Anti-Turk attitudes shaped English views of Native Americans as savages

Evidence

During the conquest of the Americas, Europeans claimed to observe all manner of monsters, some that resembled Plinian beasts and others that were described as devil-worshippers. The American Indians were described as Moors and their cities as New Cairo, evidence of the Maurophilia that occupied the European imagination. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 33 (#expands, via linked claim)

In more recent times, Western hostility to the Turk was perpetuated by the enthusiasm of the philhellenes who, in their just admiration for Greece, did less than justice to the Turk, seeing in him only the brutal destroyer of the liberties of Hellas, and forgetting the famous words of the Byzantine dignitary Lucas Notaras, “It is better to see in the city the power of the Turkish turban than that of the Latin tiara.” — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 630 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Early British anti-Muslim imagery was borrowed from Native American encounters — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 111; Anti-Ottoman crusader attitudes were transferred onto Native Americans by English colonists — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 206; English colonial ideology of savagery extended from the Irish to Africans and natives (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• European colonial imagination mapped its Moorish fears onto Native Americans before meaningful contact. #expands (0.85) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 33
• English colonial ideology of savagery extended from the Irish to Africans and natives #expands (0.80)
• John Smith’s anti-Muslim crusading shaped English views of Native Americans. #complicates (0.75)
• Philhellenism perpetuated Western hostility to the Turk #contradicts (0.75) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 630