19662 - Imagining the Indian: The Good, The Bad, The Poorly Drawn

Course Overview

In Colonial literature, there were vivid descriptions of Native peoples which permeated the diaries, journals, and writings of explorers and academics alike and shortly thereafter many drew these new people. The lurid descriptions were one part of the equation, on the other were the images of Native Americans which were sometimes used to promote views of uncivilized people, as oddities or exotics. In this lecture I will go over some of the views and many images on the colonial depiction of Native Peoples in what is now New England and Maritime Canada. We will then discuss the stereotypes and how these images by non-Europeans could be used to justify these stereotypes from the European view and how these have lasted.