"free from all care of heapinge opp Riches for their posterite, content with their state, and livinge frendlye together of those thinges which god of his bountye hath given unto them, yet without givinge hym any thankes according to his desarte. So savage is this people, and deprived of the true knowledge of god. For they have none other then is mentionned before in this worke." Ihon White in "First Hand Accounts of Virginia, 1575-1705"
This passage from one of the first accounts concerning Virginia speaks to the attitude of the Europeans and their judgment of the Native Americans right off the bat. The author has observed these people and their culture and has just written about his ideas about them, but he immediately points out a major flaw that instantly gives the audience, which is more Europeans, a negative image of these people. He seems to pity the Native Americans when he describes them as "deprived," but it doesn't even seem to occur to him that they are content with the lives they have. They have a whole culture and community that they enjoy and have known their whole lives, yet White reduces it to nothing since they aren't giving credit to God for it. It seems prejudiced that he depicts and talks about their "religious men," but says that they "have none other than is mention before." He ignores their religious beliefs and customs because those beliefs and customs are not centered around the "one, true God," according to European standards. I feel like even this early in the process of starting this new country, already present is the feeling of prejudice and ignorance toward Native Americans which continued on through hundreds of years and ended up causing far worse things to happen than a one-sided statement in a historic account.
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