Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America (1782) by Benjamin Franklin looks into and reconsiders ideas of civility, barbarism, savageness, and manners and the prejudices underlying them while also considering and contrasting the habits and ways of Europeans and Natives. It frequently uses anecdotes and examples to solidify these points. Its major theme is to dissect European notions of behavior and outlook and present them in a binary with Native habits and practices defined by closeness to nature, absence of materialism, respectful treatment of outsiders, and well-ordered structure of society. Benjamin Franklin, remembered as one of the Founding Fathers of the United States was a polymath who excelled in many fields of arts and sciences. With reference to this text, he was an important figure within the Enlightenment movement, and his writings of Native Americans featured critiques of stereotypes and the European superiority complex whilst also presenting romantic descriptions of Native life and culture.
Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America | Summary & Analysis
Franklin starts off the essay by considering the basis on which Europeans call Native Americans ‘savages’, which is primarily different manners and the idea that Europeans are the epitome of civility. He remarks that if an impartial study of all cultures was conducted, no one would be able to find a society that had no traces of both politeness and rudeness. He then delves into the practices of Natives, talking about how in youth their men work as soldiers and practice oratory. Later they function as councillors. The women work on bringing up children and maintaining the household. Since they do possess artificial wants or live ‘laborious lives’ like Europeans they also have more time for leisure. He also described their system of education and governance.
He also cites incidents highlighting their so-called civility and politeness. He narrates how Native assemblies function in a calm and orderly manner in opposition to discussions in the British parliament where it’s difficult to rein in control. He also highlights how whether it is educational efforts or missionary activities, Native leaders always listen attentively and quietly and are very polite even when saying no and presenting their own history and culture. They are respectful of others’ privacy and territory and follow mutually accepted rules when it comes to visits and dialogue. They also have elaborate welcome and hospitality rituals. This is in complete contrast to European behavior which is rude, condescending, and refuses to accommodate alternative perspectives. He highlights the double standards of Europeans, who while pretending to be harbingers of civilisation and manners are themselves lacking in a mature outlook or behaviour. Throughout the essay, Franklin cites multiple experiences of his and of others he had heard from that exemplified these contrasts.
In the beginning, he talks about an incident when the Government of Virginia offered to finance education and maintenance of educating Indian youth at a college in Williamsburg under the Treaty of Lancaster. He mentions that in order to ensure that proper respect is given to the consideration, due time was taken to consider it instead of providing an immediate answer. Later, they politely rejected the proposal on the grounds that in the past when Indian youth had become acquainted with Western culture and education, they seemed to have lost their Native practices and habits. Instead, they made a counter-proposal in honor of the Europeans ‘kind offer’ and offered to educate white men in Native ways to make ‘men’ of them. This incident serves as a commentary on not only the deficits of the modern education system (such as the inability of men to fend for themselves, build houses, and fight against attacks or the weather) but also the superiority complex of Europeans who believe their cultures to be so high and might that they consider it a gift to the Natives.
He narrates another incident, where a Swedish missionary approached Susquehanna Indians and gave a sermon, with the purpose of initiating conversion. He repeated the whole story of Biblical history while the leaders listened patiently. Later, the leader complimented his narration and wished to tell their history. Upon finishing the story, the leader was appalled by the missionary’s extremely snobbish and disdainful attitude. He angrily remarked how whilst he and other Natives always patiently listened to the Europeans and their claims, the same respect and attention was never reciprocated towards them. Franklin uses this story to accentuate the hypocrisy of Europeans who never give up their pompous pretensions of conduct, demeanor, or civility but in actuality are constantly ill-mannered and discourteous.
He mentions how Europeans awkwardly stare at Natives whenever they enter towns and cities and make unnecessary remarks. He quotes the Natives being critical of such rudeness which can’t be explained by mere curiosity as even the Natives are curious of the outsiders but they are respectful about the same. He also details the gracious hospitality rules of the Natives who do not enter another nation’s territory without permission, when they are visiting another territory through permission or in need they are greeted well, and provided items of sustenance and other gifts collectively by everyone’s contribution. Franklin is perhaps hinting at the forceful and disrespectful nature of the European invasion of America, their complete disregard for the Native person and their space or dignity, as well as a completely inconsiderate and impolite attitude during visits and other interactions.
