The white man's Indian : images of the American Indian, from Columbus to the present

Summary: An account of the stereotypes Europeans and white Americans have concocted about the "Indian." The author traces the development of the stereotyped images of the American Indian and the misconceptions that have sustained a regrettable lack of understanding on the part of Euro-Americans.

Record details

ISBN: 9780394727943
ISBN: 0394727940
Physical Description: xvii, 261 pages, [8] pages of plates : illustrations ; 21 cm
regular print
print
Edition: First Vintage books edition.
Publisher: New York : Vintage Books, 1979.
Copyright: ©1978

Content descriptions

General Note:	"V-794" -- front cover
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-250) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	[pt. 1:] The idea of the Indian : invention and perpetuation -- The Spanish legacy of name and imagery -- French and English terms and images -- Significance of Indian as a general category and conception -- Persisting fundamental images and themes -- [pt. 2:] From religion to anthropology : the genealogy of the scientific image of the Indian -- Christian cosmogony and the problem of Indian origins -- Environmentalism and the varieties of the human species in enlightenment thought -- The idea of progress and the state of savagery in the history of mankind -- Evolutionism and primitive peoples in nineteenth-century anthropology -- "scientific" racism and human diversity in nineteenth-century social sciences -- Cultural anthropology and the modern conception of Indians -- [pt. 3:] Imagery in literature, art, and philosophy : the Indian in white imagination and ideology -- European primitivism, the noble savage, and the American Indian -- Puritanism, the wilderness, and savagery as divine metaphors -- The Indian and the rise of an American art and literature -- The western and the Indian in popular culture -- From racial stereotype to "realism" in the literary Indian -- [pt. 4:] Imagery and white policy : the Indian as justification and rationale -- The colonial foundations of white Indian policy : theory -- The colonial foundations of white Indian policy : practice -- Early united states policy : expansion with honor -- Expansion with honor : problems in practice -- Democracy, American liberalism, and Indian policy in the nineteenth century -- Democracy and removal : defining the status of the Indian -- Reservations and allotment : acculturation and detribalization -- A new deal for native Americans : cultural pluralism in practice -- The modem period : historic reversal or reversion?