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“Of Fine Shape and Stature, but Indomitable and Savage:”

Representations of the Savage in French Enlightenment Discourse

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Introduction

The “savage” constitutes a distinctive category of French

Enlightenment thought, because it engendered polarity in French

social commentary. French philosophers during the eighteenth

century articulated their views using descriptions of “savages”

taken from exploration accounts.1 In writing about the “savages,”

the French saw themselves as more advanced in culture and

civilization than the indigenous populations they encountered in

their travels. At the same time, many philosophers of France used

descriptions of the lifestyle, the mores, and the culture of

indigenous populations in their discourses in order to critique

their own social and cultural system.2 Through the eighteenth

1 Although the term “savage” has had a negative connotation throughout the history of its usage, I am using it to denote what writers during the eighteenth century would have written about non-European indigenous populations of the world, such as the Iroquois in North America or the Khoi insouthern Africa. 2 As Steeves argues, “One view considered him to be the epitome of a primitive, happier mode of life, a lost Eden, a sylvan Arcadia, a golden age, a veritable Utopia…Another view saw him as a creature barely above beasts…” Steeves, 103

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century, this sense of both cultural superiority and amenability

to learning from the merits of “savage” societies proceeded in

tandem in philosophic discourse and travel literature. However,

by the end of the eighteenth century, there was a decline in

describing the merits of savages and the image of the “ignoble”

savage began to eclipse the “noble,” although romanticizing the

idea of the savage did not disappear entirely. Ultimately, the

combined sense of cultural and civilized superiority would

justify the civilizing mission in the nineteenth century.

As French government officials, missionaries, and scientists

brought back accounts of seemingly uncivilized men, the French

were fascinated, repulsed, and entranced by cultures radically

different from their own. Travel literature was immensely popular

during the eighteenth century, and it ignited conversations among

Enlightenment thinkers about different aspects of culture and

civilization: what defined “civilization?” How was a human

different from an animal? Annie Jacob speaks to the huge

proliferation of travel literature when she says, “Ces récits ont

fait l’objet d’éditions multiples; ils étaient lus et souvent

commentés par les Européens lettrés. Et cette source

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d’information fut très importante dans l’évolution des idées

occidentales entre le XVIe et le XVIIIe siècle.’’3 Discussion of

travel reports was decisvie for the popularization of the savage,

because philosophes and intellectuals created a network for

communicating ideas concerning primitive peoples. Furthermore,

discussion of such texts was not simply a pastime but it created

an intellectual stimulus for philosophers and scientists.

Commentary on the savage often provided a vehicle for social

assessment. As Sankar Muthu has pointed out, “…the primary

purpose of such accounts was not to produce an accurate

ethnography…but to foster social criticism.”4 Quite often,

writers did not provide a factual account of the people or lands

they encountered, nor did they care to do so. Writers, whether

writing first- or secondhand, used the immense popularity of the

texts to propagate their own philosophic commentary on social

issues.

As men sailed across the world during the Age of

Exploration, they wrote accounts of their voyages as personal 3 These stories were made into multiple editions; they were often read and discussed by European scholars. And this source of information was very important in the evolution of Western ideas between the sixteenth and eighteenth century.” Jacob, 284 Muthu, 20

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memoires, scientific logs, missionary, or governmental reports.

Travel literature had become burgeoning genre by the eighteenth

century. Anthony Pagden argues that, “Travel became a central

part of the humanist educational programme…Travel quite literally

broadened the mind.”5 Travel literature affected both the voyager

and the reader, in that it gave the voyager a memento of his

journey and the reader some of the experience of that he would

not have otherwise obtained. Kommers speaks to the “tremendous

popularity” of literature focused on traveling by noting that

thousands of travel books, pamphlets, and periodicals were

published during the eighteenth century.6 The emerging

industrialization and technology made dissemination of

information much easier, and it embedded images of the savage not

only in the minds of the upper literate elite, but also for the

lower classes in the forms of drawings, engravings, and various

visual depictions. By the wide variety of media interpretations

of the savage, the notion of a stereotypical savage character

became entrenched in all levels of society. Furthermore, Welch

cites that 20 percent of narrative fiction during this era

5 Pagden, Facing Each Other, xxii6 Kommers, 487

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featured foreign characters or foreign lands.7 As the French

began to develop a greater sense of the diversity of different

cultures and geographic locations, the passion for obtaining new

knowledge grew as well. As scientifically and “rationally”

advanced as the French saw themselves during the eighteenth

century, stories still thrived on rumors of giants in Patagonia

or vicious pygmy monsters in Africa. For this reason, Kommers

argues that “In the eighteenth century the idea of supplying

reliable information about other nations and peoples became one

of the most important aims of the genre.”8 As voyagers went on

physical quests to find new species of animal, readers journeyed

with them mentally in their quest for verified information.

However, to merely inform was not the sole intention of the

genre. Readers not only desired entertainment and distraction

from travel literature, but also as Kommers notes, “Readers

expected entertainment...”9 Many travelers kept journals and

published them upon returning to France, but they were often

long, filled with bureaucratic or nautical notes, petty details

7 Welch, xv8 Kommers, 4799 Kommers, 489, emphasis mine

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of the food supplies, or other minor details of the voyage. The

real leisure reading came from fantastic descriptions of foreign

lands or people. As a result, many authors published revised and

edited accounts of their travels to maximize the impact of the

descriptive details. People could “explore” the world from the

comfort of their own home. Therefore, people were not only

reading travel accounts, memoires, and novels for official

purposes but for private enjoyment as well. The popularity of

travel literature was based, in part, on the exotic descriptions

of foreign men, customs, clothing, religions, food, and culture.

Learning and entertainment synched within travel literature, as

the French read accounts for both enjoyment and edification.

Furthermore, travelers could brag that that had seen things

that others had not. They taunted readers with exotic

descriptions saying, “I myself should never have believed, had I

not been a careful Observer of it.”10 Tantalizing descriptions

such as these made foreign people, places, and objects so new,

exciting, and unbelievable. By reading travel literature, people

discovered “little men, with square heads, bronzed complexion,

10Charles James Poncet in Travels of the Jesuits, 187

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thick pouting lips, who eat meat and fish raw; who could never be

accustomed to bread or cooked meats, and still less to wine; who

swallow whale-oil as we do water…”11 Sailors and explorers wrote

descriptions of men who walked about naked or gigantic monsters,

which “discharged their excrements from the mouth and made water

from under the shoulder.”12 There were even stories about pygmy

men “only three feet high and extremely stout.”13

These works became fashionable to read because they were

“exotic,” and had an immense impact on the French Enlightenment;

they made the savage a popular subject to discuss and debate.

Exoticism is a useful category in which to examine the French

assessment of the savage, because it reveals the extreme

fascination that the French felt in regards to “the other.” Roger

Celestin argues that the purpose of the exotic “is to unfold

through classification, to provide a means of freezing, of

incorporating, of controlling.”14 Having an exotic quality

therefore leads to the person or place becoming objectified into

11 Charlevoix, 12712 12513 12614 Célestin, 6

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a commodity to consume or to control.15 This objectification of

the savage would create the means of justifying colonialist

ventures by establishing a sense of control over the indigenous

populations. It was not simply describing the savage as exotic

that gave the French a sense of control. Because the savage was

objectified in travel literature, he became a more manipulated

entity in the minds of colonialists; the rare, exotic savage

should be controlled on the basis that they did not have the

means to control or rule themselves. As an exotic object, the

savage had little cultural agency in the minds of the French.

Celestin argues that “Exoticism- or more specifically, the texts

of exoticism--contain both the voyage out and the return…”16 In other

words, in order for something to be “exotic” it must have

recourse to the original, “unexotic” place or sphere in society.

Exotic objects are such because they are either markedly

different than the mundane objects, or the knowledge that they

originated from a different place creates an “exotic” air about 15 The process of objectifying the savage would become especially relevant to the descriptions of savage women. Even more so than the average “generic” savage, indigenous women would be objectified as a receptacle of both what a “natural” woman is (or should be). In addition, exoticism would become explicitly linked with eroticism, which would in turn create a huge impact on how savage women were viewed in French discourse. 16 Célestin, emphasis original, 3

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them. For example, there could be two identical clocks, but the

knowledge that one is made in China would be exotic to the French

and therefore more valuable, because of its perceived “exotic”

quality. The insinuation is that one is rarer and therefore more

valuable, so it was with the savage. They were perceived as some

sort of “lost” human race, or the last remaining examples of

primitive man; they were rarer and therefore more “exotic” and

scrutinized as objects for appraisal. In short, exoticising the

savage made travel literature about “primitive nations” much more

valuable; people valued the idea of the savage more than the

savage himself. The exotic can only make sense if it has a

connection, or potential connection with the society for which it

is exotic; an object by itself does not necessarily make it

exotic but the fact that it has relocated from its original

position does. The encounter of difference that travel literature

brought back to the French showed just how radically different

some societies could be. Furthermore, difference opened up the

possibility of questioning their own societal values. Travel

literature skewed the perceived values and norms of different

cultures because it brought accounts of strange, exotic people

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back to Europe, de-contextualized. Many authors described a

tradition or ritual without fully comprehending the social or

cultural significance behind it. This in short meant that many

French writers described social customs without fully

acknowledging their importance within the culture itself.

Nor were French writers particularly inclined to verify

what they saw or wrote. Some authors profited greatly from the

popularity of foreign texts by fabricating or borrowing facts or

passages from various travel accounts and incorporating them into

their own fictionalized renditions. Many upstart authors wrote

travel literature under the guise of factuality, when in truth

they had not set a single, polished, aristocratic foot out of

France. As Rousseau noted, “Europeans [are] more interested in

filling their purses than their heads.”17 Money certainly was a

motivating factor for writing a travel account, factual or not.

Furthermore, the “facts” authors wrote about the savage became

elevated to theory, because many philosophers, who “rarely ha[d]

firsthand knowledge of Africans and other non-Europeans, relied

almost exclusively on travelers’ reports about these peoples…”18

17 Rousseau, quoted in Muthu, 3218 Jacques, 199

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What this entailed, therefore, is that news and information about

the Savage was reused and recycled. There was just as much

fiction circulating in French salons and literary discussions

concerning foreigners and foreign lands as there was truth. Many

authors, who did not have direct, precise knowledge (even if they

claimed to do so) of indigenous populations, made sweeping

generalizations of the savage. Misinformation not only abounded

during the eighteenth century but also was ultimately just as

detrimental to the image of the “savage man” as factual accounts

of traveling, because they perpetuated stereotypes (which

arguably continue to the present). Just as many travelers wrote

fallacious tidbits about the savage, (either intentionally or

not) many personal opinions also became misconstrued as fact.

Although Jeong Eun-Jin argues that, the sense of “the

cultural superiority of the West had not yet formed nor had

‘Orientalism’ emerged” by the eighteenth century, the French far

earlier regarded their own culture as superior in relation to the

rest of the world. Brettell argues that “an ethnocentric bias

focuses the traveler's attention not so much on what is actually

seen but on what he expects to see based on what he has heard in

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his own culture.”19 This was not restricted to the French or to

the early modern era.20 During the early-modern era, Europeans

derived their sense of cultural superiority from their structured

view of civilization. 21 A hierarchical system of civilization was

in place by the eighteenth century, with the lowest humans being

savages and the highest culture, Europe, “that part of the globe

which has most influence over the rest,” as one eighteenth-

century scholar put it.22 In other words, “The relationship …

between savagery and civilization was accordingly understood by

means of a graded social classification beginning with the lowest

ignorance and ending with the highest form of contemporary

enlightenment.”23 France, of course, saw itself as occupying the

highest pinnacle of civilization.

19 Brettell, 12920 Anthony Pagden even argues that “Europeans had always looked upon their owncultures as privileged, and upon all other cultures as to some degree inferior.” (Pagden, European Encounters, 6) While Europeans in general (and not uniquely the French) regarded western civilizations as superior, there are some problematic issues with stating that Europe had “always” seen itself as superior, because Europe as a concept did not develop until the early-modern period. However, Pagden makes an excellent point that westerners (especially during the early-modern era) were inclined to regarding itself as culturally superior.21 Jeong Eun-Jin, 8422 Raynal, 33223 Jacques, 204

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As Pagden has pointed out, it was not simply ‘prejudice’

which colored French opinions of other cultures. For that matter,

it was not only France that regarded itself as superior in

culture. Other powers on the European continent looked to France

as the embodiment of a powerful and sophisticated nation. French

was the language of diplomacy and the official language of many

Europeans courts. During the “Golden Century” of King Louis XIV,

the arts and sciences flourished, and France become the dominant

hegemonic power in Europe, in no small part due to the royal

absolutism of “The Sun King.” Preceding the Enlightenment were

such monumental figures dominating philosophy such as René

Descartes, Blaise Pascal, and Pierre Bayle. Other artists and

literary geniuses such as Molière, Pierre Corneille, and Jean

Racine, controlled the literary spheres of influence. The salons,

where intellectuals debated and discussed current issues of

society, and their frequenters, contributed to the ever-growing

sense of French refinement as the “epitome” of culture. The

French took with them a definite sense of cultural superiority in

their travels and in their approach to reading accounts. For

example, the editor of the account of François de La Boullaye-Le

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Gouz, traveling to Ireland in 1644, said that “… like most

Frenchman, he seems to have felt the superiority of his own

nation…”24 Le Gouz himself would have shone with pride at this

statement; Le Gouz seemed to think that the French superiority

was something one could sense or see in a moment. He recounted a

small anecdote when “A man in the suite of the Viceroy seeing

from my gallant bearing that I was a Frenchman…”25 and was

ushered inside the Viceroy’s castle in Dublin. Furthermore,

French travelers did not have to stray too far from the European

continent to denigrate other cultures. Even among other

Europeans, the French were not immune from making snide remarks.

Concerning the Spanish, Le Gouz said that “one good fair

syllogism is worth a cartload of your Spanish rubbish.”26 The

French may have acknowledged that some facets of other cultures

were interesting, creative, ingenuous, but overall the French

viewed their culture as beyond compare, and their descriptions in

travel literature of other cultures reflected this, whether

implicitly or explicitly.

24 Croker, in Le Gouz, 525 926 Le Gouz, 18

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Because Europeans saw themselves as superior to the rest of

the world, and because France saw itself as superior to the rest

of Europe, their culturally-ingrained sense of superiority

influenced their relations with the rest of the non-European

world. Furthermore, central to the European perspective was that

“everything in the world conformed to a pre-ordained set of

laws--the law of nature…”27 The “pre-ordained” facet of French

thought was a western, Christian assumption which suggested that,

as God’s laws, they were irrefutable and immutable. One feature

of early-modern European intellectual philosophy was that people

everywhere go through the same patterns of human behavior. “The

sixteenth- and seventeenth-century observer… lived in a society

which believed firmly in the universality of most social norms

and in a high degree of cultural unity between the various races

of man.”28 Jacques argues that “What underlies the claim that all

peoples go through the same history is the belief, again shared

by all the philosophers of the Enlightenment, that human nature

was constant over time and everywhere.”29 What the difference

27 Pagden, European Encounters, 1028 529 Jacques, 205

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then, was the notion of when or how fast certain groups of people

went through these patterns. What universalism meant, then, was

that every culture followed the same developmental path, but at

different rates.

This line of thinking persisted into the Enlightenment

period and affected how European travelers described “savage

nations.” What this suggested was that because savages were

living in the same time period as Europeans, they had not

developed as quickly as other members of the human race. If

humanity passed through the same “stages” of development, then

this meant that Europe was more advanced than the savage nations.

