History Main / TheSavageIndian

* Ky-ote Joe and his Arrow Club associates can fall into this [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor when working heel]], {{braid|sofaction}ing their hair, [[WarPaint painting their faces]], screaming {{war cr|y}}ies, while usually targeting indigenous groups they encounter verbally and other wrestlers of Pre Colombian ancestry physically, trying to get them to stop being complacent and join the movement to "Make America Native Again". And when they mean all countries and populated territories in "America", not just USA.

[[WellThisIsNotThat Not quite.]]

Not quite.

[[folder: Comic Books]]

[[folder: Literature]]

[[folder: Religion & Mythology]]

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[[folder: Anime and Manga]]

* Subverted in the ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' comics ''The Seven Crystal Balls'' and ''Prisoners Of The Sun''. The Incas who target the Belgian archaeologists are arguably the smartest and most determined antagonists in the whole series, and only targeted the archaeologists to punish them for what they thought was the looting of an Incan ancestral tomb. When Tintin explains to the Incas that the Europeans were seeking knowledge rather than wealth, they immediately heal the archaeologists. That said, they still attempt to sacrifice Tintin and Haddock earlier, for their trespassing in sacred areas. Tintin foils this by realizing there's a solar eclipse for that day, which he used to take control over the sun, scaring the Inca into releasing them. Herge later admitted this was a dumb story turn beneath his writing standards, as Incans were sophisticated astronomers and knew all about eclipses. ''Tintin in America'' features somewhat unfortunate depictions of a plains tribe as rather primitive and hostile towards outsiders. Still, it is sympathetic in portraying them as simply wanting to protect their land. With good reason--in the end, when oil is discovered there, they are all forced out.

* The Natives are a SpaceWestern equivalent in ''ComicBook/{{Copperhead}}'': they prowl outside town murdering anyone they find after dark. As of the first dozen issues, there has been zero contact with them that didn't result in a fight to the death.
* ''Streets of Glory'': Red Crow is an evil murderous bastard, hired on the strength of his reputation by a railroad baron. When he thinks his employer has betrayed him, he scalps his bodyguard, leaving him with an exposed cranium.

[[folder: Fan Fiction]]

[[folder: Film]]
* In the movies of Creator/JohnFord:
** The Apaches in ''Film/{{Stagecoach}}'' (1939).
** The Apaches are portrayed rather more favorably in ''Film/FortApache'' (1948), in which only the arrogant Thursday views the Apaches as "breech-clouted savages."
** In ''Film/TheSearchers'' (1956) Comanches attack the family of Ethan Edwards' (Creator/JohnWayne's) brother, killing everyone but a daughter who is kidnapped, leading to a rescue mission that lasts for years.
** Subverted in the silent Western ''Film/TheIronHorse'', in which the Cheyenne violently oppose the railroad, but are humanized in several scenes such as a dog mourning a dead warrior.
* In ''Film/CalamityJane'' (1953), Jane fights this kind, and brags of the number she has killed.
* In ''Theatre/DamnYankees'' (1958), the Devil recalls "Indians draggin' an empty covered wagon when scalping the settlers was the latest craze," and the film shows an image of this.
* Averted in ''Der Kaiser von Kalifornien'' (1936), meaning that American media were [[GodwinsLaw worse than the Nazis]].

* The protagonist of ''{{Film/Utu}}'' is a combination of this trope, and the {{Noble Demon}} with a sense of honour and fair play. His brother and arch enemy is part {{noble savage}}, and part {{Sergeant Rock}}.

* Parodied in ''Film/McLintock''. The town leaders treat the local Comanche tribe like neighbors for the most part. It's mostly outsiders -- and inept [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Humphrey]] -- who mistreat them and drive them to go on the warpath... something that doesn't even bother [=McLintock=] and his fellows one whit.

* Zigzagged in ''Film/CanyonPassage''. Early on, there is some sympathy from the settlers to the Indians' plight, and some amiable - if guarded - interactions between the settlers and Indians. However, once the Indians are provoked into uprising, they are brutal: killing men, women and children indiscriminately. (And scalping Bragg, who was the one who triggered the war.)

* The Apache are not shown in a positive light in ''Film/TheDeserter''. They seem to have no motivation other than to attack and massacre white folk. Kaleb admires some of their characteristics--their hardiness, ferocity, and willingness to die silently so as to not betray their position--but otherwise holds the entire race in contempt.
* ''Film/CryBloodApache'' builds on the idea that the Apache were incredibly inventive when it comes to torture.

