Savagism and Civility: Indians and Englishmen in Colonial Virginia

When the English settlers arrived in Virginia in 1607 they carried with them a fully developed mythology about native Indian cultures. This mythology was built around the body of English writing about America that began to appear in the 1550s, prior to any significant contact between the English and the native groups, and was founded upon the assumption of the savagism of the Indian and the civility of European culture. Professor Sheehan argues that English commitment to this myth was at th...