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Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America

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Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America
Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America

In the “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” Benjamin Franklin writes about the Native American people and their way of life. In Benjamin Franklin’s essay he shows that the Native American people are far from savages. He explains how they are indeed civilized people. He says “perhaps, if we examine the manners of different nations with the impartiality, we should find no people so rude, as not to have some remains of rudeness.” The reason the Native Americans were called “savages” was because their rules of common civility, religion, laws and culture were different from the American culture and being that we were just socializing we did not understand their way of life.
Franklin wanted people to know that the Native Americans were far from “savages” he in fact went on to express how they were and still are regular human beings. He explained how the Indian men were the backbone of their culture. The young Indian men were the warriors and hunters, the older Indians were counselors. He said “for all their government was a counsel of the sages; there was no force, there was no prisons, no officers to compel obedience, or inflict punishment.” They governed their own community. He explained how the women would dress the food, nurse and raise the children, running the household. It was the woman’s duty to imprint and communicate it to their children being there was no writings. They had their own way to interpret and communicate. This was the way they preserved information and traditions in their culture. In 1744 the government of Virginia and the Six Nations came to an agreement with the commissioners from Virginia and spoke to the chief Indians telling them in a college will be established in Williamsburg with paid funding for the education of young Indians. All the six nations had to do was send a half a dozen of their young indians to that college and the government of Virginia would of provided all

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