* ''Film/TheBalladOfBusterScruggs'': The Native Americans in "Near Algodones" and "The Gal Who Got Rattled" are presented as unsympathetic, often faceless aggressors, almost like a tidal wave of death and destruction that attacks for no reason or purpose. This is very much what one would expect from the pulp westerns that the film is inspired by. The one exception is a mentioned-only character, the former lover of the trapper, who was a Hunkpapa Lakota. They apparently got on well despite her not speaking English and the trapper not speaking Sioux.

* Also [[{{Literature/GunsGermsAndSteel}} Jared Diamond]] {{deconstructed}} the trope in ''The Third Chimpanzee'' and pointed out the [[TheWildWest classical image of the wars against Native Americans]] usually amounts to [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy bare-chested, feathered strongmen]] on horses charging the US Army or the migrant cowboys. But this is limited to a few conflicts in the 1870s which involved a few thousand people all put together. For nearly 400 years, the hidden conflict between the races involved sneak attacks, back stabs, well poisonings, kidnapping of women and children and other nasty things which happen when two agricultural societies try to undermine each other in a quest for land and resources. It remained hidden as long as it happened on the fringes of the civilized world and among people who couldn't write.

* Injun Joe, the AxCrazy villain of ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfTomSawyer'', fits this trope and represents Creator/MarkTwain's early prejudice against indigenous Americans.
* ''Literature/TallTaleAmerica'' has these turn up whenever guys like Mike Fink or Davy Crockett get tired of shooting animals.
* A non-US example is the [[CannibalTribe cannibal natives]] in ''Literature/RobinsonCrusoe'', which takes place off the coast of South America. Although often {{Race Lift}}ed in the novel's many adaptations, the cannibals are identified as Carib Indians in the original text. This makes sense, since the Caribs had a notorious (though highly exaggerated) reputation as ferocious man-eating savages for hundreds of years -- in fact, the very ''word'' "cannibal" comes from these guys ([[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking as does the name of the Caribbean Sea]]).

* The Apaches in the Man with No Name spinoff novel ''A Dollar to Die For'' are a painfully stereotypical example. They kidnap Sgt. Tuco Ramirez, mistaking him for a high-ranking officer (and it didn't help when Tuco promoted himself to General after killing Lt. Sanchez), and inflict this strange torture device on the Man with No Name by having him be bitten by killer ants. There may be ''some'' TruthInTelevision here, since the Apache did indeed torture prisoners.

* Played for laughs in the Creator/RobertLudlum novel ''The Road to Omaha''. Half-insane General Mackenzie Hawkins has led a lawsuit to the Supreme Court to return lands to the Wopotami tribe...which is basically the ''entire state of Nebraska'', including the Strategic Air Command. Hawkins comes in as "Chief Thunder Head" in full cliche Native American garb. When the legal course fails, Hawkins goes to Plan B: He scares the hell out of the Justices by making it sound like the entire Native American culture is going to rise up in full war, citing the "blood-thirsty" Apache, Seminole and Cherokee nations ready to attack. Lawyer Jennifer Sunset (a member of the Wopotami) is horrified and tells Hawkins none of those tribes are at all savages and would never do any of this. Hawkins reply: "What do these dumb palefaces know?" The fact it causes the Court to side with the Wopotamis just makes Jennifer angrier.

[[folder: Live Action TV]]

* The Reavers in ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' are uncomfortably close to Savage Indians InSpace! A more optimistic reading--given that the Reavers are colonists who went mad on the fringes of society, and not some already-present race lurking in the depths of space--is that they're more of a bunch of astro-{{Wendigo}}s.

* In her last appearance in French sitcom ''Series/LesFillesDaCote'', Magalie receives an unexpected bequest - tribal regalia and a tomahawk which apparently belonged to an ancestor who was an Apache Indian. Much mileage, or possibly kilometrage, is had by trotting out all the Savage Indian stereotypes, taken suitably UpToEleven.

[[folder: Professional Wrestling]]

[[folder: Religion and Mythology]]

* Literature/TheBookOfMormon portrays the Lamanites this way.

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

* ''Videogame/SunsetRiders'' has Chief Scalpem, a late boss and enforcer of [[EvilBrit Sir Richard Rose]] who resembles a stereotypical KnifeNut Native American war chief, crown of feathers and all. Native Americans also appear as enemies all over his stage, wielding both knives and bows. The Genesis version leaves most of this untouched but the SNES port removes all the Indian enemies and changes the boss' name to Chief Wigwam.

