The noble savage is the romantic concept of man unencumbered by civilization; the natural essence of the unfettered person. The concept is symbolic of the idea that without the bounds of civilization, man is essentially good. The concept is particularly associated with romantic philosophy, especially that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and with romanticism in general. However, it was John Dryden who first used the phrase in 1672.

The concept appears in many books of the 18th and 19th centuries. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is one of the better known examples, in which the monster is the embodiment of the ideal. A later example can be found in Aldous Huxley's 20th century novel Brave New World.

Origins

Around the 15th century certain European states began expanding, especially in the Americas. In general, they were in search of mineral resources (such as silver and gold), land (for the cultivation of export crops such as rice and sugar, and the cultivation of other foodstuffs to support mining communities) and labor (to work in mines and plantations). In some cases, the indigenous people were killed. In other cases, the people were incoroporated into the expanding states to serve as labor.

Although Europeans recognized these people to be human beings, they had no plan to treat them as equals politically or economically, and also began to speak of them as inferior socially and psychologically. In part through this and similar processes, Europeans developed a notion of "the primitive" and "the savage" that legitimized genocide and ethnocide on the one hand, and European domination on the other. This discourse extended to people of Africa, Asia, and Oceania as European colonialism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism expanded.

The concept of the "noble savage" may have been, in part, an attempt to reestablish the value of indigenous lifestyles and delegitimatize the imperial excesses - establishing them as morally superior to counter-balance the perceived political and economic inferiorities.

As was noted above, the concept of the "noble savage" was a highly romanticized concept not well founded in fact. Attributes of the "noble savage" often included:

  • Living in harmony with Nature
  • Absence of crime
  • Innocence
  • Inability to lie
  • Physical health
  • Moral courage

Citations: see Fabian Time and the Other, Wolf, Europe and the People without History, and Torgovnick, Gone Primitive.