The Noble Savage, Ignoble Savage and Conflict Imagery

Before the full results of westward expansion and Jacksonian Indian relocation policies were felt, American and European artists portrayed Indians in an idealized and romanticized manner. In one sense, the depiction of the noble-yet-savage Indian arose as means of preserving an element of North American society that was rapidly disappearing. These images presented Indians as embodying the virtuous characteristics of the Enlightenment, and showed them existing almost entirely apart from civilization and the influences of white society.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the most common artistic representation of Native Americans was the ignoble savage. Guided by the need to justify westward expansion in the name of Manifest Destiny, white America began to portray Indians as bloodthirsty savages who simply impeded the progress of white civilization. No longer were Indians shown as dwellers of the wilderness, but instead they became barbaric savages who wantonly attacked wagon trains, soldiers, and white settlers-especially innocent white women and children. Other representations of the ignoble savage emphasized the reckless killings of wild animals, including buffalo. Whites believed that Indian hunting methods were inefficient and less civilized than their own.

Images depicting the conflict between whites and Indians became widespread during the mid-nineteenth century. These paintings always portrayed Native Americans as the aggressors. Victories by Indians were seen as massacres, while victories by whites were simply a fulfillment of the notion of Manifest Destiny and a reaffirmation of the superiority of white Americans. One of the most telling signs of conflict imagery from this period is the depiction of defenseless white victims of Indian attacks. Families of helpless white settlers were often shown as victims of wild and uncontrollable savages. Thus, through art, the violent conflicts between whites and Indians came to represent the struggle between the forces of civilization and savagery.

Sasha Lourie