To the European, savages were less intelligent, because they had

not yet advanced to the level of civilization that Europe had.

This also meant that savages were backward, slow to advance, and

even out of time, since they had managed to live without

progression for so long. In sum, the French took indigenous

populations of the lands they visited to be savages based on

their perception that they did not possess any structured laws,

religion, or government. Although early writers operated on dual

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senses of extremes, no picture of the savage was completely

picturesque or completely derogatory.

Pre-Enlightenment Discourse

Confronted with new peoples and cultures, French explorers

and philosophers had to situate these cultures into a previously-

existing schema of organization. As Pagden argues, “A ‘New

World,’ had now to be incorporated into their cosmographical,

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geographical and, ultimately, anthropological understanding.”30

The French were not the first to come into contact with native

populations of the globe, so they fundamentally started on

second-hand experience from the Spanish and Portuguese until they

entered the colonization/exploration race. First and foremost,

the savage was a negative concept. The French inherited the

notion of “the other” and specific categories for contexualizing

the other in terms of their classical and Renaissance ancestors.

This is important because it shows the origins of the notion of

the savage and more specifically, the “noble savage.”31 This

section tries to give an understanding of the word “savage” in

the French context during the early-modern era. Then apologists

like Bartolomé Las Casas said that the savage was in many ways

better than hypocritical Europeans. This led to the

romanticization of the savage, and the subsequent idea of the

“noble savage” gave rise to numerous theories of the origins and

nature of mankind. As early as the sixteenth century, French

30 Pagden, European Encounters, 531 The “noble savage” was the idea that man was inherently good and that society is the corrupting force. By virtue of living without significant social ties, the savage was free to wander in the woods of his own accord, doing harm to no one.

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philosophers used travel literature to critique contemporary

French society.

The beginning of negative characterizations of the savage

man came in part from the etymology of the word “savage.” The

various meanings of this word became opaque, and many different

connotations were blurred in the French cultural mindset. French

preconceptions of what savages looked like and how they acted

were formed by existing notions from classical Greek antiquity

and the medieval period. “Savage” comes from the Old French word

sauvage or salvage, meaning, “wild, untamed,” derived even further

from the Latin salvaticus, meaning “of the woods.” This originally

implied a sense of undomestication or something “natural” found

in the woods, and applied only to flora and fauna. Just as we

would say a “wild strawberry” today, the French would say a

“savage strawberry.” The term began to be applicable to humans

around the fifteenth century, due in part to the encounters with

indigenous populations in the Americas. Medieval scholars would

therefore think of a savage man as “a naked man covered with

hair, who lived a solitary life in the forest, slept in caves or

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under trees, subsisted by hunting and gathering, and had no

religion and no social and political organization.”32

According to the French Dictionary of 1694, “Savage”

signified “De certains Peuples qui vivent ordinairement dans les

bois, sans religion, sans loix, sans habitation fixe, & plustost

en bestes qu'en hommes. Les peuples sauvages de l'Amerique, de l'Affrique.”33

The phrase then, “savage man” then implied a completely natural,

unsocialized man.34 When first encountered, many French explorers

thought that indigenous populations throughout the globe had no,

or very little, civilization, as the French defined it. What was

remarkable about the Hurons of Canada, the Khoi of South Africa,

or the Tahitians in the South Pacific was that they lived

(seemingly) without religion, laws, government, or clothing.35 Ad

32 Rowe, 533 Savage: of certain people who live ordinarily in the woods, without religion, without laws, without fixed habitation and mostly more beasts than men. The savage peoples of America and Africa.34 Just as a savage strawberry wasn’t barbaric, so too wasn’t a savage man. Neither would bite you.35 Although travel literature during the Enlightenment acknowledged that therewere different tribes and nations across the world, there came to be a generic, stereotypical type of savage man. What one observed among the Khoi ofSouth Africa, for example, could be projected onto the Hurons of Canada. The French adduced that if one tribe had some characteristics of savagery, such aslittle clothing, then they perceived that they had all the characteristics of a savage, such as cannibalism, or a lack of religion or government, even if itwas not necessarily true. The French approached different savage groups with the same set of preconceptions.

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Borsboom argues that “These societies [primitive, savage] have

been pictured as precisely the opposite of European

civilization.”36 However, it was not exactly as the opposite of

European civilization that Europeans viewed indigenous

populations, but rather as lacking any civilization at all. For

the savage to behave in the opposite manner of the Europeans

suggests that the Europeans felt that they possessed some

capability of fulfilling “civilization” requirements. However,

many Europeans believed that savages did not have the

intellectual capacity to form a civilization of their own, even

one opposite to the standards of Europe. For example, Joseph-

François Lafitau, in his “Moeurs des sauvages ameriquains,

comparés aux moeurs des premiers temps,” published in 1724, wrote

concerning the indigenous of North America: “A voir en effet ces

hommes dépourvût de tout, sans lettres, sans sciences, sans loix

apparentes, sans temple pour la plupart, sans culte reglé, et

manquant les choses le plus nécessaire à la vie…”37 In short, it

36 Borsboom, 41937 “To see in fact these men lacking all, without letters, without sciences, without apparent laws, without temples, for the most part, without regular worship, and lacking the things the most necessary for life…”

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was not that Europeans believed that savages had an opposite

civilization of Europe; they had none at all.

However, the implication that the humans were “ferocious”

began to come into use around the late sixteenth century.38 At

the beginning of the Enlightenment, after explorers came into

contact with the “New World cannibals,” the word “sauvage” began

to mean “feroce, farouche,” implying a feral or wild nature. To

be savage therefore meant to have “cruelty and ferocity” which

were “the marks of unrestraint, [and] were from the beginning the

distinguishing features of a ‘barbarous’ nature.”39 However, the

savage did not necessarily have to be murderous to be consigned

as uncivilized. For example, in describing Ethiopians, Charles

James Poncet described their atrocious manners saying, “Oaths and

blasphemous expressions are common among these rude, ignorant

Africans/who, at the same time, are such Debauchees, that they

have not the least Idea of Politeness, Modesty, or Religion.”40

Just as there were many degrees of civilization, there were also

numerous categories of savagery. The nexus in French thought that

38 http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=savage39 Pagden, European Encounters, 1840 Poncet in Travels of the Jesuits, 189-190

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connected all savages was that they seemed to lack manners,

civility, and culture. Therefore, it is important to note that

“savage” did not always entail “barbarous,” and “barbaric” did

not always mean “savage.” The Ottomans, for example, were

“barbaric,” in relation to the western Christians, because they

were not (as the French saw them) fully rational and did not

believe the same religion. Although the term “savage” would

eventually carry a connotation of “barbaric,” one did not

necessarily mean the other. Furthermore, the initial meaning of

the word “savage” did not entirely fall away from use; a man

could still be “savage” in the sense that he was “undomesticated”

or “natural.”

During the early stages of exploration, whatever positive

qualities the savages manifested in their culture were eclipsed

by their allegedly brutal and feral nature. The word “savage” as

applied to people came to have a negative connotation by the late

seventeenth century among French intellects. With any use of the

word savage came “the implication of inferiority.”41 For example,

when Louis-Armand de Lahontan travelled to Canada in the 1680s,

41 Pagden, European Encounters, 15

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he noted that different religious sects had already “brand[ed]

the Savages for stupid, gross, and rustic persons, uncapable

[sic] of thought or reflection…that have less knowledge than

brutes.”42 Similarly, François le Vaillant wrote that the Khoi of

South Africa, “whom polished nations have agreed to speak of with

disdain, [were] the very outcasts of nature…”43 In French

discourse, the savages of the world did not have the things “most

necessary for life,” such as science, law, or religion because

they lacked the intelligence to achieve them. Just as they lacked

clothes, religion, or government, savage men also suffered from a

dearth of intellectual capacity.

The French were not the first in the western hemisphere to

theorize and categorize indigenous populations. Historian Anthony

Pagden notes that the first European contacts with non-Europeans

during the early-modern period came with the Portuguese voyages

down the western coast of Africa during the early fifteenth

century.44 Both the European exploration of the western Indies

and trading along western Africa would form what the French

42 Lahontan, 413 43 Vaillant, 25044 Pagden, Facing Each Other, xix

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expected to see in a savage man in the Americas and subsequently

the rest of the world. Europeans had certain established

categories for barbaric behavior, and the indigenous populations

of the “New World” seemed to fit those categories. The French

then classified the savages of America, Africa, and the South

Pacific based on Greek and classical schema. The initial contact

of the Spanish and Portuguese seemed to affirm the notions that

Europeans held of savage men. Therefore, the initial contact of

the French with any indigenous group was not based on objective

first-hand experience but rather colored with misconceptions and

expectations. Therefore, the French did not invent the idea of

the savage, but they inherited it from their fellow European

predecessors. Pagden affirms that “…the travelers of the

sixteenth century went to America with precise ideas about what

they could expect to find there.”45 The numerous different travel

accounts of Khoi and the Caribs of the West Indies made possible

a dimorphic explanation of both a barbaric and noble savage. As a

result, the French took the antecedent concepts of barbarism and

manipulated them into a specifically French discourse. The

45 Pagden, European Encounters, 10

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evolving binary during the eighteenth century proceeded as a form

of ethnocentrism, as well as a way of self-criticism.

Coming into contact with people who seemingly possessed no

culture or civilization gave rise to a debate on the fundamental

humanity of the Indians of North and South America. The raging

question in Spain was, “Were they men in the full sense of the

word, or sub-men…?”46 Behavioral differences (such as

cannibalism) were just as important as moral, mental, or

spiritual differences in defining the “other.” Pagden also notes

that Europeans regarded the Americans as “technologically

inferior,” and this reinforced the notion that the savage man

would not, or could not, progress.47 Early accounts of savages

hinged around extremes; most writers dehumanized the savage,

disparaging indigenous populations as beastly or sub-human.

Others, such as Bartolomé de Las Casas wrote glowing reports of

the savage that presented a near-Utopian view of the natives.

These accounts would provide the basis of the concept of the

“noble savage” during the middle enlightenment period.

46 Elliott, 1347 Pagden, European Encounters, 8

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There were some philosophers and theologians who looked with

disdain on the native Indians of the Americas and saw them as no

more than animals. For example, in 1498, Venetian Sebastian

Gabote wrote, “These were clothed in beastes skinnes and ate rawe

fleshe and spake such speech that no man coulde understande them,

and in their demeanour like to brute beastes,…”48 In addition, in

the mid-sixteenth century, Spaniard Juan Gines de Sepulveda, who

would hold an ongoing debate with Las Casas in 1550 on the

subject of the Indians’ “natural inferiority,” adamantly argued

that the Indians of the Americas were “barbarous, uncivilized,

and inhuman people who are natural slaves, refusing to admit the

superiority of those who are more prudent, powerful, and perfect

than themselves.”49 In early accounts of the Indians, the Spanish

dehumanized the natives of Latin America in order to justify

colonizing and mining the land for natural resources and using

the Indians, who did not possess “even vestiges of humanity,” as

a source of labor.50 The Spanish discounted their humanity in

order to exploit both the Indians as a labor source, as well as

48 Cartier, 10849 Juan Gines de Sepúlveda in Las Casas, xxxii50 Sepúlveda, http://cassian.memphis.edu/history/dunowsky/worldcivdocs/Sepúlveda.html

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the wealth of resources central and South America had. The

discourse against the savage man provided a rationalization of

exploitation. Savages were human enough to be governed, but

vacuous, lacking souls or human dignity.

Las Casas wrote an apologetic account of “The Destruction of

the Indies,” in which he argued that the natives of the West

Indies were innocent of the bloodshed that contemporary

historians and clergymen alleged. In wanting to subvert the

Spanish methods of colonization (which he viewed as more

barbarous than the natives) Las Casas denounced the ideology of

the Spanish colonization, because of the many ways Spanish

soldiers exploited the Aztecs. In part, Las Casas wanted to

protect the Indians from the encomienda system of labor the

Spanish established. He wrote that “They are likewise, the most

delicate, slender, and tender of complexion and the least able to

withstand hard labour…”51 Las Casas held a utopian view of the

Americas, in which the Indians were paragons of physical and

behavioral standards. He wrote, “God created them to be a simple

people, altogether without subtility [sic], malice, or duplicity,

51 Las Casas, 5

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excellent in obedience, most loyal to their native lords and to

the Christians whom they serve; the most humble, most patient,

meekest and most pacific…”52 The ramifications of romanticizing

of savage man gave rise to the beginning of the idea of the

“noble savage.” Even though Las Casas was “the most outspoken

champion of rights of the Native peoples of Central and South

America,” he nevertheless spoke of the Americas as having little

or no relevance to human history before the advent of Columbus.53

In Las Casas’ view, they had no history of their own during the

Pre-Columbian era; as much of a defender of the savage as Las

Casas was, he nevertheless spoke of them as having little

cultural agency.

There were others during the early period of exploration who

defended the Indians. In 1590, Jose de Acosta published the

“Natural and Moral History of the Indies,” in which he set out to

“…refute the false opinion that is commonly held about them [the

Indians], that they [the Indians] are brutes and bestial folk and

lacking in understanding…”54 His target was Sepulveda, who was

52 ibid53 Pagden, European Encounters, 6-754 Acosta, 329

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only too glad to point out that the natives of Latin America were

those “who not only are devoid of learning but do not even have a

written language; who preserve no monuments of their history …and

who have no written laws but only barbaric customs and

institutions.”55 Even Acosta’s defense of the Indians

nevertheless managed to connect the Indians with a sense of

wickedness or natural predisposition to follow the darker powers

of the universe. He said that it was “By these means and many

other the devil kept those wretched creatures deceived and

mocked, and so great was the multitude of those who were

sacrificed with this infernal cruelty that it seems

incredible…”56 The savages were not evil by nature but more

disposed to commit evil than the Europeans, because by their

ignorance, they were more easily swayed by the devil.57

The depiction of natives of the Caribbean is clearly “meant

to excite the interest of patrons and general audiences alike.”58

This image contains many tropes of the supposed behavior of

savages that would remain fixed in the European mindset well into

55 http://cassian.memphis.edu/history/dunowsky/worldcivdocs/Sepúlveda.html56 Acosta, 29757 Mills, et al. 80; see attached58 Mills, et al. 79

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the eighteenth century. First, one can see their nakedness and

utter nonchalance in being unclothed. One sees in the right-hand

side of the illustration a man relieving himself in front of

women; even if he were clothed, this image seems to reinforce the

notion that a savage has little civility or polite manners. The

connection of savages and brazen sexuality that Denis Diderot

would make in the later part of the eighteenth century already

has roots as early as the 1500s. In the background, one can see

severed human limbs and a man slicing an arm into even smaller

parts. One of the aspects of savagery was human cannibalism, and

the most shocking aspect to the average European was the Carib’s

complete insouciance in committing such an act.

Cannibalism, therefore, came to be one of the most firmly

rooted associations with savages. The Spanish knew of the Aztec’s

custom of ritual human sacrifice and cannibalism, to which

Sepulveda protested, “what moderation or mildness can you expect

of men who are given to all kinds of intemperance and wicked

lusts, and who eat human flesh?”59 Anthrophagy, along with nudity

and idolatry were the fundamental categories of labeling a man a

59 http://cassian.memphis.edu/history/dunowsky/worldcivdocs/Sepúlveda.html

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savage.60 Early explorer Lafitau would write, “Presque toutes les

nations barbares de l’Amerique sont anthropophages’’61 The

fascination with cannibalism would continue to be an endless

source of debate for many Europeans; some argued that all

cannibalistic tribes were inherently evil; some made the

distinction between those who killed and ate for ritual purposes

and those that tortured and ate prisoners of war. (They were a

bit less forgiving toward the torture-inclined groups.)

