Ireland was a colony, and English people treated them accordingly. The racialization of savagery was the consequence of mistaken understanding of the reality, wrong conclusions, and lack of desire to evaluate the situation correctly, as it is always easier to place the stereotype on other peoples than to consider their culture, search for specific information and create new opinion.
This was the period when English expansionism considered “not only as an imperialism but as a defining moment in the making of an English-American identity based on race” (Takaki 893). It is really important to consider the time period to understand why the author of the essay dwells upon racialization of savagery. Furthermore, the time when the play was written coincides with the important period in the history of America.Īccording to Takaki, the time he considers in the essay as the reference to Indian expansion was as follows, “it came after the English invasion if Ireland but before the colonization on New England, after John Smith’s arrival in Virginia but before the beginning of the tobacco economy, and after the first contacts with Indians but before full-scale warfare against them” (Takaki 893). This play was the first where Indian character was presented. To begin with, it should be mentioned that Ronald Takaki uses The Tempest by Shakespeare not by chance. The seizure of Indian property by English is seen. Using The Tempest and other plays by Shakespeare, Ronald Takaki tried to show the examples of the attitude of the citizens of New England to Indians. The information provided in the essay perfectly states that this was exactly as it was stated. This social construction of race occurred within the economic context of competition over land (Takaki 907). Indian identity became then a matter of ‘descent’: their racial markers indicated ineradicable qualities of savagery. This process of dehumanizing the Indians developed a peculiarly New England dimension as the colonists associated Indians with the devil. Having read an essay by Takaki, the following words caught attention:
Moreover, Ronald Takaki raises the problem that New England was formed in the conditions of constant discrimination supported with unreasonable stereotypes that gave raise to “the racialization of Indian savagery” (Takaki 907). He used Shakespeare’s play The Tempest where the examples of treating Indians by English people are observed.
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