American Indians True Savage Analysis

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A majority of the English population thought of the Natives in the New World as savages, for the English believed the Natives Americans were subservient to the English due to the fact that the English possessed guns and produced steel. The attitude of English supremacy over the Virginian Indians in regards to their practices of survival and their interactions among each other as a community in the Jamestown settlement resulted in them becoming the true savages during the Starving Time in 1609-10 as well as during the early days of the establishment of Virginia as a colony. The Virginian Indians knew not to settle in a certain place along the river because of the salt water that comes in from the Chesapeake Bay. Alternatively, the English …show more content…

The colonists “took to eating the dead,” (Hume, 3) while the Virginian Indians did not eat any of their own. It was a popular belief in the Americas that the Natives would eat each other. The tale is not completely wrong in regards to the people further south, such as the Aztecs, who cannibalized social outcasts for their religious practices. However, the Virginian Indians did not practice cannibalism while the colonists turned to cannibalism as a means of survival. Both the Virginian Indians and the English colonists had social classes, yet there was a tighter knit community among the Virginian Indians. The English colonists, on the other hand, are under the superiority of the Virginia Company who disregarded the colony's request for skilled workers, almost leaving the colonists under a death sentence. Rather than sending the requested persons, the Virginia Company sends more settlers, or simply more mouths to feed in the eyes of the