Furthermore, these categories were so closely related in the

minds of the French “that the presence of one could be adduced

from the presence of another.”62 (In other words, a savage who

was both nude and idolatrous was almost certainly cannibalistic.)

As a result, Europeans developed a generic notion of the savage

based on the presence of one or any of these qualities. Although

the French acknowledged the fact that there were variations in

customs, languages, and values of the various tribes around the

world, the notion of savage man possessing a set of defining

60 MacGaffey, 26161 “Almost all the barbarous nations of America are anthropophages [maneaters,cannibals].” Lafituau, 307; 62 MacGaffey, 261

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characteristics came to be deeply embedded in French

consciousness.

One of the most important philosophers for our discussion is

Michel de Montaigne and his discourse, “On Cannibals.” As one of

the earliest French writers to take up this topic of savagery

versus civilization, Montaigne represents the transition between

taking first-hand accounts of indigenous populations and

incorporating them into his discourse. In his essay, published in

1580, Montaigne delineated perceived notions of savages and their

cannibalism, but he also challenged the views of his

contemporaries, marking an evolution in French representations of

“the other.” No longer was everyone who was not French simply

barbaric on the grounds of their un-Gallic lineage. Clinton E.

Stockwell argues that Montaigne held that “humans, civilized or

not, have both barbaric and noble characteristics. This may be

called a critical realist view.”63 Montaigne wrote during the

sixteenth century that “They are savages in the same way that we

say fruit are wild, which nature produces of herself and by her

own ordinary progress.”64 This perhaps is one of the

63 Stockwell, 2064 Montaigne, “Of Cannibals”

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foundational ideas that the savage was a “natural” human, allowed

to develop freely in the forest without any hindrance from

society. Montaigne wrote that, “These nations then seem to me to

be so far barbarous, as having received but very little form and

fashion from art and human invention, and consequently to be not

much remote from their original simplicity.”65 Whereas others had

connected a lack of civilization, or simplicity in living, with

barbarism, Montaigne did not necessarily condemn the savage for

living in the wild; it was a virtue that man could live without

artificiality.

Because Montaigne recognized the human capacity for both

good and evil, his early writings pushed forward the

contradiction of the savage being both noble and ignoble. On the

one hand, Montaigne helped solidify the connection between

savages and cannibalism; on the other hand, he contributed to the

view that savages lived in a golden age. Essentially, “he both

deploys the idea of a noble savage and at times undermines it.”66

He wrote that concepts of “lying, treachery, dissimulation,

avarice, envy, detraction, pardon, [were] never heard of” by

65 ibid66 Muthu, 12

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Cannibals.67 Furthermore, Montaigne utilized second-hand

descriptions of savage nations in order to give a critique of the

attitudinal judgments of Europeans. He argued that Europeans

“see… so clearly into their faults, we should be so blind to our

own. I conceive there is more barbarity in eating a man alive,

than when he is dead; in tearing a body limb from limb by racks

and torments… than to roast and eat him after he is dead.”68

Montaigne clearly criticizes the barbarous nature of torture in

religious conflicts and other wars during the era. He inverted

the commonly held belief that Europe was superior in all things

when he wrote, “We may then call these people barbarous, in

respect to the rules of reason: but not in respect to ourselves,

who in all sorts of barbarity exceed them.”69 Montaigne was one

of the earliest philosophers to take the concept of highlighting

the flaws of contemporary French society via the perceived

“inferior” human societies.

67 ibid68 ibid69 ibid

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Early Exploration and Rising Fascination with the Savage

A cannibalistic, spear-wielding, naked man, who roamed

through the forests looking for prey was a common image of a

savage man in eighteenth-century France. Concomitantly, a savage

man could be noble, devoid of vice, and living out his existence

in blissful ignorance and in harmony with nature. These two ideas

were closely intertwined in French Enlightenment discourse. A man

living in the “New World” or any indigenous population that was

not specifically European was subject to this type of double-

think. The eighteenth century was ripe for social critique, and

enumerating the savage qualities of the Hurons or Khoi was simply

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one of the numerous forms that critique took. What is important

about the descriptions of the savage during the French

Enlightenment was that they fused with their philosophic

ancestors of Montaigne and Las Casas to become a uniquely French

phenomenon. From the early Enlightenment, the savage writings had

both positive and pejorative descriptions of indigenous

population throughout the world. The French of the eighteenth

century inherited the cultural superiority complex that dominated

much of their early writing and applied it to the culture of the

Amerindians. Muthu notes that many of the earliest accounts of

Amerindians abound with “praise for what was perceived to be

their ‘natural’ manner of living.”70 Indeed, what made the savage

such a viable source of examination for the French was the fact

that the French saw them as a “blank slate,” onto which they

could imprint their own ideals and theories concerning the

development of human civilization. On one hand, the savage could

be a means to explore the “innate” nature of man (or even if he

had one) and whether that nature was inherently good. However,

the lack of anything remotely “civil” was disconcerting to most

70 Muthu, 13

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explorers, and hostilities between settlers and natives were

rampant. Their simplicity, or “rusticity,” as Muthu points out,

“could then turn rapidly to outright disgust at what appeared to

explorers and settlers as manifestly backward and barbaric

appearances and behavior.”71 The line was often quite thin,

between natural simplicity and barbaric ignorance, in the

writings of the French.

From the beginning of the French Age of Exploration on the

North American continent during the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries, explorers, officials, and soldiers described

indigenous populations as “savage,” in the sense of having wild

or feral qualities. In his early account of his voyages, in 1534,

Jacques Cartier described the men he encountered as “… of fine

shape and stature, but indomitable and savage.”72 Contrasting

their physical nature with that of their mental faculties,

Cartier exemplifies the opinions of many travel writers: savages

were human in appearance, but did they have souls? Could they

have a character more refined than truculent and indomitable?

Cartier himself described the actions of some of the men as

71 Muthu, 1372 Cartier, 23

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verging on animalistic, because “They eat their meat almost raw…”

as an animal would.73 Other writers commented on the strange

diets of savages. For example, Jean Moquet published in 1645 an

account which stated that « ces peuples mangent aussi de certains

serpents, comme coulevres, qui sont d’un etrange grosseur et

longeur… »74 Indeed, raw animal (or human) flesh seemed to be a

staple among savage nations. In an early exploration of the Cape

of Good Hope, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier published an account in

1675 of his observations. He noted that “As for flesh, they eat

it raw, and fish in the same condition; as for the entrails of

animals, as I have already said, they merely squeeze them to

exclude the digested material and then eat them.”75 Uncivilized

manners of eating such as these frequented travel literature.

Animal characteristics were not confined to the diet of the

savage. Cartier continued to use animal imagery when he noted

that the “Canadians” were “howling all night ceaselessly- like

wolves.”76 Ferocity seemed to be a part of the savage lifestyle.

Furthermore, Cartier commented that the Canadians’ violence was 73 3074 “these people also eat certain serpents, like snakes, which are a strange size and length” Moquet, 8975 Tavernier, 39876 Cartier, 63

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not limited to ceremonies or even against other enemy tribes. He

noted that “a man must not trust them for all their fair

ceremonies, signs of joy, for if they had thought they had been

too strong for us, then they would have done their best to have

killed us, as we understood afterwards.”77 The French thought

that this sort of behavior was largely the primal instinct of the

Amerindians in a state of nature. After observing a pre-war

ceremony of the “Canadians” Charlevoix commented that it “lasted

an hour, with a violence that defies description.”78 Harvey notes

that Charlevoix portrayed certain Amerindians tribes, such as the

Iroquois, as overtly negative, due in part to the hostile

relationship certain tribes had with French colonizers.79 Indeed,

Charlevoix wrote a scathing indictment against the Iroquois,

saying the French allied Hurons were not safe against “the rage

of these barbarians, and against the rabid thirst that they [the

Iroquois] had for human blood.”80 Portrayed violence, therefore,

had a political agenda behind it.

77 7678 Charlevoix, 16079 Harvey, 7980 Charlevoix, quoted in Harvey, 79

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Other explorers described the beastliness of savage tribes.

Tavernier reported that among the Khoi, “Neither men nor women

have the slightest shame about exposing their nudity, and they

live almost like beasts.”81 Having little compunction about

demeaning the physical characteristics of the savage, he wrote,

“Of all the races I have seen in my travels, I have found none so

hideous nor so brutal as…the inhabitants of the Cape of Good

Hope, whom they call Cafres, or Hottentots.”82 The ugliness of

savages and their viciousness went hand in hand. This image of

brutality associated with indigenous life persisted well into the

eighteenth century.

The French commented on the lack of apparent civilization or

standard means of living. Tavernier was only too pleased to note

what all the “Hottentots” lacked: “they have no knowledge of gold

or silver, nor any kind of money, and have not, so to speak, any

kind of religion.”83 The savage suffered from a paucity in

intelligence and education, economic structures, and organized

religion. Harvey notes that “For French cultural critics from

81 Tavernier, 39482 392 83 Tavernier, 393

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Montaigne to Rousseau, the primitives of the Americas were of

interest primarily because of what they lacked.”84 For some, such

as Rousseau and his hatred of large-scale agriculture, this was a

positive quality of the savages that they lived a life of simple

penury. Others focused on the fact that savages seemed to possess

a dearth of anything that was of worth. Cartier wrote with some

vehemence, “They can with truth be called savages, as there are

no people poorer than these in the world, and I believe they do

not possess anything to the value of five pennies, apart from

their canoes and nets.”85 Charlevoix, too, commented that “[as]

wretched as these people appear, the sagamos assumed a very

haughty tone with our first merchants.”86 That the savage could

have vanity was a source of consternation to the European; of

what could the savage possibly be proud?

Indeed, that vanity existed among primitive tribes showed

that the savage was certainly not without vice. What I have tried

to show in the previous paragraphs is how the French often wrote

of the “savage” characteristics of the indigenous populations

84 Harvey, 7585 Cartier, 3086 Charlevoix, 269

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being like animals or beastly in nature. However, animals in the

French mind were not inherently good or evil. One of the

continuing debates during the early Enlightenment was whether or

not the savage was inherently good. There was a marked divide in

opinions during the early eighteenth century. On the one hand,

Healy notes that travel literature was “more copiously filled,

and especially in the early accounts, with tediously detailed

descriptions of the cruelty, lust, gluttony, thievery, polygamy,

sodomy, cannibalism, filth, superstition, lying, blasphemy, and

general barbarity of the Jesuits' reluctant neo-phytes."87

Besides being “grossiers, stupides, ignorans, féroces…,”88

Savages could have other, more sinister, negative qualities. For

example, in describing the exploration of the New World, Cartier

said that “they are great thieves and steal all they can.”89

Murder and theft were not unheard of among the different tribes

of North America. Charlevoix wrote that one “even went so far as

to murder and rob a Frenchman, who had, he learned, some gold in

his possession.”90 Charlevoix also notes that the “Floridians”

87 Healy, 14988 “Coarse, stupid, ignorant, and ferocious” Lafitau, 10689 Cartier, 3190 Charlevoix, 176

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are “satisfied with keeping [women and children] in slavery; men

they immolate to the sun, and they deem it a religious duty to

eat the flesh of their victims.”91 It seems, therefore that by

the middle of the eighteenth century, contradicting standards

were forming around the image of the savage. On the one hand, he

was connected with the idea of innate goodness, but on the other,

he could be savage, as in wild, ferocious, and dangerous.

Despite the tendency toward violence, many travelers

romanticized what they viewed as the inherent good qualities of

living in a society with very little (perceived) civilization.

Not everyone thought that savages were simply men of brute force.

Healy notes that some authors characterized the Caribbean Indians

as “…lazy, improvident, unthinking, and given to perversities

such as cannibalism, but withal childishly happy in their natural

existence, and before the Spanish occupation, perhaps the

"simplest, gentlest, most humane men of the world."92 In a

surprising moment of reflection, Charlevoix stated that “On many

occasions, one would be tempted to believe them endowed with only

half reason, while in numberless others they are more of men than

91 13892 Healy,164,

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ourselves.”93 Harvey contends that Charlevoix, as a French

Jesuit, had his own religious views inherent in his descriptions

of the savage and possessed a penchant for writing favorably

concerning those Amerindian tribes which proved to be especially

receptive to conversion.94

For all that the savages seemed to lack in culture and

sophistication, they also lacked some of the evils that afflicted

the Old World. For example, Lahontan wrote that “The Savages are

very healthy and are unacquainted with a variety of diseases that

plague the Europeans.”95 Furthermore, Lahontan noted that “All

the Savages are of a Sanguine Constitution, inclining toward an

Olive colour, and generally speaking, they have good Faces and

proper Persons. ‘Tis a great rarity to find any among them that

are Lame, Hunch-backed, One-eyed, Blind, or Dumb.”96 Even

Tavernier had to comment that the Khoi, “brutal as they are,”

nevertheless possessed “a special knowledge of simples, and know

how to apply them to maladies.”97 This apparent lack of disease

or other major health problems contributed to the notion that the93 Charlevoix, 27494 Harvey, 7895 Lahontan, 41896 41597 Tavernier, 395

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Amerindians lived out of time, that they were untouched or “pure”

in the sense that they lived without some of the detriments of

civilization. As Edna L. Steeves notes, “In the traveler’s

opinion, the savage state possesses that pristine innocence and

natural virtue not to be found in his own society.”98 The myth of

the “noble savage” put forth that the Amerindians were “innocent”

in a mental and physical sense. Because “the savage stood at the

beginning of human social time,” they were not knowledgeable of

the vice that comes with civilization. This association of

indigenous populations with childlike innocence would persist

into the late eighteenth century. Abbé Raynal described the

“Californians” as “children in whom reason has not yet

developed.”99

Pacification of the Indians in order to gain economic or

political power was not the only reason for describing the

natives in a positive manner. Travel literature was certainly not

without a political agenda. Muthu notes that describing the

savages (either positively or negatively) “served many rhetorical

purposes for imperial administrators, church official,

98 Steeves, 9899 Raynal, 91

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theologians, social critics, and the humanist literati.”100 What I

desire to flesh out is the social critique within these accounts,

for they hold the essence of the Enlightenment: to gain knowledge

for knowledge’s sake, and to provide essential social commentary

with the express purpose of changing society. Boorsboom contends,

“In this context they regarded the American Indian in his role as

Noble Savage as an important device for airing their

dissatisfaction with the existing order in their own society.

Their aim was not so much to adopt the noble customs of the

Indians as to attack contemporary French society.”101 It is

important to note that this critique of society would continue

throughout the Enlightenment era. As Harvey contends, “Cultural

critics from Montaigne to Lahontan to Rousseau invoke the example

of indigenous American peoples to condemn tyranny, religious

persecution, social inequality, and artificial, alienating

culture in Europe itself.”102 However, the widely held conviction

of French cultural superiority would hinder anyone from claiming

to want to emulate the actions of the savage. From the beginning

100 Muthu, 13101 Boorsboom, 430102 Harvey, 69

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of French exploration, no one wanted to adopt their customs, or

to (as Rousseau put it) “destroy societies…and go back to live in

the forest with bears,”103 only to justify enforcing their own

values on the natives when it suited colonial policy.

During the onset of the French Enlightenment, observations

of the savage become theorized and elevated to fact. Charles-

Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu was the first to give the

word “savage” its modern definition,104 referring to men who “have

not been able to unite.”105 Using savage behavior to illuminate

societal flaws would continue well into the Enlightenment period.

