Savagism and Civilization

A Study of the Indian and the American Mind

af Roy Harvey Pearce

Examines the political pamphlets, missionaries' reports, anthropologists' accounts, and the novels of the 18th and early 19th centuries. This book traces the conflict between the idea of the noble savage and the will to Christianize the heathen and appropriate their land, which ended with the near extermination of Native American culture.