The "Tempest " in the Wilderness- Takaki Ch 2

The author of this article concludes with the distinction between savagery and civilization. He shows how people such as Columbus and Jefferson believed the Indians and the Irish were pure savages and needed to be civilized and colonized. The author also makes a comparison and connection between the Shakespearean play entitled The Tempest. The author stated “it was almost as if Shakespeare had lifted the material from contemporary documents about the New World”. Shakespeare even made connections to the names of the characters as Caliban could be rearranged to san “cannibal” along with Amleth being rearranged to be Hamlet. The English also distinctly compared the Indians to the Irish by saying they were both the same with a difference of culture. They were noted to be “cruel, barbarous, and most treacherous”. The main argument that is described in this reading is examples of how the Indians and Irish were simply harmless at first when discovering the New World. John Smith described how the Powhatans cared for the sick and dying English men. To me, the English men simply took advantage of the Indians and eventually destroyed them because they wanted what the Indians had. The English wanted more than just a part of the Indian territory; they wanted it all. The Indians simply struck back for their land that had been taken straight from them. After the 300 so men and women who were killed by the Indians, the colonist then declared that the land was theirs for all of their pain and suffering by the Indians. What about all of the pain and suffering the Indians went through in defending their own land? There is no evidence in this reading that tells us that the Indians were the ones who were doing the killing and the taking of the land. No the English men were. I believe that the English men are the ones who completely made the Indians as well as the Irishmen the “savages”. By creating these monsters of people, the English then tried to take their land and killing them by saying that they were “civilizing” them.