Montesquieu rode high on the waves of fame generated by the

enormous popularity of the Persian Letters (1721). Perhaps no other

single work represents the immense impact of travel literature on

French intellectual trends than the Persian Letters. Montesquieu took

the idea of the French exploring exotic new lands and reversed it

by writing from the perspective of two Persians traveling to

Paris. Within these letters, Montesquieu contributed to the idea

that the French could potentially learn more about their own 103 I realize that the construction of this sentence makes it seem like Rousseau advocated destroying society and going to live in the woods with bears. However, he did not.104 Pagden, European Encounters, 14105 ibid

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society and its pitfalls by writing from the perspective of an

outsider (who could arguably be said to represent an objective

point of view). In addition to this plot device, Montesquieu used

an anecdote of the “Troglodytes” in order to illustrate an ideal

society, where people work together by virtue, instead of living

for themselves. As the word “troglodyte” means “one who lives in

a cave,” Montesquieu took the example of “primitive” cultures

teaching virtues to those more “civilized.” He conjured up the

“evil” Troglodytes who “…were more like animals than men…they

were so wicked and ferocious that there were no principles of

equity or justice among them.”106 Eventually, this society

“perished because of their wickedness, and fell victim to their

own injustice.”107 However, the “good” Troglodytes (who were

perhaps just as primitive as the first group) “worked with equal

solicitude in the common interest; they had no disagreements

except those which were due to their tender and affectionate

friendship…and they led a calm and happy life.”108 Even the

106 Montesquieu, 28107 Montesquieu, 32108 33

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primitive societies such as the Troglodytes could achieve

happiness by being virtuous.

Montesquieu was not the only writer to critique French

society. Although he would be the most popular writer in the

realm of exoticising non-Europeans, Lahontan is arguably the most

influential writer of the early Enlightenment concerning the

savage. His works influenced future writers such as Rousseau,

Voltaire, and Diderot, and his writings are exemplary of the

concept of the “noble savage” idea.109 Dan Edelstein argues that

“A fixture of various cultural discourses in the early-modern

period, this myth [the golden age myth] had also become

associated with the condition in which the New World “savages”

lived.”110 The sylvan lifestyle of the savages merged with the

idea that a halcyon existence could and did persist, owing to the

lack of society.

The critique of French sexual customs and values has its

foundations partly in Lahontan and would continue into the later

Enlightenment with Diderot. Lahontan evaluated French sexual

practices based on the actions of the indigenous populations of

109 Muthu, 24110 Edelstein, 51

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Canada, writing, “…I do not believe that in the space of Fifty

Years there has been one Instance among ‘em [sic] of the Invasion

of another Man’s Bed. Tis true, the French, being unable to

distinguish between a Married and Unmarried woman, sometimes make

their address to the former…”111 As this description of sexual

customs shows, French writers such as Lahontan were not immune

from making small jabs at societal values.112

111 Lahontan, 461112 Indeed, French explorers, such as Cartier, usually described the marriage and sexual customs of the Amerindians in order to comment on French society. From the onset of the Enlightenment, the French were fascinated by the varioussocial customs of sex and marriage of the indigenous populations. Often, savage women were perceived as more free and liberal in their sexuality than their European counterparts, their nudity, for example. Cartier wrote the Savages “are people of a goodly stature and well made, they are very white, but they are all naked.” (Cartier in Pinkerton, 677) Cartier also noted with some consternation that “They have one vicious custom regarding their young women, who, as soon as they reach a certain age, are put into a house free to all men who wish to go, until they make a choice of a husband.” (Cartier, 31) This could be a positive attribute of the savage people, as when Cartier notedthat “There were about twenty women who threw themselves in a heap on our captain, touching and stroking him, their method of caressing.” (ibid) Indeed,French writers often noted (again, with some doubt as to the truth) that the indigenous population would rather bed the French rather than their own nativemen. For instance, Lahontan wrote with some facetious humor, “The savage womenlike the French better than their own Countreymen, by reason that the former are more prodigal with their Vigour, and mind a Woman’s Business more closely.” (ibid) Except for in instances of sexual prowess, Lahontan was very fond of criticizing French society. Women were often the target of sexual appeal throughout the Enlightenment, a theme that would continue through the eighteenth century and culminate with Diderot and his descriptions of Tahitianwomen. However, it was during the early Enlightenment that the foundations were laid which connected the exotic (in the descriptions of savage customs) with the erotic. Lahontan wrote, “It may be justly said, that the Men are as cold and indifferent as the Girls are passionate and warm.” (Lahontan, 451)

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Lahontan certainly did not show a reticence to tackle

broader issues, such as economic privileges and political

structures. He postulated that because “they are very careful in

preserving the Liberty and Freedom of their Heart” he concluded

“that they are not altogether so savage as we are.”113 Freedom for

Lahontan meant freedom from confining, hypocritical structures,

such as the hierarchy of the Church and the complex structure of

government. Already emphasizing the Enlightenment values of

freedom, equality, and liberty, Lahontan lauded the perceived

egalitarianism among savages. For example, the simplicity of the

savage was due to the fact that “savages know neither thine nor

mine, for what belongs to one is equally that of another.”114 The

equality that Lahontan extoled pertained not only to material

possessions but also to political participation. He stated that

“…they lay down this for a firm and unmoveable Truth, that we

Europeans are born in Slavery, and deserve no other Condition

than that of Servitude.”115 That many people should serve one man

(the monarch) seemed anathema to the savage way of life. Indeed,

113 Lahontan, 452114 Lahontan, quoted in Muthu, 25115 Lahontan, 456

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the noble savage, as Harvey notes, “came to represent

egalitarianism and a sort of romantic anarchy.”116 That the savage

lived a simple, egalitarian life probably came as a refreshing

and potentially revitalizing idea for Lahontan. During the ancien

regime, there were no less than eight titles of nobility, of

which variations in family lineage, alliances with other

families, and records of deeds and achievements determined one’s

rank in society. Being “lazy,” “childishly happy,” and “equal”

probably seemed a much easier way of life than the cutthroat

politics of court to Lahontan.

A contemporary of the despotic regime of Louis XIV, Lahontan

did not shy away from critiquing the decadence and petty

squabblings of the French court. Indeed, the savage became

embroiled in the “intellectual confrontation between critics and

defenders of royal absolutism and Counter-Reformation Catholicism

in the France of Louis XIV.”117 In short, the commentary on the

savage was potentially radical because the alleged “superior”

civilized persons described the virtues of the lowest of the low.

After nearly a century of chasing the values of the court which

116 Harvey, 69117 Harvey, 72

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included fashion, gambling, and the endless stream of inane love

(read: sexual) intrigues, and pining after the power of the king,

philosophers contended that real virtue lay with lacking any

power at all.

What made Lahontan’s commentary that much more effective was

the literary device of placing the critique in the mouths of the

savages themselves. Diderot would emulate this method of

philosophizing in his texts; to place the critique under the

guise that it was the savage’s own perspective was to place a

distance between the commentator and his intended audience.

Radical ideas could be postulated and kept or dismantled,

depending on the receptiveness of the reader. If the critique was

too radical, well, it was only a savage. In sum, philosophical

accounts of savages not only evaluated society using descriptions

of savages and their customs; many authors used the savage as a

rhetorical device to further their own political ideas. As Healy

notes, Lahontan used the Hurons as “a foil to critique the

absurdities and hypocrisies of Western religion, projecting onto

them a sort of enlightened Deism…”118 As we have seen, Lahontan

118 Harvey, 72

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had a proclivity for “projecting” French values onto Amerindians,

and he described the savage as docile, harmless, or good, based

on certain cultural values they possessed. Even if the

descriptions of Savages were positive, they ultimately led to a

dehumanization of indigenous populations, which would have major

repercussions in the future. Muthu points out that this

dehumanization process worked by denying cultural agency to the

indigenous populations studied and assessed by philosophers and

explorers.119 Indeed, if French philosophers described the savage

as “good” or “noble” based on French cultural values, it denied

the importance of Huron, Iroquois, Khoi, or Tahitian cultural

values. In other words, the savage was an object to be studied to

further French philosophy, not necessarily (or at all) a means to

study particular tribes for value in and of themselves. Although

Lahontan constructed much of the intellectual grounds for the

idea of a noble savage, the philosopher who would write the most

and with the most impact on the idea was Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

119 Muthu, 70

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Rousseau, the Middle Enlightenment, and the Noble Savage

Neither in philosophic discourses, nor in accounts of

indigenous, non-European peoples can one find a fully perfect

concept of the “noble savage.” In Pagden’s words, “The ‘noble

savage’ was by no means a single or unambiguous image.”120

Although men of letters such as Rousseau wrote about the positive

qualities of Amerindians, Tahitians, and the Khoikhoi of Africa,

overall, they described their virtues with ambivalence. Hytier

states that “Un autre problème…serait de savoir s’il a jamais

existé quelque part dans le monde ou s’il n’est qu’un véhicule

pour des idées philosophiques.’’121 In other words, the noble

savage did not really exist for Rousseau, or for anyone for that

matter, but it was used by men of letters to affirm their own

philosophy; it became “a symbol in an ongoing discourse about

120 Pagden, European Encounters, 13121 “Another problem would be to know whether it [the idea of the noble savage]ever existed anywhere in the world or if it was nothing but a vehicle for philosophic ideas.” Hytier, 857

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human nature, human origins, and the universality of religious

belief.”122 The idea of the noble savage was built upon previously

written discourses concerning savage nations, which, in the minds

of the French, seemed to possess little crime or evil. This

symbol of perfectibility clashed with the reality that travelers

brought back in their literature. What made the concept of a

“noble savage” so difficult to fully unify or make “unambiguous”

was that the first-hand commentary of travelers describing the

negative qualities of the savage conflicted with the nice, neat

theories of philosophers. In this section, I will elucidate what

the “noble savage” meant for Rousseau, how first-hand

descriptions of the negative qualities complicated the notion of

a noble savage, and how Rousseau used both as a means of social

critique.

The middle Enlightenment period, as exemplified by

Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755), was the peak of

the discourse not only on the savage populations of the world but

also on the idea of the noble savage. Although Rousseau did not

first employ the term “noble savage,” he is the writer that had

122 Harvey, 75

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the most influence on the dissemination of the idea. The generic

“noble savage” had such qualities as “amiable, innocent,

childlike, brave, open, candid, courteous, healthy, happy, free,

noble, and beautiful in mind and body.”123 Johnson argues that

Rousseau was the most influential concerning the propagation of

the myth of the “noble savage” with his work, “Discourse on the

Origin of Inequality.”124 The middle Enlightenment was a decisive

crystallization of the ideas, conceptions, and idealizations of

the noble savage held by French philosophers. Rousseau’s

discourse, “heavily indebted to Lahontan and Montaigne and to

this tradition of social criticism in general,”125 is one of the

most negative and positive views of the savage within the same

work. It exposes the weaknesses of modernity by contrasting it

with primitivism; the maximum intensity of glorifying the noble

savage reached its culmination in 1754. Furthermore, colonization

brought the savage into the forefront of European consciousness,

the consequence of which, Pagden notes, was “the gradual

evolution of a powerful self-effacing myth…”126 In essence,

123 Steeves, 98124 Johnson, 532125 Muthu, 12126 Pagden, European Encounters, 13

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“Rousseau’s need to provide empirical examples for a supposedly

hypothetical category transforms…[a] concept of natural humanity

into an ethically troubling and inadvertently dehumanizing

rhetoric…”127 The “dehumanization” of which Muthu speaks is due in

part to the conflict of the theoretical with the reality that

explorers encountered. Although Rousseau spoke of an inherently

good, natural man, others still experienced cases of savages that

were neither noble nor moral.

The image of the ignoble savage continued into the middle

Enlightenment period; travelers and writers described strange men

with ferocious tendencies. Although Rousseau wrote about the

Savage in a positive light, the idea that a Savage was cruel,

beastly, and living in a state of penury continued to influence

European ideology. Constantine notes that “…the image of Negroes

as ignoble savages, created by early eighteenth century travelers

and broadcast by slave trade apologists late in that century, has

had an impressive vitality and longevity.”128 This “longevity”

would eventually outlive the idea of the noble savage, as

127 Muthu, 70128 Constantine, 179

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travelers encountering savage man became more and more

disillusioned with the ideas that Rousseau put forth.

The early idea that a savage could not be trusted continued

well into the eighteenth century. Many travelers to the Cape of

Good Hope described the Khoi (“Hottentots”) as having villainous

qualities. A mid-century traveler to the Cape of Good Hope

reported, “The Negroes are all without exception, crafty,

villainous, and fraudulent, and very seldom to be trusted…”129

Sweeping accusations such as these were not uncommon. Many

Europeans described the mendacity of the savage and their

perfidies with rapt (and at times, scathing) attention. Chicanery

was not the worst quality the savage could have. According to

William Bosman, “villainy” was a part of their lives. He

recounted that, “it would be surprising if…we should find any of

them whose perverse nature would not break out sometimes, for

they indeed seem to be born and bred villains; all sorts of

baseness having got such sure footing in them…”130 Of course, this

perceived truculence was in relation to the Europeans themselves;

129 William Bosman, quoted in Constantine, 172130 ibid

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it was not that the savage could not be trusted in relation to

his own people. No proper European could trust a savage.

Others described the propensity of the savage to fall into

quiescence. Bosman continued to indict the savage “Hottentots” by

writing, “These degenerate vices are accompanied with their

sister, sloth, and idleness…”131 Indeed, others corroborated the

perceived indolence of the savage in other travel accounts. For

many writers, savages lived in a state of misery, as they had

little in the way of civilization; even their housing was

primitive. Charlevoix, describing the natives in Canada wrote in

1744, “They lived, however, wretchedly, their indolence reducing

them often to the greatest want, amid the greatest abundance of

all the necessaries of life.”132 Some, like Vaillant described the

“great abundance” of natural resources at the disposal of the

savages that seemed to go unused. He depicted their living

conditions saying, “I was almost exasperated to see these people,

who have such plenty of timber at hand, dispose of all they could

cut, not building themselves tenable houses, but living in

131 ibid132 Charlevoix, 268

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miserable huts, formed of hurdles, covered with earth.”133

Vaillant, as a scientist and man of intellect, was almost

certainly writing under the profound influence of John Locke, as

other philosophes of the eighteenth century. Locke wrote in 1689,

“The labour of his [man’s] body, and the work of his hands, we

may say, are properly his. Whatsoever …he hath mixed his labour

with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby

makes it his property.”134 What that entailed for Charlevoix, or

Vaillant, or any French explorer, to not labor or cultivate the

earth meant a lack of ownership. The perceived lassitude of the

savage meant that they were either too lazy or too deficient to

cultivate the land they lived on; by not putting their own labor

into it, anyone (say, French colonial authorities) could claim

that parcel of land if they cultivated it.

Many travel writers were ambivalent at best in their

descriptions of the savage. Most admitted during their travels

that ‘‘Ces bonne qualités sont mêlés sans doute de plusieurs

défauts.”135 For many explorers to the New World, the indigenous

133 Vaillant, 174134 Locke, 209135 “These good qualities are without a doubt mixed with many faults.” Lafitau,106

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population was mostly good, with a few petty faults. They did not

hesitate to elaborate on this point. For as much of a “good” list

of qualities the savages had, they also had a laundry list ready

to describe their shortcomings. Lafitau writes that many were

“légers et volages, faineans [sic] au-dela de toute expression,

ingrats avec excès, soupçonneux, traîtres, vindicatifs…ils sont

cruels à leurs ennemies, brutaux dans leurs plaisirs, vicieux par

ignorance…’’136 Lafitau clearly thought that ignorance led to

being vicious. Other writers would describe savage stupidity as a

given: “they are besides so incredibly careless and stupid…”137

Some philosophers thought that a lack of (European) knowledge

entailed brutal behavior. The image of a savage having animal

characteristics continued to be connected to the idea of an

“ignoble” savage, or the idea that a man in a state of nature was

necessarily sub-human or not fully human at all.

