In this activity, the first step was to find a definition of the words "savage" and "savagery." According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a savage is someone who is "not domesticated or under human control" and is "lacking the restraints normal to civilized human beings." According to the same dictionary, savagery is "a cruel or violent quality" or "a cruel or violent act or action." The next step was to read pages 18-21 of an online textbook passage from 1887. The final step was to use the search tool to find where the textbook refers to Indians as "savages" and read each of those passages.
If I were an American student reading this text as part of my schoolwork, I would probably view Native Americans as a group of people who were very independent and were not very aware of the world and people around them. One reason is because the Native Americans were very secluded to themselves. For example, they lived in huts made of poles and tree branches with their tribes and didn't come in contact with other people very often. I would also view the Native Americans as very hard-working, with the women doing all the work at the huts and the men doing all the hunting and fishing to provide food for their families. I would also think that the Indians were very violent. This is because the textbook says that the men were always carrying a number of weapons and were considered very brave if they had numerous large cuts and scars. Also, I would think that they were illiterate because it says that they had no books and only communicated among themselves by using figures. My final conclusion that would be made about Native Americans is that they were, well, savages. The textbook refers to Indians as savages about 19 times, and in most cases, it has to do with conflicts between the Indians (savages) and settlers. As a result of this, I would definitely think that Indians were under their own control and power rather than human control.
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