De harmlösa vildarna

Say what you will about the early British colonizers in the New World—they were a dab hand at propaganda. In respect of troubling our inhabiting and planting are not to be feared, writes the English naturalist Thomas Harriot in A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia from 1588. The inhabitants of the land, members of the Roanoke nation, are described as thoroughly harmless, having no edge tools or weapons of iron to offend with. Neither know they how to make any, the reader is assured (in parentheses). Reportedly, their weapons are simple bows made of which hazel, and arrows made of reeds—and besides a few flat-edged clubs, an assortment of small bark shields, and some armor made of sticks woven together with thread, the Roanoke have nothing with which to defend themselves. And yet, by the time Harriot published his True Report, the government of the first colony had found it necessary to lead a preemptive attack on the Roanoke nation—chasing down and beheading their Chief. Neither does the True Report inform the reader of this first colony’s disastrous end.
The descriptions of Native Americans in Harriot’s True Report have long been recognized as skewed in favour of colonization efforts in the New World. But was propaganda Harriot’s only purpose with them? During voyages in the Elizabethan age explorers had the task of incorporating previously ‘undiscovered’ indigenous peoples into their journey narratives in a manner that would make sense to Europeans. The British, in particular, had the added challenge of integrating these ‘newcomers’ into their very precise system of universal order: the ‘Great Chain of Being.’
Elizabethan scholar E.M.W. Tillyard explains in The Elizabethan World Picture that the ‘Chain’ was a metaphor which served to express the unfaltering order and ultimate unity of God’s creation. Every speck of this creation formed a link in the Chain, from wood grubs up to the Creator himself—there could be no gap. Man was of paramount interest due to his double nature: he was situated above the animals (as well as the geraniums and river pebbles) due to his faculty of reason, which he shared with the angels, and yet below the angels, because he experienced sexual desire—the quality which he had in common with the beasts (but not the geraniums and river pebbles). In this way, humans were considered to bridge the greatest cosmic chasm—between matter and spirit.
While this exact system of universal order reassured the Elizabethans of their prominent place in God’s creation, they were reportedly appalled by the visible tokens of disorder that suggested upsetting and obsessed by the fear of chaos. These days, many would describe scenes of Christmas shopping after the 22nd as ‘complete and utter chaos,’ but for the Elizabethans this term had a decidedly more sinister bent. We’re talking total cosmic anarchy. That is, everything boiled back down to a dark, oozing sludge. The Elizabethans fervently believed that disorder (oozing sludge) was a product of sin that was perpetually striving to take back the universe.
Due to this conviction that religion and world order were inexorably intertwined, one can imagine the delicate task early explorers were faced with when they first encountered Native Americans. If the British settled in the New World, indigenous Americans would become a part of their world picture and must, therefore, be explained in manner that would fit them into the Chain.

This was also the responsibility in 1588 of Thomas Harriot in his Brief and True Report. From his experiences with indigenous Americans while surveying the landscape around the infant colony on Roanoke Island (modern day North Carolina), Harriot describes the people in a manner which places them in the ranks of ‘men’ in the Chain: they are not at the level of the English, but also not classified as so ‘savage’ that they descend into the realm of animals (the latter being the inclination of some other explorers). He describes them as naïve and child-like: In respect to us, they are but poor people, and for want of skill and judgment they do esteem our trifles before things of greater value. While he concedes that the people seem very ingenious and can show excellence of wit, they are comparatively unintelligent and lack a developed faculty of reason, as they have no such tools, nor any such crafts, sciences and arts as . A common trope in this type of narrative, Harriot reports that inventions such as fireworks and written language so far exceed capacities to comprehend the reason and means how they should be made that the English are ‘mistaken’ for Gods. What marks of ‘civilization’ the indigenous people have, Harriot describes as ridiculous when compared with ‘authentic’ European models: their houses resemble arbors in gardens in England. And then there are Harriot’s aforementioned reports of their feeble weapons and protective pieces of bark.
My notion is that besides placating his countrymen about the threat of the Native Americans, with his True Report Harriot is also making an earnest attempt to assure them that indigenous Americans can be fit into the ‘Chain of Being,’ and that wholesale cosmic anarchy can indeed be averted. His characterization of the people as harmless, impressionable children is an adroit method of incorporating them into the Chain: had he portrayed them lower down on the Chain—as animal-like ‘savages’—the English colonists would have had to consider the impossibility of living amongst humans who lacked the reason to be converted to Christianity. By describing them instead as naïve and childlike, the world order could be maintained—the people were simply heathen because they hadn’t been taught otherwise. Moreover, they would have just enough excellence of wit for the English, acting as their paternal guides, to convert them to Christianity.

Indeed, Harriot states outright that the Roanoke’s religion, though far from the truth, will make them more easier and sooner reformed. What is more, he goes out of his way to make the Roanoke’s religious beliefs sound similar to those of Christianity: although they are polytheistic, he reports that the Roanoke believe there is one only chief and great God. He claims that they believe in the immortality of the soul and that after this life according to the works hath done, it is either carried to heaven the habitacle of the gods, there to enjoy perpetual bliss and happiness, or else to a great pit or hole there to burn continually. Sound familiar?
And then Harriot, like a child inciting suspicion with the exactitude of his alibi for when the birthday-cake was molested, goes overboard with his reassurances: he claims that the people are also extremely willing converts. In spite of—perhaps due to—his self-proclaimed imperfect ability understanding the Algonquian language, Harriot states: through conversing with us were brought into great doubts of their own , and no small admiration of ours. When presented with the Bible, the people are reportedly glad to touch it, to embrace it, to kiss it, to hold it to their breasts and heads, and stroke over all their body with it. Putting aside the question of whether or not the Roanoke actually behaved in this manner, it is odd that Harriot, at any rate, feels confident to interpret these actions as proof of the people’s hungry desire of that knowledge which was spoken of in the book. To top it all off, Harriot concludes that after inspecting several European inventions, the people—if unconvinced before—now, by way of sea compasses and spring-clocks, have come to understand that true religion was rather to be had from whom God so specially loved, than from a people that were so simple, as they found themselves to be in comparison with the English. By way of interest, guns were another one of the ingenious inventions that Harriot reports having made an impression on the Roanoke.
But I diverge—Harriot’s True Report has long been recognized as biased propaganda written in order to encourage immigration to the Roanoke colony despite the reality of major conflicts existing between colonists and indigenous Americans. But the explorer’s need to incorporate Native Americans into the Elizabethan world order as naïve ‘men’ with the willingness to be converted to Christianity appears to come with an added bonus: subjugation. Their opinions I have set down the more at large, Harriot writes to his countrymen, that it may appear unto you that there is good hope they may be brought through discreet dealing and government to the embracing of the truth, and consequently to honor, obey, fear and love us.

Gwendolyn Haevens, ursprungligen från Kanada, är doktorand på engelska institutionen vid Uppsala universitet. Texten bygger på hennes studier i ursprungsbefolkningslitteratur.