Not so with Rousseau. Rousseau drew his descriptions of

savages from the wide body of travel literature of the period

concerning the Hottentots.138 Rousseau generalized from these 136 “light and fickle, idlers beyond all expression, excessively ungrateful, suspicious, treacherous, vindictive ... they are cruel to their enemies, brutal in their pleasures, vicious by ignorance...” Lafitau, 106137 Bosman, quoted in Constantine, 172138 Johnson, 532

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“real world” examples and theorized how man develops mentally and

socially, as well as the virtues of living in the forest, alone.

Rousseau couched some of his most important philosophic values in

describing the savage. For Rousseau, a savage man was “without

industry or speech, fixed residence, standing in any shape in

need of his fellows, without a desire to hurt his fellow man;

stranger to war and every social connection, subject to few

passions; had no knowledge or sentiment, made little progress…”139

Man, according to Rousseau was fundamentally a solo character; he

had no need of any other person, and he was naturally good,

without the corrupting influences of the various forms of

passion: sex, hate-driven warfare, jealousy or avarice. The

natural man was little more than an automaton for Rousseau. The

natural man was fixed in time and could not (or should not)

progress. He was “sturdy, active, resolute savage (and this they

all are).”140 He suggested that savages are nearly animals because

they are “abandoned by nature to pure instinct…[and] would begin

with functions that were merely animal.”141

139 Rousseau, Inequality, 589140 Rousseau, Inequality, 569141 574

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Although Rousseau described savages as having essentially the

intelligence of mere animals and not that of men, he thought this

was a positive quality of “natural man.” For Rousseau, “the

progress of civilization and refinement of the arts had not made

man happier or freer, but had rather created social inequality,

oppressive political and economic structures, and an artificial,

corrupt culture that alienated man from his true nature.”142 The

savages’ goodness lay with their simplicity. Rousseau connected

the idea of ignorance and bliss when he wrote that Savages have

“a natural imbecility and happiness.”143 Some explorers noted the

gentle manner of the savages, purportedly based on their overall

“happiness.” For instance, Charlevoix pointed out that the

“Indians of Canada,” “have been marked for their mildness and

docility.”144 Rousseau attributed their docility to a balanced

living in a state of nature. He postulated, “nothing can be more

gentle than he in his primitive state when placed by nature at an

equal distance from the stupidity of brutes, and the pernicious

good sense of civilized man…”145 However, for Rousseau, that

142 Harvey, 73143 Rousseau, Inequality, 574144 Charlevoix, 265145 Rousseau, Inequality, 597

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happiness was a double-edged sword. Savages could only be happy

to the extent that it “consisted in not being conscious of

[their] wretchedness…”146 The savage was not simply lacking in

knowledge; he could never be as intelligent as the average

European. He expanded this idea writing, “Though we were to

suppose his mind as intelligent and enlightened, as it must, and

is, in fact, found to be dull and stupid”147

Others had already described the “simplicity” of the savages

in explorations of the New World. Charlevoix writes that “the

simplicity of these people touched the Captain,” when Jacques

Cartier saw the natives of Canada. Rousseau attributes their

simplicity to being “…destitute of every species of knowledge,

[and savage man] experiences no passions but those of this last

kind; his desires never extend beyond his physical wants.”148

Rousseau essentially distilled the savage man into having only

the most basic desires and needs. Intelligence was simply an

inchoate part of the savage mind, unformed and unused, “for as

his mind was never in a condition to form abstract ideas of

146 Rousseau, Political Economy, 157147 Rousseau, Inequality, 576148 Rousseau, Inequality, 575

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regularity and proportion…”149 Some described their mental

capacities as decently formed, although the French explorers had

a tendency to romanticize the savages. Lafitau characterized the

noble savage as having, “… l’espirit bon, l’imagination vive, la

conception aisée, la mémoire admirable.”150 Furthermore, their

emotional qualities seemed for the most part positive, for “Ils

ont le Coeur haut et fièr…une valeur intripide.’’151Rousseau

disparaged the thought that a savage could ever become as

advanced as that of a European. He wrote that for the savage,

“there was neither education nor improvement.”152 Because of this,

the savage would always remain in “a state of childhood.”153

With this logic, Rousseau implied that the savages do not

commit evil crimes, because they have no knowledge about evil.

Rousseau argued that “we may say that savages are not bad,

precisely because they don’t know what it is to be good; for it

is neither the development of the understanding, nor the curb of

the law, but the calmness of their passions and their ignorance

149 588150 “… a good spirit, vibrant imagination, easy mindset, and an admirable memory.” Lafitau, 105151 “They have a high and proud Heart.” Lafitau, 106; 152 Rousseau, Inequality, 589153 589

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of vice that hinders them from doing ill.”154 Because they live in

a state with no knowledge of evil, and without the corrupting

social influence of society, “savages” are the embodiment of what

a human could be without social influences.

Some described savages as inherently good, beginning with

their physical qualities. They always seemed to be hairless, well

formed, and walked about naked (or mostly so). Rousseau noted

that “Though they are almost naked, Francis Correal tells us,

they expose themselves freely in the woods…”155 Living in a state

of nature made the body well adapted to fighting off other

ferocious beasts. Travelers to the Cape of Good Hope described

the Khoi as “well proportion’d and handsome…of stature, tall,

strait, lusty, active, nimble, and of a perfect black…”156 In

addition, the “natural world” gave savages a natural immunity to

a variety of diseases. Rousseau wrote that “A savage life would

exempt them from the gout and the rheumatism.”157 Rousseau also

described the good quality of the savage body and mind “We need

only call to mind the good constitution of savages….we need only

154 584155 Rousseau, Inequality, 570156 Barbot, quoted in Constantine, 174157 570

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reflect, that they are strangers to almost every disease, except

those occasioned by wounds and old age.”158 According to Rousseau,

the five senses of Europeans had fallen into desuetude, but the

savage had excellent use of visual, auditory, and olfactory

senses. He gave the example of Hottentots, “of the Cape of Good

Hope [who] distinguish with their naked eyes ships on the ocean,

at as great a distance as the Dutch can discern them with their

glasses…”159 Vaillant reported a hunting experience with the

Hottentots of the Cape of Good Hope that corroborated Rousseau’s

theory of superior senses. He wrote,

“After having run a long time to no purpose, my companion stopped suddenly,telling me

he saw a Blawe Bouc (a blue Bock.) Laying down I turned my eyes the way he directed, but I could not see it; he desired me to stand quite still, assuring me he would soon give a good account of it…The animal soon arose at length and began grazing...”160

Despite their simplicity, this should not suggest that a

Savage was a passive member of the state of nature. Rousseau made

clear that the ideal society was not one in which man (as a noble

savage) sat around in the woods or frolicked through the flowers.

Indeed, for Rousseau, part of many of the outstanding physical

158 ibid159 573160 Vaillant, 130-131

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qualities savages possessed was due to fighting against the

dangers of nature. Savage man had to face poisonous plants, wild

animals, and natural disasters. He wrote, “Alone, idle, and

always surrounded with danger, savage man must be fond of sleep,

and sleep lightly like other animals…self-preservation being

almost his only concern.”161 There could be no room for laziness

(in theory) according to Rousseau. Living among other wild beasts

would make the savage an excellent hunter and warrior, because of

his brute strength. Rousseau wrote that even if compared to a

wild bear, “There is nothing more fearful than man in a state of

nature…”162

Lafitau too, extensively delineated the methods and customs of

war among the native populations in America. He said that « Les

Peuples…ne vivent Presque que de chair et de poisson ; une partie

de l’année ils sont ichtyophages….et ils passent l’autre dans les

bois à courir après les bêtes sauves. »163 Their skill in hunting

and fishing was only superseded by that of fighting in battle.

Due to the experience gained by living in a state of nature, 161 Rousseau, Inequality, 572162 568163 “The people live almost exclusively on flesh and fish; one part of the yearthat are fish-eaters…and they pass the other part of the year in the woods running after beasts.” Lafitau, 161

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“There was a necessity for becoming active, swift-footed, and

sturdy in battle.”164 Lafitau described their superiority in

battle when he wrote, “ils passent incontestablement pour être

les meilleurs soldats, et on ne peut au moins leur disputer la

qualité de braves.’’165 Rousseau and other writers during the

middle Enlightenment periods essentially cemented the image of

the redoubtable savage in the minds of the French.

For Rousseau, the savage state is a foreign place where

morality can potentially be reached and enacted. Steeves argues

that “The noble savage served readily as a symbol of

perfectibility…”166 It is important to note that the savage man

was not intrinsically perfect but had the capacity to form a

perfect society, at least in theory, according to Rousseau.

Steeves also notes that using the idea of a “noble savage” in

philosophic discourse was “a convenient vehicle for romantic

ideas, an apt symbol of the freedom and simplicity widely

admired....”167 Their freedom lay in their ability to shirk the

164 Rousseau, Inequality, 593165 “they pass in contestably for being the best soldiers, and one cannot dispute their quality of bravery.” Lafitau, 162166 Steeves, 97167 Steeves, 97

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tedious social responsibilities that Rousseau found so hindering

to an ideal society. For Rousseau, it was far better to live

freely in the woods without clothes than a polished and pressed

toady at court. The savage had no social obligations to fulfill

if he lived only for himself.

In essence, Rousseau argues that man is inherently good (or

has the potential for good) and that society is the corrupting

force which leads men to evil. Rousseau argued that “they [men]

become unhappy and wicked in becoming sociable.”168 It is the

myriad of social interactions which lead men to perform wicked

acts. Once people start to develop social relationships,

intrinsic baser emotions such as greed, jealousy, and selfishness

begin to people. Basically, “…the progress of society stifles

humanity in men’s hearts by arousing personal interest…”169

Rousseau hated the artifice of society and the decadence of the

ancien regime. Although Rousseau acknowledged that technology,

science, and letters had improved society to the extent that they

created structures of existence, overall they destroyed man’s

168 Rousseau, Political Economy, 151169 157

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capacity to make morally upright decisions. He said, “it is iron

and corn which have civilized men but ruined mankind.”170 For

Rousseau, “civilization” was not “civilized.”

Perhaps then one of the ways the savage became construed as

the perfect society is that Rousseau juxtaposed the shortcomings

of contemporary French society with that of indigenous

populations. Rousseau constructed his philosophy of the ideal

society as having three tiers. For Rousseau, there is the

primitive, the corrupt, and the ideal. In essence, the primitive

society is the society in which the savages live; Rousseau’s

contemporary society is “civilized,” in that it has certain

social structures, such as law and government, but for Rousseau,

it is corrupt. Then there is the ideal society, in which humans

fulfill their moral potential. In short, the primitive or savage

state became linked with the ideal, but this was not Rousseau’s

intention. Some philosophes during the eighteenth century

misunderstood the romanticization of the savage, most notably

Voltaire. In a particularly scathing letter, Voltaire

sarcastically wrote, “no one has ever been so witty as you

170 Rousseau, Inequality, 559

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[Rousseau] are in trying to turn us into brutes: to read your

book makes one long to go about all fours. Since, however, it is

now some sixty years since I gave up the practice, I feel that it

is unfortunately impossible for me to resume it.”171 The primitive

society was not the ideal for Rousseau, nor should people revert

to living once more in the woods. Rousseau simply wanted to

demonstrate how social inequalities are formed and that the

savage was the baseline from which to start.

For Rousseau, savages could never be the ideal society,

because they were not developed enough to know the difference

between right and wrong. Their society was so simple as to be

devoid of the knowledge of good and evil. Rousseau wrote, “…the

happy life of the Golden Age could never really have existed for

the human race. When men could have enjoyed it they were unaware

of it; and when they could have understood it they had already

lost it.”172 Essentially, for Rousseau, the ideal world cannot

possibly be found with the savages, because once they ‘develop’

enough to understand it, society has corrupted their ‘innocence.’

171 Voltaire, http://courses.washington.edu/hsteu302/Voltaire%20Letter%20to%20Rousseau.htm172 Rousseau, Political Economy, 157

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In Rousseau’s mind, the savage’s faculties were not fully

developed. Savages could not make the choice between right and

wrong because they did not have the knowledge of evil to make

that distinction.

The truly ideal society was one in which humans were developed

enough to be able to make the choice of right over wrong; not

simply having an absence of wrong altogether. Rousseau argued

that “it is only from the social order established among us that

we derive our ideas of the order we imagine.”173 In other words,

humans must go through a period of the “civilized” society,

because only by having the standards of education, laws, and

philosophy can men have the capacity to choose between right and

wrong. Rousseau further elaborated on the notion of a perfect

society when he wrote, “Although in this state, he deprives

himself of some advantages which he got from nature, he gains in

return others so great, his faculties are so stimulated and

developed, his ideas so extended, his feelings so ennobled, and

his whole soul so uplifted…”174

173 160174 178

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Descriptions of savages, in travel literature and philosophy,

were considered to be “objective” based on the precedent Rousseau

established in describing the savage. Rousseau and others before

him held the principles of objectivity in high value. However, as

we have seen, descriptions of indigenous populations were

anything but objective. Because they were presented as objective

however, this led to ascribing certain qualities of the savage,

such as ferocity or ignorance, as inherent in their nature.

Savages did not simply exist in a timeless state without

transgressions; their faults exhibited this trait. What this

would lead to is the stereotyping of indigenous populations in a

dehumanizing fashion. Whether or not they were good or negative

qualities, because the savages did not fit a Euro-centric model

of what humanity should be, they were essentially less than

human. At the very least, they were primitive humans, stuck in

the backwater of human progression. However, geopolitical

conflicts between the two major western powers, France and Great

Britain, served to contrast Rousseau’s theoretical “noble savage”

with actual, “real-life” examples. The Seven Years’ War (1754-

1763) was a major impetus in the presenting of a stark, sobering

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account of the savage. Confronted with the horrors of war, and

witnessing directly the various Amerindian warriors, (of which

Charlevoix vituperated) the French experienced various negative

encounters with the alleged noble savage. In short, despite

Rousseau’s theories of the noble savage, during the middle years

of the eighteenth century he was on his way to becoming a very

ignoble savage, indeed.

The Later Enlightenment: Bougainville, Diderot, and Perceived Sexuality

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Descriptions of savages changed during an era of shifting

power structures during the decline of the Enlightenment. With

the immense loss of French territorial zones, the Seven Years War

instigated the French to find new land, in order to compensate

for the great failure on the American continent. The French not

only lost Canada to the British, but Britain established a

blockade on their Caribbean colonies.175 With the loss of land,

capital, and potential revenue, a great colonizing zeal took hold

of the French; one individual to answer the call for renewed

voyages and exploration was Louis-Antoine de Bougainville. With

the exploration of Tahiti and surrounding islands, Bougainville

was one of the last voyagers to present the savage as noble,

serene, even picturesque. Describing the savage as a delightful

creature was a way in which authors continued to critique French

social norms, religion, and classism. Other significant authors

who impacted the perception of the savage during the later

Enlightenment were Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert,

Abbé Jean Pestré and other Encyclopedia contributors, and Abbé

Raynal.

