Native American Stereotypes in Literature

Historically, Western White society has portrayed Native American societies as utopias that we canlook to for political, spiritual, and artistic inspiration. For example, Columbus’s original “Letters ofDiscovery” began this tradition by writing the natives as a primitive, pure, communal society, andMontaigne’s “Of the Cannibals” continued this tradition with his similar portrayal of native peoples.Such portrayals ultimately lead to harmful stereotypes, expectations, and marginalization of NativeAmerican people by White society. With the aid of Robert Berkhofer Jr’s The White Man’s Indian,this essay explores the idea of the noble savage in conjunction with utopian ideals and breaks downthe process by which Native ways of life have been falsely portrayed as utopias. Additionally, itexplores the consequences of such stereotypical depictions and looks at attempts to dispel suchutopian myths.