* ''Film/NewsOfTheWorld'': Zigzagged. Most settlers certainly believe the Native Americans to be this, and truth be told they are revealed to have done some pretty barbaric things, like murdering Johanna's parents and siblings (and subsequently [[RaisedByNatives kidnapping Johanna to raise her as a Kiowa]]). On the other hand, when Kidd and Johanna run into a group of Kiowa after losing their wagon and horses, the Kiowa give them a new horse despite clearly having little belongings left. And Kidd admits that, while the Natives can be brutal, it is mostly in retaliation for the settlers driving them from their land.

* ''UsefulNotes/GameAndWatch: Fire Attack'' makes no effort to hide that the enemies trying to burn down your fort are supposed to be Native Americans, with the opposing Mr. Game & Watches wearing comically huge feathered headbands and your player character wearing a cowboy hat. This has made the game a notable subject of controversy in the succeeding decades, with Nintendo of America opting to remove the feathers from the Native Americans for the game's re-release in ''Game & Watch Gallery 4'' on the Game Boy Advance, the characters being rebranded as generic bandits to remove any racial connotations. ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' was another game notably affected by ''Fire Attack'', as the animation for Mr. Game & Watch's forward smash was redesigned to more closely resemble it, following the theme of Mr. Game & Watch now transforming into the characters of the [=G&W=] games in each attack. Following public outcry, Nintendo opted to censor the animation identically to ''Game & Watch Gallery 4'', once again removing the feather, and with it any indication of Native American stereotyping.

-->-- A '''[[PropagandaMachine Motorized Patriot]]''', describing the Battle of Wounded Knee, ''VideoGame/BioshockInfinite''.

* ''Film/NewsOfTheWorld'': zigzagged. Most settlers certainly believe the Native Americans to be this, and truth be told they are revealed to have done some pretty barbaric things, like murdering Johanna's parents and siblings (and subsequently [[RaisedByNatives kidnapping Johanna to raise her as a Kiowa]]). On the other hand, when Kidd and Johanna run into a group of Kiowa after losing their wagon and horses, the Kiowa give them a new horse despite clearly having little belongings left. And Kidd admits that, while the Natives can be brutal, it is mostly in retaliation for the settlers driving them from their land.

* ''UsefulNotes/GameAndWatch: Fire Attack'' makes no effort to hide that the enemies trying to burn down your fort are supposed to be Native Americans, with the opposing Mr. Game & Watches wearing comically huge feathered headbands and your player character wearing a cowboy hat. This has made the game a notable subject of controversy in the succeeding decades, with Nintendo of America opting to remove the feathers from the Native Americans for the game's re-release in ''Game & Watch Gallery 4'' on the Game Boy Advance, the characters being rebranded as generic bandits to remove any racial connotations. ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' was another game notably affected by ''Fire Attack'', as the animation for Mr. Game & Watch's forward smash is designed after it, following the theme of Mr. Game & Watch now transforming into the characters of the [=G&W=] games in each attack. Following public outcry, Nintendo opted to censor the animation identically to ''Game & Watch Gallery 4'', once again removing the feather, and with it any indication of Native American stereotyping.

* ''UsefulNotes/GameAndWatch: Fire Attack'' makes no effort to hide that the enemies trying to burn down your fort are supposed to be Native Americans, with the opposing Mr. Game & Watches wearing comically huge feathered headbands and your player character wearing a cowboy hat. This has made the game a notable subject of controversy in the succeeding decades, with Nintendo of America opting to remove the feathers from the Native Americans for the game's re-release in ''Game & Watch Gallery 4'' on the Game Boy Advance, the characters being rebranded as generic bandits to remove any racial connotations. ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' was another game notably affected by ''Fire Attack'', as the animation for Mr. Game & Watch's forward smash is designed after it. Following public outcry, Nintendo opted to censor the animation identically to ''Game & Watch Gallery 4'', once again removing the feather, and with it any indication of Native American stereotyping.

