How We Know
Why do non-Indian Americans think about Indians the way they do, and what are the consequences? Scholars have explored these questions by analyzing the images of “Indianness” used by Americans. From colonial times forward, “Indian” figures or characters appeared in visual form–paintings, photographs, cartoons, home furniture and accessories, pageants and public shows, advertisements, film, and logos. Portrayals of “Indians” also occurred in songs, jokes, and games. Indian imagery has two themes: ignoble and noble qualities. Scholars argue that such imagery served and serves a purpose—to reconcile the contradiction between the ideals of national honor and the actual treatment of Indians in America. As this viewpoint gained wide acceptance in the 1970s, anthropologists, historians, and other scholars worked to expunge biases and incorporate Native perspectives into their work.
Americans’ ideas about Indians were shaped by their colonial history. Beginning with Columbus, Indians were represented as either “noble” (healthy, free, guileless, in harmony with nature, exotic, cooperative, and uncorrupted by “civilized” institutions such as government or religion) or “ignoble” (ferocious, warlike, wild, degraded). Europeans sent missionaries to convert and officials to negotiate for land purchase or trade with the “willing” noble savage. Any resistance to European terms by ignoble savages became “just cause” for military subjugation.
During the Revolutionary War and for generations after, Americans relied on Noble Savage imagery to help establish a national identity and to justify making treaties with Indians. Ignoble Savage imagery rationalized war and dispossession through violence.
Americans who protested against British rule commonly dressed as Noble “Indians,” who represented freedom and an ancient association with North America, rather than with Europe. Men’s organizations took on this Indian theme in subsequent years as an expression of American patriotism.
Treaties (from 1785 to the 1820s in the Midwest) were represented as “expansion with honor” because Indians ostensibly gave their consent to land cessions in return for assistance to survive as communities. Imagery of treaty councils portrayed Indians as willing subordinates.
On the other hand, frontiersmen opposed the treaty policy and trespassed and committed hostile acts in Indian country. Indians retaliated as they tried to defend their homeland, which led to war against Indians in the Midwest in 1790-95. Imagery of Indians as violent and bestial both reflected and reinforced frontier sentiments.
By the 1820s, the federal government began to promote a new solution to the problem of how to transfer Indian land to U. S. citizens, the “Removal Policy.” Officials vigorously pursued this effort to move Indians west of the Mississippi River during the 1830s and 1840s, effectively disregarding the treaties that had guaranteed land to Indians in their homeland. The “republicanism” of the Constitution (which gave control of the government to men who owned property) gave way to the new ideal of “democracy,” ostensibly based on majority rule, free enterprise, minimal government that benefited all alike, and individual opportunity. Without land ownership, social mobility was unlikely, so the proponents of democracy were settlers in the frontier region and other landless Americans, who supported Indian removal.
The national narrative was that Indians, regarded as inferior to White people, were doomed to extinction. Removal treaties, that provided land and assistance to help Native people survive elsewhere, would be their only salvation. The federal government would offer Indians (declared “wards” of the government by the Supreme Court) protection and assistance. Indian imagery both reflected these views and promoted them. “Noble” Indians were portrayed as doomed or pitiful, not capable of being part of American society. Indians who resisted removal were portrayed as obstacles to progress in the ignoble savage tradition, which rationalized war against them.
After the removal of most of the Native peoples in the Midwest area (and the military defeat of tribes west of the Mississippi River), the federal government devoted more resources to the “civilization” program and ended treaty-making with tribes. Those tribes on reservations saw their land divided into individually-owned plots and the remainder sold. Federal agents on the reservations had the power to deny their wards freedom of religion, parental rights, and self-government, and they controlled tribal and individuals’ property. Non-Indians were able to obtain Indian land and resources (such as timber) very cheaply, because the prevailing policy was that non-Indians would make better use of them. The rationale for this kind of treatment was that Indians would benefit from civilization. When, instead, poverty and graft resulted from reservation life, Indians were blamed as deficient.
The Noble Indian imagery, in which Indians were associated with a past Golden Age, remained popular in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Americans were nostalgic about Indians in the past. They could draw on this imagery to sell products and develop tourism. Indian imagery also was used to create personal or group identities (for example, as Boy Scouts, countercultural activists, or sports fans). By their preoccupation with Indians of the past, Americans could ignore the circumstances of contemporary Indian life.