Lastly, he cites a story narrated to him by his interpreter Conrad Weiser. He had gone to visit an Indian leader on behalf of the Governor of the Council at Onondaga. During his conversation, Canassatego mentioned how once he had visited the town to do some trade, and learned that the merchant he usually deals with was unavailable at the moment since he had to attend the Church to learn ‘good things’. He sought to accompany him there but left upon seeing the official angry at his presence. Later the merchant told him that he would only make a trade at an amount lower than the previously decided one, and the same was repeated by all other merchants he met. He said that the meeting didn’t teach them any good things, and rather was a way to collectively decide how to cheat Indians. He said that Indians never needed a meeting to learn ‘good things’, which are inculcated in them naturally as they grow up. Canassatego also mentions how wherever Europeans traveled through Native land, they were treated well and provided whatever they required. In contrast, when they visit a European’s house or area, they are asked for money even for a glass of water, and are often abused.
Franklin’s last story is also a point in the selfish attitudes of Europeans, who hurl abuses at Natives unnecessarily, treat them as beings not worthy of their time, speech, or respect, and practice theft and cheating in the name of ‘good things’.
Throughout the essay, Benjamin Franklin constantly points out the deficits of European behavior and contrasts them with how Native Americans respond to their presence. This contrast is a means of developing and solidifying his argument on an unfair definition of civility, which was developed by Europeans to suit themselves, and now is misused to propose, develop, and continue prejudiced and discriminatory ideas and practices.
Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America | Background
Benjamin Franklin’s Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America was written in 1783. The late 18th century was a time when extensive ethnographic surveys and travel literature were being produced for the exploration and documentation of new cultures that the Europeans had come in contact with. This literature was also a part of ongoing debates on the definition of civility and savagism. On one side of the debates, Europeans connected themselves to their classical past and presented themselves as inheritors of history and culture and creators of modern civilized behavior. They understood colonialism as the process of extending civilization to barbaric and savage elements. On the other hand, those who were looking to criticize the failures of Europe’s cultural development characterized the ‘savage’ world as one in touch with the natural, often free of materialistic desires and living in a state of pre-modern civility.
Modern scholars treat both these intellectual trends as a process of cultural colonization functioning on a logic of the creation of a hierarchized binary between the self (the European) and the other (the Native American). In both, the Indians are otherized by either treating them as primitive savage beings in need of saving and progress or molded as critiques of modern Western civilization by molding them in self-serving stereotypes. Despite the vast differences in approach and characterization, both trends led to the creation of the Native as the other who existed in a peripheral relationship with the center.
Franklin falls to the second side of the debate, wherein his works such as Concerning the Savages of North America (1783) and Captivity of William Henry (1768) must be seen as attempts at deliberate stereotyping of Native culture and customs to use them as critiques of European civil society. He also constantly highlights qualities such as peaceful ideas of politics, the pursuit of leisure, the absence of material desires, primitive consumption practices, and other habits to create the image of a ‘natural man’ to fit into the idealized and utopian ideals of Early Romantics. Even while he is seemingly appreciative of Native culture, he still presents it in contrast with European culture; he refers to Europeans as ‘we’ and the savages as ‘they’. Besides his ideological motivations which meant that his texts can be best described as pseudo-ethnography since instead of presenting a comprehensive summary and analysis it rather only looks to compare and contrast, it is also important to look into immediate developments that form the context of the text’s production.
In 1782, Abbe Raynal had put out an offer in the Academie de Lyon to provide a prize to one who would write the best essay on the advantages and disadvantages of Europe’s colonization of the Americas. Among many scholarly trends pertinent at the moment, one was centered on the idea of replacing past violence and conquest with peaceful trade, which would serve to improve relations between settlers and Natives as well as increase possibilities of profit. In retrospect, it fits into the kind of analysis postcolonial scholars have provided on how colonialism and imperialism functioned in three stages wherein the initial was concerned with trade wars often maintained through political force, the latest and the third stage was concerned exclusively with finance imperialism and monopolization of markets.