175 Harvey, 102

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Toward the end of the eighteenth century, writers and

philosophers began to more accurately distinguish among the

different groups of indigenous populations. What held for one

tribe of savages did not necessarily hold for another. For

example, in his five-volume work, Abbé Raynal described many

different populations, such as the Canadians, Caribs, Hottentots,

and Brazilians. In addition, the “Encyclopedia, or a Systematic

Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Crafts,” edited by Denis

Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, and published between 1751

and 1772, an enormous project undertaken by 140 men to write a

description of the world’s knowledge, contained numerous articles

about “savage nations” with different characterizations of the

savage. This propagated a double standard; concomitantly, the

myths of the “Noble” and “Ignoble” savage emerged in the

discourse of different authors. Often, positive and negative

characterizations would appear in the same work. The perfidious

characteristics of the savage were often contrasted with their

admirable ones.

For example, Abbé Jean Pestré, another contributor to the

Encyclopedia, described many of the destructive qualities of the

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savages. Pestré based much of his writing on that of Louis

Armand, Baron de la Hontan, and he described some of the commonly

held conceptions of Canadians during the seventeenth century.176

He admitted that they would be perfect, if not for all their

“many faults.” There is a breakdown of their vices: those that

are petty, or mostly harmless, and those that are more “vicious.”

Among the more quotidian faults, he describes the Canadians as

“fickle and unreliable, indescribably lazy, exceedingly lacking

in gratitude, mistrustful, treacherous, [and] vindictive…” Some

of the more dangerous faults include “un-heard of cruelties” and

“inventiveness in torture.” They are “brutish” and “vicious”

because of their “ignorance and malice.” Pestré added that their

ignorance prevents them from knowing the “refinements of vice”

that the Europeans have. However, Pestré also noted that the

savage had many benign qualities. He wrote, “Most of those who

have neither seen nor heard about savages have imagined them…

living unsociably in the woods like animals, and having only a

partial likeness to human beings. It even seems that most men

176 When Pestré does not refer to the Indians as “savages,” he calls them “Canadians,” although it should be noted that Lahontan wrote about the Hurons,specifically.

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still have this conception.”177 This suggests that even during the

latter part of the Enlightenment period, there were many more

descriptions of the savage that were negative than positive.

Because “most men” still had the conception of the savage man as

little more than an animal, Pestré perhaps wanted to illustrate

that this was not always the case. Pestré wrote that the

Canadians were “kind and affable,” and “they practice a

charitable hospitality that puts all the nations of Europe to

shame.”178 Pestré emphasized their “steadiness of soul” in

describing how calm the Canadians were in daily life, as well as

in stressful situations. He said this was due to their sense of

honor, “which rarely allows them to get angry.”179 By the end of

the Enlightenment period, most writers acknowledged that the

savage did in fact have a moral code, as opposed to earlier

writers (such as Sepulveda) who averred that they did not.

However, by the later Enlightenment period, the positive

qualities of the Savage became fewer and fewer while the

“ignoble” savage gained momentum. Although the image of the noble

177 Pestré, ‘Canadians’ 178 Pestré, ‘Canadians’179 ibid

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savage did not completely disperse, it lost much ground in

intellectual theory during the late eighteenth century. Different

authors during the eighteenth century nevertheless perpetuated

negative stereotypes concerning the savage. The desire for

colonization and fervent nationalism merged at the end of the

eighteenth century, and this is reflected in the descriptions of

the savage of Raynal’s work. Although Raynal wrote to disabuse

many Europeans of the idea of an ignoble savage, his style showed

an incongruity between the ideal savage man and reality. He

delineated the wide spectrum of vices of which the savages were

capable, discrediting the idea that all savages everywhere were

noble, good, or amenable to civilization. There was still an

insinuation that the savage was animalistic or had certain

behaviors that were more beastly than human. For instance, he

noted that their domestic establishments were considerably worse

than those of the French. The savage lived only in “…skin-covered

huts, which one can only enter on all fours.”180 Even the

spiritual beliefs of the savages were connected with animals in

the minds of the French.

180 Raynal in Jimack, 19

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The omnipresent connection of savages with cannibalism was

as inveterate during the eighteenth century as it was pervasive

during the sixteenth century. Raynal wrote at length that “If

ever we have an opportunity of examining those among the savages

who are addicted to anthropophagy, we shall find them weak,

cowardly, lazy, and given up to the same vices as our murderers

and vagrants are.”181 However, this should not suggest that Raynal

thought that all savages were evil; only those who delighted in

torture and consumption of flesh. The link between savage nations

and committing heinous acts is present in Raynal’s work, although

it too is in the form of a hierarchy (miniature though it may

be). He elucidated the lowest classification of the savage based

on how they acted during war. He said, “The common savages

massacre them [prisoners] without putting them to torture. The

most savage people of all, torture, kill, and eat them.”182 The

most noble of savages did not eat other humans; the most evil

were those who took pleasure in evil acts.

The lassitude of the savage survived the many decades of

writers who at once described the physical prowess of indigenous 181Raynal 133182 132

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populations and their obdurate unwillingness to become civilized.

Raynal described the Hottentot as, “[lying] forever outside his

door. As little concerned with the future as with the past, it is

there that he sleeps, smokes, and gets drunk.”183 Sleeping

outside, drinking, and smoking were common themes during the

middle and later eighteenth century. Rousseau described the

“idleness” of the savage, but Raynal, as many other writers did,

oscillated between admiration and condemnation of savage nations

in his history, even within the same paragraph or sentence. He

wrote of “the Californians” that they are “well-made and very

robust. In character, they are inconstant, lazy, stupid, even

unfeeling, and extremely cowardly.”184 Furthermore, Raynal was not

immune to the universalism which permeated Enlightenment

discourse. The laziness of savages seemed to suggest that the

savage perhaps could advance, but he would not of his own

volition. The savage simply refused to progress. He wrote, “Every

clan in this vast continent [Brazil] had its own dialect, none of

which had any terms to express abstract or universal ideas. This

poverty of language, common to all the peoples of South America, 183 Raynal in Jimack, 19184 Raynal, 91

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was a proof of how little progress human intelligence had made

there.”185

Due to their obvious lack of common sense, Raynal dismissed

such conjectures that savage nations could build monumental works

of architecture, art, or community infrastructure. He wrote with

some chagrin,

“We must relegate to the realm of myth…the vast number of towns built with so much

effort…those majestic palaces built to house the Incas…those fortified places all over the empire…those aqueducts and reservoirs comparable to the most magnificent examples of such structures left to use by Antiquity…those wonderful roads which made communications so easy…marvels attributed to those quipus used by the Peruvians instead of writing.”186

He did not completely disparage the travails of the Aztecs and

Incas, but he did display the sardonic attitude of most Frenchmen

of the late eighteenth century when he described the artwork of

the Indians of South America. He wrote, “The vases which have

escaped the ravages of time could well serve as evidence of the

patience of the Indians, but they will never be monuments to

their genius.”187 This lack of knowledge was not limited to

government, infrastructure, or technology. The French also had

the perception that their language and religion were inferior 185 Raynal in Jimack, 126186 99-100187 101

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because of ignorance. For example, in 1765, Louis Jaucourt

delineated the difference between the sophisticated French

language and the language of the savage, which was “… guttural

and very poor, because they only know very few things.”188 In a

separate article on the Iroquois, he described their religion as,

“…only a composite of puerile superstitions, and their barbarous

customs correspond to them.”189 With only two years out of the

Anglo-French war on the North American continent, (with the

Iroquois being the enemy of the French) it is little wonder that

Jaucourt reviled the Iroquois. Furthermore, he reported, “Like

each nation of Canada, each tribe and each village of the Hurons

bears the name of an animal, apparently because all these

barbarians are convinced that humans come from animals.”190 Just

as Europeans had distinguished themselves from the “barbaric”

Ottomans during the medieval period based on a conception of

religious superiority, some French authors perceived traditional

Catholicism as the superior faith, even during the days of

secular backlash.

188 Louis Jaucourt, ‘Hurons’189 Louis Jaucourt, ‘Iroquois’190 Louis Jaucourt ‘Hurons’

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In writing the History of the Two Indies, Raynal desired (in part) to

write against the aspersions surrounding the savage. Although he

did not fully circumvent the astringent characterizations of the

savage that were prevalent during the eighteenth century, he

nevertheless managed to enumerate their gentle qualities.

Furthermore, Raynal also emphasized the unequal description of

the savage when he wrote, “None of those who describe the

character of savages include benevolence in their portrayal.”191

Whereas other authors had portrayed the brutality of the savage,

Raynal pointed out that there were distinctions among the savage

nations and that some clearly followed Rousseau’s standard of a

good, benevolent natural man.

The indigence which other writers dismissed as an indication

of their uncivilized lifestyle was a positive quality according

to Raynal. He wrote that the “isolated, nomadic peoples, [were]

protected by the wildernesses that separate them… [and] by the

poverty which ensures that they neither inflict not suffer

injustice…”192 Raynal held in high esteem the communal sharing of

property and pointed out that it led to solid community ties

191 Raynal, 211192 210

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among the savages. He wrote, “Since the Hottentots have neither

riches nor the outward show of riches, and since their sheep,

their only possessions, are held in common, there can be few

causes of discord among them. They are therefore united by bonds

of indestructible friendship.”193 Indeed, Raynal wrote that the

savage did not need all the trappings of civilization, including

an organized government. He described the indigenous population

of the Caribbean as having “no regular form of government among

them, yet they lived quietly and peaceably with one another.”194

Raynal did not hesitate to enumerate (and even embellish) the

estimable qualities of savage nations. He inverted the logic of

most Frenchmen when he described the Khoi of southern Africa:

“Tell me, reader, do you see here civilized people arriving among savages, or savages

received by civilized people? What does it matter that they were naked, that they lived in huts in the heart of the jungle, that they had neither acode of laws, nor a system of civil or criminal justice, provided that theywere gentle, humane and beneficent, provided that they had the virtues which characterize man.”195

In sum, Raynal thought the most pernicious traits “civilized”

mankind possessed were absent in savage nations. He wrote, “Among

the Caribs, whose hearts were not depraved by the pernicious

193 Raynal in Jimack, 20194 Raynal, 258195 Raynal in Jimack, 77

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institutions that corrupt us, neither adultery, treason, nor

massacres, so common among civilized nations, were known.”196

Raynal certainly did not hesitate to critique French society

using the savages as examples of “real” savage behavior. He

juxtaposed the supposed savage behavior with that of the

“civilized” Europeans in order to satirize contemporary society.

In 1770, he pointed out flaws in the system of government. Raynal

took up the mindset of the savage by writing from their

perspective, saying, “But what seems to them a baseness, a

degradation below even the stupidity of animals, is that men, who

are equal by nature, should lower themselves to the point of

depending on the will or the whim of one man.”197 Raynal followed

in Rousseau’s and Voltaire’s footsteps by lambasting the

monarchy. In addition, he brought religion under attack when he

vehemently wrote, “A savage, free from constraint of any kind,

would not be guilty of some actions that men governed by honour

and by religious and civil laws would not blush to do. Shame on

our religion, on our laws and on our behavior!”198 Raynal pointed

196 Raynal, 259197 211198 Raynal in Jimack, 113

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out that since savages were (allegedly) prone to open and

trusting relationships, upon first sight of Europeans in their

midst, he postulated that lying and deceit came from “civilized”

society. He wrote, “It is not in the heart of the forests that we

learn to despise man and mistrust him, it is in the midst of

civilized societies.”199 In essence, Europeans could not be

trusted; savages could.

Raynal continued to write an apologetics for the savages and

their bellicose behavior, pointing out that Europeans were the

first to intrude upon the New World, which the savage already

inhabited. Although Raynal wrote with scathing reports about the

Spanish and what they did to the Aztecs and the Incas, he indicts

all of Europe, “no matter what their nationality,” for poorly

treating the indigenous populations of the Americas, because they

“…have been consumed with a common frenzy, the lust for gold.”200

This gold-lust eventually turned into bloodlust, a killing spree

against which the natives had to protect themselves. The savage

merited forgiveness (or at least an excuse) because they “…

concluded that the only way to avoid their own destruction was to

199 113200 123

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exterminate them [the French]…”201 The savage nations were on the

defensive and did not merit the extreme destruction the Europeans

wrought in the New World, according to Raynal.

A new kind of colonization was to take place, staring with

the exploration of Tahiti. Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (the

first Frenchman to circumnavigate the globe) is most known for

the French voyage to the South Pacific islands and his subsequent

descriptions of the indigenous population. His writings

concerning the Tahitians continue to romanticize the idea of a

“noble savage,” and his descriptions of the island of Tahiti and

its inhabitants would influence other philosophers, such as Denis

Diderot, le Marquis de Sade, and Fourier.202 Bougainville’s

journal therefore is critical for understanding the shift in

culture and philosophy that took place in the later part of the

eighteenth century in France in terms of defining the “Other.”

Tahiti was a garden of earthly delights, according to

Bougainville, and this was in no small part due to their open

expression of sex and sexuality. What is unique to the later

enlightenment is that sexuality in connection with the savage

201 179202 Martin, 209

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becomes a positive attribute. Throughout the eighteenth century,

a lack of clothing signified a lack of civilization, a clearly

detrimental aspect of the savage lifestyle. Therefore, sexuality

in connection with the savage contributed to the idea of a noble

savage, although a rather different noble savage than Rousseau’s

(who lacked all sexual compulsion). However, neglected parts of

Bougainville’s diary show a more complicated world view than

simply distilling the Tahitians into a “Golden Age.” His

encounters with other indigenous groups show that toward the end

of the eighteenth century, the “noble Savage” was the exception,

not the norm. He breaks away from Rousseau’s philosophy, and

other traditional narratives concerning the savage, in numerous

ways, including descriptions of physical appearance, temperament,

and sexuality.

The Pacific Journal of Bougainville is an account of his journey to

Argentina, Patagonia (present-day southern Argentina and Chile),

Indonesia, and most notably Tahiti in 1767-68. He would write

another account after he returned to France, the “Voyage around

the World.” This journey was the first officially state-sponsored

expedition to the Pacific Ocean, in order to explore and colonize

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new islands. This undertaking was in part due to Bougainville’s

personal desire to explore; it also coincided with the French

government’s exploratory competition with Britain and Spain.

Bougainville’s journey was situated in a period of heavy

geopolitical competition, as both the French and the English

fought over sections of the globe to dominate.

Historians have often focused on specific sections in his

journal, April to May 1768, because they describe numerous

interactions with the indigenous population of Tahiti, which had

a huge impact on perceptions of indigenous populations. His

characterizations of the indigenous population gave enough

descriptive details about their culture and ways of life to show

how the “exotic” came to be valued by French society. His

perceptions of the Tahitians were glamorized by his biases, but

he did not completely romanticize or idealize all savages, as

Rousseau did in his “Origins of Inequality of Man.” He did at

times bolster the stereotypes that previous philosophers before

him had created. It is at once both a search for the ideal

“utopia” that characterizes much of French travel literature, yet

it is also starkly realistic in that Bougainville acknowledged

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the faults and vices of the indigenous population (or at least

those he saw in them).