How did Americans represent “noble” Indians in the Great Lakes region and why was this imagery popular?
Perfume Advertisement, 1885
The woman on this trade card for Indian Queen Perfume (Bear and Brother Co.) is demure, exotic, and elegantly dressed—the image of the Indian Princess. The Princess is the female version of the Noble Indian; the "Squaw" is the Bad Indian. In the forest, this princess figure extracts the essence from the flower for the benefit of the customer. Indians were a common source of imagery in advertising, especially for patent medicines, which were marketed as Indian potions. Indians of the past were seen as having a unique communion with nature and its curative powers. By the late 1880s, Native people no longer were a threat to Americans, and, in fact, were often socially invisible. So in the advertisements they appear romanticized and exotic. These kinds of ads that depict minorities in caricatures created a sense of middle class consumer solidarity that helped sales. Photo by Brian Mornar, courtesy of Newberry Library.
Land O Lakes
The Indian maiden on the carton is shown as part of nature and dressed in what the artist imagined as 19th century clothing. She is a "princess" character, helpful to Americans, in this case offering them a healthful product associated with the Great Lakes region. Photo courtesy of Brian Mornar.
Winnebago Indians at Stand Rock, postcard, ca. 1913
These Ho-Chunks are at the landing of the steamboat "Winnebago." They were performing at Stand Rock Amphitheater for an audience of tourists. This postcard helped attract tourists and shaped what they thought about Indians. "Real" Indians were associated with "long ago and far away," dressed in 19th century Plains clothing, and dancing. These Ho-Chunks actually were entrepreneurs working as professional entertainers. Other kinds of jobs were difficult for them to get, but jobs as entertainers served the interests of the tourist industry in Wisconsin. Photo by H. H. Bennett Studio, courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society (34535).
Highway Map, Minnesota, 1924
This road map was available to tourists and was intended to encourage travel by auto up into the recreational regions of the state. The modern buildings and cars and attractive, modern housing take center stage. The "Indian" is in the wilderness, partially clothed and barefoot, seemingly estranged from modern Minnesota. On the other hand, he projects an exotic image that promotes tourism in the state at a time when Indian performers were working in the state parks and elsewhere. (Newberry Library, Road Map4C G4141.P2 1924 .R3).
Playing Indian
This commercial photo was staged and taken by H. H. Bennett, ca. 1905. He entitled it "Boat Cave." In the photo, three White men impersonate Indians spearing fish, hunting with a bow and arrow, and paddling a canoe in a dark (and dangerous?) cavern. They wear chicken-feather headdresses and drape themselves in blankets. The men are enacting scenes from an imagined Ho-Chunk past. Americans imitated certain features of imagined Indian life in all sorts of situations in order to construct individual or collective identities. The men in the boat are affirming their identity as outdoorsmen, brave and athletic. Bennett does not report what they did in their everyday lives. Photo by H. H. Bennett, ca. 1905, modern print from an original stereographic glass negative, courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society (7264).
Read one scholar’s analysis of “The Song of Hiawatha” (1855), which became America’s best known narrative poem and helped to shape national identity
Alan Trachtenberg explores the role of “The Song of Hiawatha” in American life. The poem was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose chief source was the work of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who published Ojibwa stories about a supernatural being who both helped and harmed humans. Longfellow renamed him Hiawatha, after a heroic Iroquois figure. Longfellow’s poem became a folk tradition for Americans, and “Hiawatha,” the “good Indian,” appeared in coloring books, songs, performances, visual art, and other contexts. In discussing the end of the poem, when Hiawatha departs his homeland, Trachtenberg writes:
Longfellow contrived “a ‘departure’ scene, an Indian ‘assumption’ of a dead or dying god figure redeeming a nation that had in real life spilled oceans of blood and inflicted immeasurable bodily pain to achieve its dominance . . . . Repeated performance of gentle Hiawatha’s farewell passion displaced and substituted for a history of actual blood sacrifice . . . and it gave the nation an aestheticized version of its own unspoken historical memory.” From Alan Trachtenberg, Shades of Hiawatha, 2004, pp. 87-88
Read these stanzas from the end of The Song of Hiawatha [1855], 1911 by Longfellow. Can you find the imagery which Trachtenberg uses to convey these themes: Hiawatha’s nobility and welcoming of the White man. His willing departure in the face of a superior way of life that became available to his people. What emotion is evoked by these images? “sun descending,” “clouds on fire,” and “westward Hiawatha sailed into the fiery sunset, the purple vapors, the dusk of evening”?
