"savagism" - 1 õppematerjal

American Literature

By the time Cooper started writing The Leatherstocking Tales, the native population had been virtually eliminated from the upstate New York area, and "the frontier had been pushed across the Missouri." Cooper himself had little or no personal contact with Native Americans, just like the vast majority of his contemporary readers, who, to borrow Randall C. Davis's words, "accepted without hesitation the distinction between 'savagism' and 'civilization' as an explanation for Native Americans' perceived inabilities to assimilate neatly into EuroAmerican society." Though widely viewed as a sympathizer, if not a staunch advocate, for Native Americans, "Cooper was ambivalent about the westering advance of the society to which he belonged." Perhaps that is the reason why he did not clearly reveal in The Leatherstocking Tales his stand on the cultural clashes between the whites and the natives, especially