There are many instances in Bougainville’s journal in which

he described the indigenous population as having the

characteristics of a “noble savage” based on Rousseau’s

definition and terms. Martin notes that Bougainville romanticized

especially Tahiti “out of all proportion.”203 From the initial

meeting, Bougainville asserted that they were “a happy people,”

and that the Tahitians represented “a golden age.” Bougainville

wrote of a perfect society, without “vice, prejudices, needs, or

dissension.”204 He wrote, “A crowd of Indians welcomed us on the

shore with the most emphatic demonstrations of happiness. Not one

carried any arms, not even sticks. The chief brought fruit, water

and dried fish and we had a golden age meal with people who are

still living in that happy time.”205 Martin points out that this

was probably not the first time that Tahitians had encountered

Europeans. He notes, “They were fully conscious of what twenty-

six eight-pound cannons are capable of, not to mention muskets

203 Martin, 204204 210205 Bougainville, 61

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and pistols. Love of the French was, in part, a device for

disabling the guns (not wholly successfully).” The stereotypical

savage innocence and open trust was simply a show for the

European’s sake. In sum, the Tahitians were amicable with the

French and “want not to be massacred.”206

What Bougainville tried to demonstrate with this anecdote

was that the Tahitians were not inherently violent, but he

projected onto the Tahitians what he wanted or expected to see.

The descriptions of the Tahitians also delineated a longing to go

back to the past, to a “golden age,” a desire that characterized

much of the travel literature during the eighteenth century. By

stating that the Tahitians are “still living” in the golden age,

he implied that they were living out of time. In doing so he

created a picture of the “timeless” quality of the indigenous

Tahitians, which Europeans would use to characterize many

different types of savages. Bougainville described what he

perceived as a “Utopia,” since the Tahitians “possess the gaiety

of happiness and this tendency to that light jocularity that rest

and joyfulness bring about.”207 For this reason, Kommers points

206 Martin, 212207 Bougainville, 73

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out that the Pacific, and especially Tahiti, was the “Home of

Utopias.”208 Bougainville presented a picturesque example of a

static people, a piece of living history, and unaffected by

society or a defined social structure.

From Bougainville’s perspective, the Tahitians did not

possess a set defined structure of government or religion, and

public works were kept at a minimum. Although he acknowledged

that there was a chief, he wrote, “I cannot as yet describe their

form of government, their differences in rank and their

distinctive marks.”209 Bougainville debated internally whether or

not the Tahitians had an established religion. On April 7th, 1768

he thought that “Venus is the goddess they worship,” but on the

15th after approximately ten days on the island, he wrote, “Do

they have a religion? Or not? I saw no temple, no external sign

of worship…”210 Furthermore, Bougainville wrote that although the

Tahitians did perform some tasks in order to maintain the upkeep

of their island, “having an elementary knowledge of those crafts

that are adequate for men who still live in a state close to

208 Kommers, 485209 Bougainville, 64210 73

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nature, working but little, enjoying all the pleasures of

society, of dance, music, conversation, indeed of love, the only

God to which I believe these people offer any sacrifices.”211

Essentially, Bougainville contributed to the notion of a “lost”

earthly paradise. The Tahitians had (apparently) only the vaguest

structures of society. When Bougainville left Tahiti, he

concluded that the savages were

“ A large population, made up of handsome men and pretty women, living together in

abundance and good health, with every indication of the greatest amity, sufficiently aware of what belongs to the one and the other for there tobe that degree of difference in rank that is necessary for good order…”212

Overall, Bougainville described the Tahitians according to

the principle that an inherently “good” nature is evident in the

physical characteristics of the person. Bougainville wrote

consistently that “Their features are very handsome,” and that

they had beautiful bodies and faces.213 Furthermore, this pleasant

physicality was not limited to young men and women. He wrote,

“The women are pretty and, something that is due to the climate,

their food and water, men and women and even old men have the

211 72212 ibid213 63

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finest teeth in the world.”214 Bougainville continued to attribute

their attractiveness to nature. Describing Tahiti as “… the

finest climate in the world, [nature has] embellished it with the

most attractive scenery, enriched it with all her gifts, filled

it with handsome, tall and well-built inhabitants.”215 In sum, it

seemed as though everyone got along, society provided only a

basic framework, and everyone was beautiful.

However, this is not to say that all was well in paradise.

During his stay in Tahiti, Bougainville remarked that some

Tahitians were prone to stealing, but it was not necessarily out

of malicious intent that they committed theft. He remarked, “one

has to keep an eye on everything because they are great thieves,

although honest in trade.”216 Martin notes that in total during

Bougainville’s stay on Tahiti, “there are at least four dead

bodies (all Tahitians) and at least one probable rape (of a

Frenchwoman…) and one attempted (of the same woman by

Tahitians).”217 And yet, the worst that Bougainville had to say

about the Tahitians is that they were thieves and “scoundrels.”

214 ibid215 72216 64217 Martin, 209

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Although the Tahitians had many positive qualities, “The bad is

that they are the cleverest scoundrels in the universe…”218

Overall, Bougainville engaged with philosophic traditions at the

time, even referencing Rousseau and his idea of a “noble savage.”

However, Bougainville felt a certain disdain for Rousseau,

because he only philosophizes about the “noble savage” whereas

Bougainville experienced them directly.

Indeed, Bougainville made snide remarks concerning Rousseau

and his theories of the “noble savage.” Bougainville praised the

island and its inhabitants, writing, “She [nature] herself has

dictated its laws, they follow them in peace and make up what may

be the happiest society on this globe. Lawmakers and

philosophers, come and see here all that your imagination has not

been able even to dream up.”219 He took a more explicit stab at

Rousseau in the beginning of his journey; one cannot help but

wonder if he wrote this journal specifically for publication. He

remarked, “They [the indigenous] piss in a crouched position,

would this be the most natural way of passing water? If so, Jean-

Jacques Rousseau who is a very poor pisser in our style, should

218 Bougainville, 66219 72

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have adopted that way. He is so prompt to refer us back to Savage

Man.”220 Bougainville was not at all enamored with Rousseau, nor

did he feel particularly inclined to adhere to Rousseau’s model

of savages.

Indeed, Bougainville wrote often of the intelligence and

“cleverness” of the Tahitians, especially one man named Ahutoru,

who accompanied Bougainville on subsequent voyaging. Bougainville

wrote that, “This Indian is very intelligent and very shrewd.”221

Furthermore, in leaving Tahiti, Bougainville expressed in

romantic (and a bit ominous with historical hindsight) terms,

“Farewell happy and wise people, may you always remain what you

are.”222 Perhaps he meant to explicitly contrast “happy and wise”

with Rousseau’s savage, who possessed “natural imbecility and

happiness.”223 Of course, there were limitations to this

intelligence. Bougainville described Ahutoru as “very lazy”

because he had not “yet learnt one word of French.”224

The different standards of savages were not limited to the

Tahitians. What is remarkable about the impact that 220 Bougainville, 12221 86222 74223 Rousseau, 574224 Bougainville, 86

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Bougainville’s work has left is that many writers after him

focused on Tahiti, leaving aside his other encounters with

Polynesians. The romantic notion Bougainville had that Savages in

the south Pacific were all beautiful quickly dissipated. In

describing the inhabitants of “Lepers Island” Bougainville wrote,

“These people are ugly, short in stature, covered in leprosy.

They are naked except for their natural parts.”225 Bougainville

nevertheless tried to cling to his ideal “New Cythera” in

describing other islanders. He described the inhabitants of Samoa

as “smaller and less handsome than those of Cythera. A woman who

had come in one of the canoes was hideous.”226 Furthermore, he

postulated, “I do not believe these islanders to be as gentle as

our Cytherans. Their features are more savage and they displayed

a great deal of mistrust.”227

Despite the ways in which Bougainville either connects or

disconnects from Rousseau in matters of philosophy, one of the

most important ways this journal had an influence on society was

his descriptions of Tahitian sex, sexuality, and women. Martin

225 93226 Bougainville, 81227 82

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notes that there was already a concept of the erotic south

Pacific in France, but Bougainville brought a certain amount of

skepticism with him in his travels.228 Despite (or because of)

their preconceptions of the Pacific islanders, the conservative

French were shocked, fascinated, embarrassed, and at times,

pleased by the nudity and open sexuality of the Tahitians.

According to Bougainville, “As they went into houses, they

[Frenchmen] were presented with young girls, greenery was placed

on the ground…”229 Bougainville consistently spoke of their

beauty, and “These people breathe only rest and sensual

pleasures.”230 Bougainville also wrote that “Married women are

faithful to their husbands…but we are offered all the young

girls.”231 Perhaps one of the most scandalous events to an

eighteenth-century mind was when “A young and fine-looking young

girl came in one of the canoes, almost naked, who showed her

vulva in exchange for small nails.”232 Bougainville characterized

the Tahitians as “happy” due in no small part to their open

sexuality. He even named the island “New Cythera,” because 228 Martin, 210229 63230 ibid231 ibid232 60

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Cythera was believed to have been the birthplace of Aphrodite,

and “Venus is the goddess they worship.”233 As Martin notes, “The

word “island” is already feminine in French; Bougainville manages

to feminize a feminine.”234

There are numerous ways in which Bougainville created links

between sexuality and exoticism. However, he not only objectified

the women in his writings, he also “sexualized,” or focused on

the sexuality of men as well. Because Bougainville focused on the

sexuality of savages not only on Tahiti, but elsewhere in his

travels, he helped to create the implicit link between savagery

and sensuality. For example, he described Tahitian society as

amenable to open sexuality. He spoke of both sexes having an

equal authority in their sexual relationships; for example, he

stated that “Men have several wives and girls all the men they

want.”235 This perceived notion of Bougainville’s must have been

extremely foreign; not that the men had sexual intercourse with

more than one woman, but also that the woman had more than one

male lover. In other words, it was not only the women who were

233 Bougainville, 63 234 Martin, 204235 73

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objects of sexual desire, but the men as well. In writing about

Ahutoru, he noted, “Our Indian thinks of nothing but his women,

he talks endlessly about them, it is his only thought or at least

all the others he has relate to this one.”236 (Furthermore,

Diderot would write in his supplement that “The Tahitian custom

of having all women in common was firmly ingrained in his

[Ahutoru] mind that he threw himself upon the first European

woman who came near him…”237 However, Diderot took some liberties

in describing Tahitian customs.) His personal savage seemed to be

consumed by thoughts of the opposite sex. Writing of savage

nudity was not limited to the island of Tahiti. As mentioned

previously, Bougainville consistently noted each time that he

encountered islanders who were nude, or who cover their “natural

parts.” When he came to shore on “New Britain,” he reported that

“These men are tall and seem strong and agile…Tree leaves cover

their enormous and pendulous nudity.”238

These descriptions of sexuality would influence Denis

Diderot to write “A Supplement of the Voyage of Bougainville,” in

236 77237 Diderot, 184238 Bougainville, 128

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which he concentrated on the sexuality of the Tahitians in order

to argue against the French social codes of the era. Like

Bougainville, Diderot had a tendency to describe Tahiti as the

ultimate paradise. He wrote (in the voice of one of his

characters), “I can only assure you that you won’t find the human

condition perfectly happy anywhere but in Tahiti.”239 Perhaps

Tahiti was not perfect, but it was the closest to perfection that

human society would ever achieve. Their happiness was due in no

small part to the Tahitians’ “open sexuality.” The free

sensuality of the Tahitians was far more attractive and desirable

than the unreasonable social moral codes surrounding the

sexuality of the French.240 Ultimately, the descriptions of the

Tahitians as both exotic and erotic would shape the way in which

later writers and readers of “exotic” people, places, or objects

connected the two. In other words, being “exotic” did not 239 Diderot 226240 The Christian moral codes which Diderot lambasted were arguably superficial, especially among the upper bourgeois circles of the elite, where promiscuity and libertinism reigned. In criticizing the standard moral codes concerning sexuality, Diderot in part pointed out the hypocrisy of the French during the eighteenth century. There were strict standards against sexual intercourse before marriage, yet many French men and women engaged in pre-marital or extra-marital affairs, including his acquaintance and fellow intellect, Julie de Lespinasse. He wrote in the Supplement, “Examine your conscience in all candor, put aside the hypocritical parade of virtue which isalways on the lips of your companions, though not in their hearts…” Diderot, 210

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necessarily mean being “erotic” but based on texts such as

Bougainville’s journal, as well as Diderot’s “Supplement,” the

two became intertwined in both French and European thought.

Diderot took considerable artistic and factual liberties

when writing the Supplement. Loosely based on Bougainville’s

travels, he used the different culture of the savage to justify

his philosophical claims, much as Rousseau did. (And, perhaps

taking a page out of Lahontan’s literary tradition, he placed

much of the commentary in the mouths of the Tahitians themselves.

In the Supplement, he wrote a dialogue between a French chaplain

and a “real” Tahitian.) However, unlike Rousseau, Diderot focused

explicitly on “the undesirability of attaching moral values to

certain physical acts which carry no such implications.”241 The

bulk of the discourse and the analysis of French sexual codes

(and how Tahitian sexual freedom is better) is in the

“Conversation between the Chaplain and Orou.” However, in order

to establish the higher moral standing of the Tahitians, Diderot

wrote “The Old Man’s Farewell,” in order to show French readers

how Tahitian society was, all in all, healthier and superior to

241 Diderot, 179

Slick 108

their own. By establishing the connection of the noble savage

with open and free sexuality, Diderot glossed the Tahitians as

“innocent and happy.”242

Their happiness was due in large part to the immense freedom

that permeated Tahitian society on every level; not simply

concerning sexual codes. According to Diderot, this freedom of

Tahitian society originated in the lack of warfare, the

egalitarianism of Tahitians, and the superb health that living in

solitude brought. Diderot admits that the savage could resort to

violence but that on the whole, “whenever his peace and safety

are not disturbed, the savage is innocent and mild.”243

Furthermore, the egalitarianism of earlier accounts of savages is

present in Diderot’s account as well. He wrote (in the voice of a

Tahitian nonagenarian) “Here all things are for all,” and this

was not limited to material possessions; in Tahiti, “Our women

and girls we possess in common.”244 Finally, the Old Man

proclaimed that the health of the Tahitians was far better than

that of the French, because the Tahitians were only knowledgeable

242 187243 184244 187-188

Slick 109

of one disease “the one to which all men, all animals and all

plants are subject—old age.”245 Every single one of the Tahitians,

whether young or old, male or female, was in pristine condition.

The Old Man proclaimed, “Look at these men—see how healthy,

straight, and strong they are. See these women—how straight,

healthy, fresh, and lovely they are.”246 However, the crux of

Tahitian happiness (besides the freedom that open sexuality

brought) was simply the leisure time that Tahitians enjoyed.

Diderot wrote, “We have reduced our daily and yearly labors to

the least possible amount, because to us nothing seemed more

desirable than leisure.”247 For Diderot, the laziness associated

with savagery was not necessarily a fault; the extraneous labor

that French society demanded was.

In the Supplement, Diderot frequently mocked religion and

turned traditional notions of morality and standard Christian

assumptions on its head. For instance, Diderot challenged that

God was a benevolent maker of all creation.

“The Chaplain: Well, we believe that this world and everything in it is the work of a maker…

245 189246 Diderot, 189247 189

Slick 110

Orou: But we have never seen him.The Chaplain: He cannot be seen.Orou: He sounds to me like a father that doesn’t care very

much for his children.”

Diderot also confronted the extreme value that society placed on

priests, pointing out that they did not really do much of

anything, to benefit society or otherwise. He even made the

chaplain himself admit this in the Supplement.

“Orou: Then what kind of work do you [the Chaplain, priests] do?

The Chaplain: NoneOrou: And your magistrates allow that sort of idleness—the

worst of all?”248

Not only did Diderot mock religion, he also pointed out that the

savage way of life was not one of idleness, but that they did not

slavishly devote themselves to labor; laziness was nevertheless a

vice, but the Tahitians seemed to know when to quit working. For

Diderot, society should be a balance between work and leisure,

responsibility and passion, and morality and self-interest.

However, the main detriment that religion brought to society

for Diderot was that of arbitrarily ascribing vice to sex.

