The Myth of the Noble Savage

Recently arrived Europeans meet the Indigenous.

The modern myth of the noble savage is most commonly attributed to the 18th-century Enlightenment philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. He believed the original “man” was free from sin, appetite or the concept of right and wrong, and that those deemed “savages” were not brutal but noble.

But “he” became diseased and degenerated, obsessed with the things of the world.

James Cook said;

A "noble savage" showing colonizers fruits.

They live in a Tranquillity which is not disturb’d by the Inequality of Condition: The Earth and sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary for life, they covet not Magnificent Houses, Household-stuff, they live in a warm and fine Climate and enjoy a very wholesome Air, so that they have very little need of Clothing …

 They were, Cook famously declared in his Endeavour journals, “far more happier than we Europeans”.

Through the 19th century, as empires swallowed Indigenous lands, the idea of the noble savage receded and the reverse negative stereotype of the dangerous, brutal savage prevailed.

 Jean Jacques Rousseau's Emile, ou de l'Education (1762) , Reveries of a Solitary Walker (1782) and Confessions (1768), was a shining beacon to 18th-century Europe. In English, the phrase first appeared in the 17 century in John Dryden's heroic play The conquest of Granada (1672).

 In Emile, ou l'Education, Reveries of a Solitary, Reveries of a Solitary Rousseau talks about many different social problems, it is a philosophic novel. In his book, Rousseau treats the subject of the Noble Savage as well as the social contract, the natural state...
The Conquest of Granada is a Restoration era stage play, a two-part tragedy written by John Dryden that was first acted in 1670 and 1671 and published in 1672.

The "noble savage" helping the Europeans.