And the noble Hiawatha,
With his hands aloft extended,
Held aloft in sign of welcome.
Waited, full of exultation,
Till the birch canoe with paddles
Grated on the shining pebbles,
Stranded on the sandy margin,
Till the Black-Robe chief, the Pale-face,
With the cross upon his bosom,
Landed on the sandy margin.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Forth into the village went he,
Bade farewell to all the warriors,
Bade farewell to all the young men,
Spake persuading, spake in this wise:
“I am going, O my people,
On a long and distant journey;
Many moons and many winters
Will have come, and will have vanished,
Ere I come again to see you.
But my guests I leave behind me;
Listen to their words of wisdom,
Listen to the truth they tell you,
For the Master of Life has sent them
From the land of light and morning!”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And the evening sun descending
Set the clouds on fire with redness,
Burned the broad sky, like a prairie,
Left upon the level water
One long track and trail of splendor,
Down whose stream, as down a river,
Westward, westward Hiawatha
Sailed into the fiery sunset,
Sailed into the purple vapors,
Sailed into the dusk of evening.
(pages 219-20, 224-25)
The image of the ignoble Indian survived into the 20th century, as well. In contrast to Indians in the past, Indian contemporaries were no longer “noble” but, rather, degraded (lazy, corrupted, even “fake”), particularly when they challenged the status quo.
What scholars argue is that Indians have been and are treated as alien to American society, on the one hand, and a necessary part of national identity, on the other. Indian imagery, as used by Americans works to reconcile the tension between American ideals and the harsh reality of Indians’ treatment.
Listen to historian Dave Edmunds explain how imagery associated with Tecumseh changed over time to accommodate American interests
Academic publications, as well as textbooks and films, have promoted this Noble/Ignoble Indian imagery. In recent years, scholars have recognized the distortions inherent in this kind of Indian imagery and committed to acknowledging or incorporating Native interpretations, viewpoints, and explanations into their work. In this spirit, Native American studies programs have been established at major universities in the Midwest region.
Listen to ethnohistorian Ray Demallie explain how the writings of Charles Eastman helped him gain a better understanding of Dakota culture and history
Museum professionals also have committed to acknowledging the importance of Native participation.
Listen to anthropologist Nancy Lurie explain how the Milwaukee Indian community took a major role in planning a new exhibit area at the Milwaukee Public Museum
The powwow exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum not only was planned by local Indian people, but they also posed for the facial casts of the dancers and made the dance outfits.
Would you like to hear more about the powwow exhibit?
Mémoires, 1705
This is an illustration from Mémoires de l’Amérique septentrionale, a narrative by Louis Armand de Lom d’Arce, Baron de Lahontan, a French officer who interacted with the Indians in Canada, including Ojibwas and Ottawas. This detail, “Sauvages of Canada” shows, left to right: a man going to the hunt, an elderly man walking through the village, a young man walking. The female carries an infant. The Indians are drawn in a classical European style. Instead of portraying male warriors, the Indians represented are male and female, old and young. Lahontan shows the Indians, who the French want to convert to Christianity, as noble savages receptive to missionary work. This noble imagery is intended to generate support for missionaries. Louis Lahontan, Voyages du baron de la Hontan, dans l’Amérique septentrionale (Newberry Library, Ayer 123 .L16 1705, v. 2, pg. 94-95).
Habit of an Ottawa Indian
The man’s classical stance and exotic look are typical of representations of “noble savages” in the early 18th century. The man is drawn wearing many items of European manufacture: cloth, metal gorget, beads. The image suggests that he is an eager trading partner; thus, he is portrayed as noble. Photo courtesy of Mackinac State Parks Collection, Michigan.