Diderot vehemently criticized the self-denial which religion (and

more specifically, Christianity) taught, as well as the hypocrisy248 212

Slick 111

that seemed attached to it. In the short dialogue between a

chaplain and Orou, a Tahitian, Orou tries to explain the pitfalls

of religion and how silly they seem compared with Tahitian

morality.

“Orou: Are monks faithful to their vows of sterility?The Chaplain: No.Orou: I was sure of it. Do you also have female monks?....The Chaplain: They are kept more strictly in seclusion, theydry up from unhappiness and die of boredom.”249

Diderot pointed out that the asceticism of many monks and

nuns was not only detrimental to their own happiness and

fulfillment, but also that monks, supposedly the highest

cultivators of virtue fell victim to their temptations often.

(This is quite evident when Diderot wrote of the chaplain, who,

despite his protestations of “my holy orders!” and “my religion!”

still managed to have sex with four Tahitian women within a

week.) Diderot’s main point throughout the text is that amoral

actions arose because of sex and sexuality only because of “…

religious institutions, because their teachings have attached the

labels “vice” and “virtue” to actions that are completely

independent of morality.”250 French society should accept sex as

249 Diderot, 213250 223

Slick 112

the natural act that it is: both necessary for reproduction and

“the sweetest and the most innocent of pleasures…”251 According to

Diderot, the Tahitians could “reproduce themselves without shame

under the open sky and in broad daylight.”252 The shame and guilt

associated with sex were only false social institutions put into

place by hypocritical religious standards.

Diderot argued that open sexuality was the “pure instinct of

nature,” and that to try to suppress natural urges because of

religion was “contrary to nature and contrary to reason.”253

Diderot made bold claims when he connected cold, objective reason

and passion by saying that allowing oneself to indulge in sexual

pleasure was simply logical. Diderot sought to ameliorate the

dichotomy between sex and reason; sex is natural; why try to deny

oneself what is natural? Diderot even went as far as to say that

it was completely unreasonable for young, fertile men or women to

deny themselves sex. He wrote in the voice of a Tahitian, “For in

truth is there anything so senseless as a precept that forbids us

to heed the changing impulses that are inherent in our being…?”254

251 222252 190253 Diderot, 187 and 196254 198

Slick 113

For Diderot, sex was not inherently evil; only the fabricated

stigmas attached to it. Diderot stressed the innocence of sex,

saying “the same passion that gives rise to so many evils and

crimes in our countries is completely innocent here [Tahiti].”255

The only crime that would come from sex would be to deny it,

according to Diderot.

Diderot pointed out that Tahitians did not necessarily have

sex whenever and with whomever they pleased. There were still a

few moral codes concerning sex but the “punishments” for

“misdemeanors” were not nearly as severe as those in France.256

With these “taboos” of the Tahitians, Diderot ultimately linked

the value of virility of men and women with sex; reproduction was

still the ultimate goal, but, according to Diderot, the Tahitians

were not afraid to take pleasure in sexual acts. Harvey points

out that “Diderot’s discussion of sex and reproduction is frankly

utilitarian,” not only for the individual Tahitian but for

society as a whole.257 For Diderot, having only one marriage

partner was akin to taking ownership of the other person’s body; 255 209256 For instance, the only negative associations with sex that people should abstain from were when a woman was menstruating or when a woman had reached menopause and could no longer reproduce.257 Harvey, 109

Slick 114

since no one can or should own another’s body, multiple sex

partners should be the norm, not the exception. Furthermore, the

children produced from such unions would still be loved and cared

for, and they would simply help expand the natural population.

Cultural taboos for the French, such as multiple sexual

partners or incest, were either ignored or seen as a positive

facet of sexuality for the Tahitians. The Tahitians could and did

marry, but they were free to leave the marriage and find another

sexual partner; there was no stigma attached to “divorce” nor did

any negative feelings such as jealousy or hatred arise from it.

Orou pointed out that multiple partners simply meant that there

were greater chances for expanding the population for the benefit

of the whole society. Orou stated that “once they [women] have

passed the age of puberty, we exhort them all the more strongly

to have as many children as possible.”258 As for incest, union

between brothers and sisters were “very common” and “strongly

approved of,” because they both are fertile.259 Any Tahitian woman

could be “proud of her ability to excite men’s desires, to

attract the amorous looks of strangers, of her own relatives, of

258 Diderot, 203259 209

Slick 115

her own brothers.”260 Open sexual expression was one of the

highest virtues of Tahitian society for Diderot.

In the Supplement, Diderot not only pointed out the virtues

of Tahitian society, but also lambasted the French. In a

“farewell speech” to the French, Diderot used the voice of an

“Old Man,” a Tahitian, to explain the detriments that the French

had brought with them to Tahiti. The Tahitians, according to the

Old Man, had cause for weeping, “for the arrival…of these wicked

and grasping men!”261 The French were nothing but “brigands,”

“wretched men,” and “murderers,” and made Tahitians distrust and

hate each other. They had brought their sense of superiority,

their diseases, and murderous impulses to Tahiti, blotting it

with disgrace and shame. The Old Man’s bitter diatribe against

the French began with the accusation that the French “want to

make slaves of us” and that they treat the Tahitians “as a

chattel, [and] as a dumb animal.”262 Furthermore, the French had

infected the Tahitians with their “foul blood.”263 The Tahitians

had truly lived in blissful ignorance, according to Diderot. “The

260 190261 187262 Diderot, 188263 189

Slick 116

notion of crime and the fear of disease have come among us only

with your coming.” Not only did disease enter society, the French

robbed the Tahitians of the very thing that made Tahitian society

perfect: their open sexuality. No longer could Tahitians have

sexual intercourse so freely now that they were infected with a

variety of French venereal diseases. The French would bear

Tahitian blood on their hands and consciences “of the ravages

that will follow your baneful caresses, or of the murders we must

commit to arrest the progress of the poison!”264 The Old Man

implored the French to leave Tahiti and proudly declared, “Leave

us our own customs, which are wiser and more decent than

yours.”265

Diderot was perhaps one of the first writers to not simply

imply the virtues of a different society, but to explicitly state

that the non-European, savage society was in fact better than the

French. “I’ll wager that their barbarous society is less vicious

than our ‘polite society.’”266 For example, the jealously arising

from thwarted passions in French society, or the meaningless

264 190265 188266 225

Slick 117

coquetteries of flirtatious French women inspired much more

vicious actions among “civilized” men than did the open sexuality

of the Tahitians to their society. Although Diderot did not

choose in his Supplement whether it is better for man to revert

back to savagery or to stay with the structured ways of

civilization, he “acknowledges the virtues and vices of both

conditions…”267 Both societies have codes of morality, honor, and

law, but the “law of nature” was perhaps superior than the

artificial religious laws in the French society. He wrote,

“Indeed, I believe that the most backward nation in the world,

the Tahitians, who have simply held fast to the law of nature,

are nearer to having a good code of law than is any civilized

nation.”268 Diderot acknowledges that there are certain cultural

norms in one society that may not exist in another. He wrote that

the French have no right to condemn “…our [Tahitian] morals for

not being those of Europe.”269 In sum, “Diderot questions and

challenges both European and exotic customs, in an approach that

is sufficiently relativist to acknowledge profound cultural

267 Harvey, 109268 Diderot, 218269 208

Slick 118

difference…”270 The savage at the end of the eighteenth century

was caught in between universal standards and cultural

relativism.

Conclusion: the Rise of Colonialism

What is important to note about all these texts is that the

French did not describe the ‘savage’ as the men and women

actually were. Their views of the savage and their society ranged

according to how the French viewed their own. If a French writer

270 Harvey, 110

Slick 119

was particularly dissatisfied with French soceity, he had a

tendency to praise the vitures of the savage. Just as there were

many opinions of French society, so too were there of the savage.

Harvey notes that there was  ‘‘a constellation of factors’’ which

‘‘began to tip the balance away from the romantic depiction of

the noble savage.’’271 In essence, the descriptions and critique

of French society were translated onto the savage. However, what

began as a critique of French society turned into a desire for

French expansion and incorporation of savage nations under French

influence.

What we saw with the beginning of the discourse on the

savage was that the French inherited the notion of a “savage” man

from early Spanish and Portuguese accounts of indigenous

populations of non-French nations. Along with the perception that

the savage was barbaric arose the notion of a noble, or

inherently good, savage. During the early Enlightenment

philosophers tended to romanticize the savage based on travel

reports of French voyagers. By the middle of the eighteenth

century however, a tension developed between the perceived noble

271 Harvey, 87

Slick 120

savage, or the theoretical mental construct of the savage and the

reality of travel reports. Many philosophers used the culture and

mores of the savage in order to critique their own society.

Furthermore, the image of a noble savage persisted, and this is

seen with the writings of Bougainville and Diderot. At the end of

the Enlightenment, the conception of exotic has become tightly

bound with the erotic. Toward the late 1760s and 1770s, the need

for an external model diminished, because the French became

embroiled in the Revolution of 1789, and citizens became able to

change society directly. As a new French empire emerged from the

immense changes wrought by the revolution, aggressive imperialism

began to take hold of the French mindset, and this affected their

perception of the savage. French intellectuals and policy-makers

began to think about the savage with a much greedier and

acquisitional point of view.

Although the French began colonizing the Americas from the

beginning of the sixteenth century, colonization took on its more

virulent form during the nineteenth, after the Napoleonic Wars.

In many ways, by describing the savage as both noble and ignoble,

theories of colonization were more easily justified in French

Slick 121

intellectual discourse. To label a society as “savage” “formed a

legitimation for the European process of civilization.”272

However, the process of colonization was neither inevitable nor a

direct cause of interaction with savages. Nevertheless,

describing the savage in pejorative terms did influence French

public opinion concerning the matter.

The discourse concerning savage nations had only implicitly

suggested a justification for French colonization during the

early eighteenth century. However, toward the end of the

Enlightenment, the scramble for the last remaining outposts of

the world seemed paramount to travelers and philosophers alike.

Martin argues that “Eighteenth-century expeditions and voyages

were a monument to globalization.”273 As seen with Bougainville,

the French, Dutch, English, and Spanish were heavily engaged in

competition to secure land, resources, and the potential to

augment the population base. The latter category was primarily a

French concern, as there was a consistent (if vague at times)

fear of a population crisis in which the French population would

diminish beyond repair. Colonizing savage nations could

272 Boorsboom, 419273 Martin, 215

Slick 122

potentially solve this problem. Although the French balked at the

thought of interbreeding with savages, the potential labor supply

proved to be a powerful incentive to colonize.274 Travel

literature, “which became more nationalistic at the end of the

eighteenth century,” provided in part the intellectual

justification for France as a nation to colonize other lands and

attempt to “civilize” the savages.275 Although nationalism and

patriotism do not necessarily entail a great desire for

expansion, for the French during the nineteenth century, it did.

Empty lands, or lands that were seen as “labor-less” (in which no

one tilled, sowed, or plowed fields for agriculture) were

potential acquisitions for the French. In the collaboration with

Raynal, Diderot wrote that, “If the land is partly uninhabited

and partly occupied, the uninhabited part is available to me. I

can take possession of it by my labour.”276 The French did not see

it so much as a “taking” of the land, but a natural right to take

over. Because Savages did not cultivate or put labor into their 274 However, there are some instances where French intellects did in fact suggest coupling with the more accepted savage nations of the world. For instance, Raynal writes, “The marriage of Malagash women to French settlers would have meant a still more important step in the great process of civilizing the island.” (Raynal, 49)275 Kommers, 490276 Raynal in Jimack, 111

Slick 123

land (by European standards or perceptions) the land was meant to

be used and could be used by the first who put forth the effort

of improving the unused land.

Not only could they improve the land, they could also

improve the people who inhabited it. Clearly the savages were

simple children, unable to take care of themselves. For instance,

Raynal wrote, “What glory it would be for France to deliver a

numerous people from the horrors of barbarousness; to give them a

decent way of life, an ordered administration, wise laws, a

beneficent religion and both the useful and the agreeable arts;

in short to elevate them to the ranks of enlightened and

civilized nations!”277 Toward the end of the eighteenth century,

the French saw themselves as the potential saviors for the savage

peoples. Essentially, the French perceived the Savage as

something new and exotic, “and like all things which were new it

had a powerful capacity for absorption.”278 In the French mindset,

the savage was not simply a “blank slate” in which they had

little culture, but they were a blank slate designed for

imprinting their culture. The Savages were ripe for colonization

277 50278 Pagden, European Encounters, 11

Slick 124

in the French mind, because they had no significant ties to the

land (and potentially French land at that). Raynal said that “The

Brazilians all follow their own inclinations, and like most other

savages, show no particular attachment to their native place. The

love of our country… is a ruling passion in civilized states.”279

In other words, because Savages had no real attachments to any

particular land, they could be integrated into the French empire.

The Savages could potentially be civilized, and France was the

superior nation to take on this mission. As many of the perceived

“good” qualities that the Savage had by living in a state of

nature, they nevertheless needed to be improved. Indeed, the

improvement of the savage was important in Raynal’s mind. If the

French were to colonize savage nations, “The native inhabitant

would very soon have realized that the arts and the knowledge

that were being offered him were most conducive to the betterment

of his lot.”280 The Savage would even be grateful for all that

civilization could bring to them. For, “civilization arises from

the inclination which impels all men to improve their

279 Raynal, 127280 Raynal Jimack, 123

Slick 125

condition…”281 Many did not care to take Rousseau’s vehement

advice concerning the evils of civilization. The savage not only

needed civilization in order to improve, he needed French

civilization. The French cultural superiority complex once again

reared its ugly head into the fray of the savage debate. Despite

the many noble qualities the Savage had, he could always be

improved.

Of course, the glamorous idea of the “noble savage” did not

immediately fall away with the end of the French monarchy, nor

the dusk of the eighteenth century. Healy argues that French

missionaries “were somewhat compelled to describe the savage

favorably, so that the French lay contributors to the mission

might reasonably be encouraged as to its outcome.”282 In other

words, missionaries and other proponents of colonization had to

demonstrate that the Savage possessed enough good qualities to

merit the missionaries’ efforts but immoral enough that they

needed the missionaries at all. In the words of a Jesuit

missionary, “The Indian must be civilized before he can be

281 Raynal, 124282 Healy, 144

Slick 126

Christianized.”283 Already by the sixteenth century, the French

were on a “civilizing mission.” Cartier noted at the end of his

journal that “With what we had seen and could make out of this

tribe, it seems to me it would be easy to tame (civilize) them.

May God in His mercy bring this about. Amen.”284 Cartier (as well

as many other French explorers) seemed to think that the natives

were just as easily manipulated in their religious beliefs as

they were in behavioral and societal values. He wrote, “We

perceived that these people could be easily converted to our

Faith.”285 Healy argues that “colonial political authorities…

hoped to pacify the Indians by integrating them into a French

civilization.”286

Although many authors used depictions of the savage in order

to critique French society, they did so with the firm belief in

the superiority of French culture. Although the French were quick

to point out what improvements could be made to society by

following the ways of the savage, they were even quicker to point

out the ways in which the savage could be improved based on 283 Louis Hennepin, Description de la Louisiane (i683), trans. and ed. Marion E. Cross (Minneapolis, 1938), p. i8o. Quoted in George Healy, 154284 Cartier, 54285 29286 Healy, 154

Slick 127

French society. Although interactions with the savage did not

necessarily lead to aggressive imperialism, the intellectual

formulations of justifying pacification and ruling the savage had

a considerable impact on the French mindset toward other

colonizing ventures. What made the savage such a fascinating

subject to study was that he belonged to a vastly different

culture than the French had ever encountered.

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