[[folder: Real Life]]

* The Aztecs are almost always portrayed as bloodthirsty and war-loving, even in modern works. Of course, there are [[HumanSacrifice reasons for]] [[UpToEleven this bad reputation]].
* In North America, the Pawnee are the only ones who practiced HumanSacrifice, of virgins from neighboring groups, but [[LesCollaborateurs since they were allies of the U.S.]], they were typically portrayed more sympathetically. They underwent a meta-FaceHeelTurn in the movies around the time the Sioux underwent a meta-HeelFaceTurn. This was brought UpToEleven in ''Film/DancesWithWolves'', when Pawnee warriors attack ''even their white allies'', which would have been suicidally stupid.
* This used to be a major draw at [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disneyland]], back when Westerns were popular. Aside from the Indian Village, Literature/TomSawyer's Island included an eternally burning shack with arrows in the side of it. As attitudes changed, it was given [[MultipleChoicePast several different backstories]] before it became just a shack.
* The anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, who ventured into the Venezuelan jungle in the 1960s to study the Yąnomamö tribe, released accounts of a perpetually violent society beset by wars and constant strife. Chagnon believed he found a society in which homicide and warfare were common and most violent men wound up with the most wives and children. Whether or not his views were really founded on actual fact or visualizing the Yąnomamö through his rough childhood (as was claimed in the book ''Darkness in El Dorado'', that also accused him of deliberating infecting them with measles) created a huge controversy in the anthropological world. The allegations were investigated and refuted by the American Anthropological Association, but his work was taken to justify Christian missionaries' subversion of the native culture and escalated clashes between them and nearby miners. Ironically, the local Catholic Silesian missionaries were actually the sole source of the allegations, whose ire Chagnon had earned for criticizing them over supplying the Yąnomamö with shotguns, which he said escalated their violence (for a further irony, he was then accused of giving them weapons himself to secure their cooperation). Accounts of Yąnomamö violence predated Chagnon's work, or even his life, and seem to confirm his findings. Whatever the case then, the Yąnomamö now are peaceful, but unfortunately their bad reputation has been used as an excuse to take their land at times.
* "When we arrived in the New World God pleased to show us the vanity of managing our arms in the European mode. Now we are pleased to learn the skulking way of war." One of the reasons a bunch of untrained farmers were able to beat back the British at Lexington was the years they had spent fighting the Native Americans.
* Pick a US military helicopter. The Iroquois (better known as the Huey). The Black Hawk. The Apache. The Chinook. [[WorthyOpponent There's a reason for those names]].
* Some Native Americans were essentially this trope (most prominently, and successfully, the Comanches). So were many other nations at various times in their history (just read the Iliad, "the greatest epic of Western civilization"). The racism is in assuming that this was somehow inherent to Native Americans, rather than particular to certain cultures at certain times.
* Mentioned in the U.S. [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution Declaration of Independence]], in a passage [[ValuesDissonance rarely quoted today]]:
-->"[King George III] has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions."
* Supposedly inverted if UsefulNotes/ChristopherColumbus's account of the Taino being a generous peaceful people who loved their neighbors before the Spanish got done with them is true. Not that Christopher Columbus thought the Spanish were wrong or anything, but the initial Spanish stereotype made them sound like a Christian community right out of the New Testament. The island that came to be known as Puerto Rico was even called "The Land Of The Noble Lord". The post-Spanish Taino stereotype became [[KnifeNut people who stab]]. A culture they openly adopted from the Spanish.
* Though no one knows the exact people or circumstances involved, archaeologists have found evidence for a massacre which took place at Crow Creek, South Dakota where more than 500 men, women, and children were slaughtered, scalped and mutilated after their village was attacked. This occurred about AD 1325. Again, of course, this was hardly behavior unique to indigenous Americans.
* Olive Oatman was abducted along with her sister by either the Apache or the Yavapais who killed the rest of her family. Oatman was later traded to the Mohave and lived with them for several years before she was returned to white society. Oatman disliked either the Apache or the Yavapais, as they beat and treated her like a slave, but she fondly recalled the Mohave who treated her like one of their own. She also fervently denied that any Native person ever raped her, as some rumors claimed.
[[/folder]]

* As late as February 2011, Radio/BryanFischer, Director of Issues Analysis for the [[MoralGuardians American Family Association]], [[http://newspaperrock.bluecorncomics.com/2011/02/text-of-fischers-racist-screed.html argued that]] Indians were "morally disqualified from sovereign control of American soil" by their "superstition, savagery and sexual immorality". How wrong is this statement? Let us count the ways:
** He also stated that "the Europeans proved superior in battle, taking possession of contested lands through right of conquest. So in all respects, Europeans gained rightful and legal sovereign control of American soil." So [[MightMakesRight might clearly equals legal right]] in his worldview (shared by many European nations in those days).
** The Europeans ''didn't'' always prove superior in battle, and that the United States acquired much of its land not by force, but by making treaties and business deals whose terms the US [[ILied never intended to keep]]. Several Indian tribes had their lands taken over despite never being officially beaten on the battlefield.
** Enormous numbers of Native Americans throughout the entire New World were also wiped out by Eurasian diseases. That's probably the single biggest factor that led to their conquest.