Therefore, in a context where Europeans were looking to secure monopolies and profits, improvement of local relations and establishment of trade treaties and conventions along ‘fair lines’ would have become an important consideration. Benjamin’s Franklin critique of unfair trade towards the conclusion of his essay has been interpreted by scholars as a subtle proposition of promotion and protection of European interests through trade and commerce. This position is corroborated by his remarks in other texts such as Captivity of William Henry wherein he reiterates the idea that fair trade was the only solution to create ‘imperial harmony’. Fair trade, alongside the promotion of ‘natural religions’, formed two crucial elements in the works of mid-late 18th century French and British writers and philosophers, who understood these to be the means of further growth and stability, and it is in this context in which Franklin also wrote his works.
Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America | Literary Devices
Franklin’s essay is dense with irony and satire. He opens the essay by humoring Europeans for their self-constructed perception of themselves as the epitome of civility and how Natives must think the same.
‘Savages we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility; they think the same of theirs.’
By loosely defining civility from the very beginning and establishing its relative understanding, Franklin sets the stage for constantly making ironical references. Throughout the text he describes the problems of European ‘civility’ and the positives of Native ‘savageness’, he seeks to deconstruct the semantic value of civility as a concept, while also hinting at some considering the contrasting ways in which Europeans and Natives behave, one may use civility and barbarism interchangeably. His repeated reference to the problematic behavior of Europeans while referring them to civil society serves the purpose of irony,
For instance,
‘The good missionary, disgusted with this idle tale, said, “What I delivered to you were sacred truths; but what you tell me is mere fable, fiction and falsehood.”…’
He calls the missionary ‘good’ while also highlighting how he was disrespectful to the Native leader who had patiently listened to the missionary’s story.
‘…“They meet there,” says Conrad, “to hear and learn good things.”…’
Franklin always writes ‘good things’ always in Italics, mocking the discussions of the meeting which are supposedly positive and helpful discourse but is centered around how the Europeans can collaborate to make the life and work of the Natives more difficult.
Benjamin Franklin also used anecdotes. A majority of this text is written in the form of stories narrated by Franklin, either his own or those which he had heard from his friends and colleagues.
‘The same hospitality, esteemed among them as a principal virtue, is practiced by private persons; of which Conrad Weiser, our interpreter, gave me the following instance.’
‘An instance of this occurred at the Treaty of Lancaster in Pennsylvania, anno 1744, between the government of Virginia and the Six Nations.’
He uses specific stories and events as examples to further his point more descriptively and with proof. Anecdotes are used with the purpose of adding depth to the central narrative or argument by referring to other stories and events that refer to and develop similar themes as in the original text.
Additionally, Franklin also uses rhetorical questions. These are self-answering questions, where the answer is either obvious enough or openly discussed in the body of the text. They are of persuasive value and are used to make the reader rethink past perceptions and question internalized beliefs, a discussion on which is usually present in the text.
For instance, he quotes a Native leader saying,
‘…You saw that we, who understand and practice those rules, believed all your stories; why do you refuse to believe ours?”…’
It is obvious that the Christian missionary is bigoted and unopened to alternative perspectives, and hence refuses to listen or understand what the Native leader serves him. The question then serves to make the missionary in the story and the reader in real-time question their self-defined notions of superiority and civility,
Quoting another leader, Franklin writes,
‘…I have been sometimes at Albany, and have observed that once in seven days they
shut up their shops, and assemble all in the great house; tell me, what is it for? What do they do there?”…’
The leader had already asked others what people discuss in these meeting halls and agreed to the answer the other European visiting gave him as well (that is ‘good things’), yet he goes on to tell his experience in the town and how that makes him believe that no ‘good things’ are discussed in these meetings and that their agendas are solely defined by the need to scam and ill-treat Natives. The question in the beginning is merely supposed to make the other character and the reader reevaluate our perhaps ill-informed notion of what purpose certain items, events, or processes serve.
