, The
White Man’s Indian: Images of the
American Indian from Columbus to the Present by Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr.,
was the most informative in regards to answering my question. Berkhofer’s
discussion about the fifteenth and sixteenth century explorers’ observations of
the “Indians” illustrate that there were both bad and good views of America’s
native inhabitants. Berkhofer highlights these early opposing views of Native
Americans when discussing Richard Hakluyt the Younger’s third volume of his
book, The Principal Navigations, Voyages,
Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation (1598-1600) (16-17). In
Hakluyt’s work, Dionyse Settle portrays a negative opinion toward Innuik Eskimos
due to their habit of eating animals and fish that they find dead, whereas
Arthur Barlowe contrasts this view of Native Americans when he notes that the
Roanoke Island inhabitants are “most gentle, loving, and faithful, void of all
guile, and treason” (qtd. in Berkhofer 16-17). Berkhofer’s discussion of how
Native Americans were viewed by early explorers and settlers substantiates
Dippie’s aforementioned claim of when the noble savage and ignoble savage
dichotomy first originated in America.
After
completing my research, I have without a doubt answered my question. I have
learned that the heralded discovery, exploration, and settlement of the New
World brought about the long-held view of Native Americans as being either a
noble savage or an ignoble savage. Moreover, my finding has caused me to
question if there were some other reasons behind the explorers’ stereotypes
besides the Native Americans’ behaviors and the explorer’s desire for the native
inhabitants’ lands. This research post has also opened my eyes and caused me to
reevaluate some of my thoughts and feelings about America’s discovery and
settlement. I deeply sympathize with the Native Americans, and I am troubled by
how badly they have been treated ever since the early discovery of America.
Although my conclusion casts a negative light on America’s early history, I
believe this information is beneficial since it helps illustrate to readers how
stereotypes can continue to persist for an extremely long time. Hopefully, by
learning the history of the noble savage and ignoble savage viewpoint of Native
Americans, individuals will be more careful to not create or blindly believe in
stereotypes about people or cultures that differ from their own.
Works
Cited
Berkhofer, Robert F., Jr. The White Man’s
Indian: Images of the American Indian
from
Dippie, Brian W. “American Indians: The Image of the Indian.”
National Humanities Center. National
Humanities Center, n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.
 |
 |
 |