The Tea-Tax-Tempest, 1778
This engraving by Carl Gottleib Guttenberg (1743-90) was entitled, “The Tea-Tax-Tempest, or the Anglo-American Revolution.” Here, Guttenberg represents a satirical view of the Boston Tea Party. The character “Time” uses a magic lantern to show on a curtain an allegorical representation of the Revolution. Watching are four female figures that represent the four continents: America (partially clothed with bow and arrow and feathered headdress), Africa, Asia (holding a lantern), and Europe (with shield). Stamps are burning in the teapot on the fire. A cock (the emblem of France) blows on the fire with a bellows. The torn flag with three leopards represents Britain. On the right American soldiers advance, led by an allegorical figure of an Indian woman, partially clothed and wearing a feathered headdress, who reaches for the cap and staff of liberty. On the left, British soldiers flee. The artist associates the nationalist, protest movement of the American colonists with Indian imagery, a common perspective in Europe. Guttenberg was born and trained in Germany and lived in Paris. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photograph Division (LC-USZC4-4601).
Order of Red Men Certificate
This is the 1889 membership certificate of the “Improved Order of Red Men” (the reorganized Society of Red Men, established in 1816 shortly after the War of 1812). The Society of Red Men, initially founded by veterans, was focused on associating the “Indian” with anti-British sentiment, and it offered aid to its members and their families. They considered themselves an elite but felt anxious about social change. They associated their group with the ancient wisdom of the aborigines. The images on the certificate represent Indians in the past, engaged in hunting, warfare, religious ceremonies, and treaties. The Improved Order of Red Men was organized in 1834. This men’s organization had regalia, names, and rituals modeled after Indians. The membership was divided into “tribes,” and there were many such groups in Ohio and Indiana. By 1935 there were 500,000 members; today, about 38,000. They consider themselves descended from the Sons of Liberty, who participated in the Boston Tea Party and other protests against the British, dressed as “Indians.” In fact, the independence movement made considerable use of flags and handbills with Indian imagery. Certificate designed by P. Gorham and P. Hollis, photo courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division (pga.03413).
William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians, 1771
This oil painting by Benjamin West (1738-1820) represents Penn’s meeting with the Delaware in 1682 and portrays Penn and the colonists as proponents of peace. The Indian figures seem eager to exchange bales of cloth for land. In the background are “civilization” images (ships and houses under construction in the forest), which contrast with the “primitive” Indian people and imply that the colonists are bringing a better life to the Indians. This painting actually is a representation of treaties in general, not the 1682 council. The idyllic setting and subservient poses of the Indians suggest that Indians ceded land willingly. Actually, the colonists pursued war to expel Indians from their lands. West’s painting rationalizes the land loss as something positive for the willing and “noble,” but inferior, Indians. Painting by Benjamin West, courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, gift of Mrs. Sarah Harrison (The Joseph Harrison, Jr. Collection), pafa.org.
Andrew Jackson, the Great Father, engraving, ca. 1830
President Jackson is portrayed as a protector of vulnerable, needy, and subservient Indians, who appear childlike (or even like dolls, that can be manipulated). Jackson, representing the federal government is shown as a father figure. Actually, Jackson used executive power to force Indian removal. At this time, when Indians in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were being removed from their homelands despite promises made by the U. S. in earlier treaty councils, portraying the president’s removal policy as beneficent toward Indians rationalizes a policy that resulted in severe hardship and population loss for Indians. Drawing courtesy of University of Michigan, Clements Library.
General Harrison and Tecumseh, lithograph, 1860
This scene represents a meeting between Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison at Vincennes in August 1810. Tecumseh is portrayed as a large, muscular, threatening Indian who reacted to Harrison with violence without provocation. This image of Tecumseh helped to justify the violence against and the removal of Native people from the Ohio Valley. If they were so uncivilized as to be unable to negotiate, then their extinction was unavoidable. This illustration was based on a drawing by Chapin and W. Ridgway, published by Virtue & Co. in 1860. Drawing courtesy of Indiana Historical Society (P483)
Move On, 1894
Illustration from History of the United States. In Bill Nye’s text, this illustration by F. Opper is entitled “Move On, Maroon Brother, Move On!” The negative image of a ragged, caricatured Indian being pushed off a cliff by a robust character (“Civilization”) under a setting sun gives expression to the sentiments of proponents of westward expansion. The Indian is vilified in order to rationalize the removal of Indians from their homes. The passage in the text being illustrated argues that Indians are not “noble”: “the real Indian . . . he lies, he steals, he assassinates, he mutilates, he tortures.” Drawing by F. Opper in Bill Nye, History of the United States (Newberry Library, F 83 .64, p. 317).