* Subverted by Olive Oatman, who was abducted along with her sister by either the Apache or the Yavapais when they killed the rest of her family. Oatman was later traded to the Mohave and lived with them for several years before she was returned to white society. Oatman disliked either the Apache or the Yavapais, as they beat and treated her like a slave, but she fondly recalled the Mohave who treated her like one of their own. She also fervently denied that any Native person ever raped her, as some rumors claimed.

** In ''Film/TheSearchers'' (1956) Comanches attack the family of Creator/JohnWayne's sister, killing everyone but a daughter who is kidnapped, leading to a rescue mission that lasts for years.

* The Apaches in ''Film/{{Stagecoach}}'' (1939).
** Creator/JohnFord somewhat made amends for that portrayal, by depicting the Apaches rather more favorably in ''Film/FortApache'' (1948), in which only the arrogant Thursday views the Apaches as "breech-clouted savages."
** Ford had another instance in ''Film/TheSearchers'' (1956), where Comanches attack the family of Creator/JohnWayne's sister, killing everyone but a daughter who is kidnapped, leading to a rescue mission that lasts for years.
** Subverted in Ford's silent Western ''Film/TheIronHorse'', in which the Cheyenne violently oppose the railroad, but are humanized in several scenes such as a dog mourning a dead warrior.

This trope has ancient forerunners: practically every culture has identified a less advanced neighbor as "savage", particularly when there existed a conflict of interests. It became especially common in the age of imperialism during which blatantly racist ideas were used to advance a policy of [[WhiteMansBurden European nations "civilizing"]] the rest of the world. In the United States, expanding settlers repeatedly came into conflict with the native tribes. Infrequent abhorrent acts of violence perpetrated by the natives against the intruders led to the perception that all natives were brutal savages, [[BlatantLies especially considering that the settlers were all saints]]. Battles against savage Indians were commonplace in Western fiction up until the modern era, putting this on the edge of becoming a DeadHorseTrope. In the era of the "Revisionist Western," (the era in which we find ourselves) fiction often attempts to provide a more diverse and historically accurate view of violence by and against Native Americans.

* In ''Film/TheChargeAtFeatherHorse'', the Indians are a hostile force out to destroy the westward progress of the railroad, do unspeakable things to white women, and leave their old and sick to die alone. When the Guardhouse Brigade find an elderly Arapaho abandoned by his tribe because he was slowing them down, Grover comments "No wonder they call them savages!"

* The Reavers in ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' are uncomfortably close to [[TheSavageIndian Savage Indians]] InSpace! A more optimistic reading--given that the Reavers are colonists who went mad on the fringes of society, and not some already-present race lurking in the depths of space--is that they're more of a bunch of astro-{{Wendigo}}s.

* Played with in ''Series/{{Westworld}}'', where the Ghost Nation hosts are depicted as bloodthirsty marauders for one narrative. However, since the hosts' individual personalities can be altered in whatever way the park's employees deem fit, this is arguably more to [[EstablishingCharacterMoment showcase]] the park management's [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain racist tendencies]].

This trope has ancient forerunners as practically every culture has identified a more primitive neighbor as 'savages', particularly when there existed a conflict of interests. It became especially common in the age of imperialism during which blatantly racist ideas were used to advance a policy of [[WhiteMansBurden European nations "civilizing"]] the rest of the world. In the United States, expanding settlers repeatedly came into conflict with the native tribes. Infrequent abhorrent acts of violence perpetrated by the natives against the intruders led to the perception that all natives were brutal savages, [[BlatantLies especially considering that the settlers were all saints]]. Battles against savage Indians were commonplace in Western fiction up until the modern era, putting this on the edge of becoming a DeadHorseTrope. In the era of the "Revisionist Western," (the era in which we find ourselves) fiction often attempts to provide a more diverse and historically accurate view of violence by and against Native Americans.