The Departure of Hiawatha, 1868
The artist Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) was a prominent American painter of landscapes who trained in Europe. This small 7 X 8 inch oil on paper work was presented by Bierstadt to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as a gift. The painting evokes strong emotion. The imposing sunset suggests that the Indian way of life is over, but the sunset is not gloomy; rather, the color and light produce an almost religious aura. The small Indian figures seem part of or encompassed by nature. Hiawatha represents the heroic Indian of the past. The disappearance of Indians, the painting suggests, was inevitable and complete. This powerful image of Indians belonging to the past, not the present, made it easy for Americans to ignore Indian issues in contemporary times. Courtesy of National Park Service, Longfellow House—Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.
Lo, the Poor Indian, 1875
This lithograph by Vance, Parsloe and Co. ridicules the Indian of the time. He is shown drunk, with torn, mixed White and Indian style clothing. His face has a foolish countenance. He carries useless “tools”: a rifle, hatchet, and knife. The phrase at the bottom, “Oh why does the White man follow my path!” possibly mocks the “noble savage” imagery that also was being used in the late 19th century. This rendering works to rationalize the federal government’s breach of treaty agreements and the fraudulent management of Indian property and funds that characterized these times. The phrase “Lo, the poor Indian,” is from Alexander Pope’s 18th century “An Essay on Man”: “Lo, the poor Indian whose untutor’d mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.” Pope’s imagery illustrates the noble savage theme. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Publications Division (LC-USZ62- 92901).
Political Cartoon, 1888
This cartoon, a reproduction of a drawing by Edward Windsor Kemble, is entitled “Aboriginal Susceptibility.” It is a caricature of two “agency” Indians. The men are given ridiculous “Indian” names. Man With Frayed Ear asks, “What for you cry?” Man Afraid of Red Headed Horse replies, “Injun think what dam shame he’s Injun.” The appearance of the men and the non-standard dialect of English (a stereotype in itself) rationalize and make fun of Indian poverty, suggesting that Indians themselves are to blame. One Indian man wears a blanket marked U. S. property, suggesting dependence. The men are overweight with darkened and big-nosed faces, suggesting corruption. In the background are a well-dressed woman and a soldier conversing, oblivious to the Indians, with good reason, it appears. This cartoon was published in Puck’s Library, in an issue devoted to “out West” themes that made fun of Indians. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division (LC-USZ62-55997).
Family Circus Cartoon, April 20, 2002
The boy playing “Indian” links his identity to a casino and, wearing a tuxedo, sends a message that he is wealthy. The cartoon suggests that Indians are not “real” if they own a profit-making business—in fact, they appear ridiculous. The boy in the tuxedo also conveys the idea that casinos have made Indians rich from unearned income. To modern Americans, “real” Indians are not competent business owners who are successful. That situation conflicts with the common stereotype of Indian poverty and dependence. So Indians who own casinos must be somehow “fake.” Actually, tribes, not individuals, own casinos and the profits are put into community development projects. But the hostility toward Indian casinos also reflects resentment toward Indian competition with other gaming interests and a general resentment of attempts to change the status quo. The ridiculing of Indian gaming and other forms of backlash make it more difficult for tribal businesses to succeed. Family Circus ©2002, Bil Keane, Inc., King Features Syndicate.
Do you want to do your own research on Indian Imagery?
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This page references:
- William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians, 1771
- Political Cartoon, 1888
- Playing Indian
- The Tea-Tax-Tempest, 1778
- The Departure of Hiawatha, 1868
- Move On, 1894
- Lo, the Poor Indian, 1875
- Andrew Jackson, the Great Father, ca. 1830
- Perfume Advertisement, 1885
- General Harrison and Tecumseh, lithograph, 1860
- Habit of an Ottawa Indian
- Land O Lakes
- Order of Red Men Certificate
- Winnebago Indians at Stand Rock, postcard, ca. 1913
- Highway Map, Minnesota, 1924
- Family Circus Cartoon, April 20, 2002
