Rousseau and the Savages - Fifth (last the 6th was written before my computer crashed and I can't find it)

Rousseau and the Savages
In Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality Among Men Jean-Jacques Rousseau makes broad generalizations about the culture, or lack of one, of 'savages.' He refers to them as just coming into the frameworks of a society. He says that they have reached the point where they mutually value one another but every misstep is an outrage and invokes brutality. How might Rousseau have written differently if he had had a broader knowledge of the culture of these so called savages? Would he have made different conclusions about the nature of man? Or would he have come to the same conclusions? Rousseau refers to the savages lack of complex language, because their needs from language were so simple. He says that they have “crude and imperfect” languages like the historical man that he describes at length in the Discourse. If Rousseau had had a more accurate knowledge of the savage's society, then he would have had different things to say about the savages, but his fundamental essence of his work would have remained the same.
The many tribes of Native Americans in the United States are excellent examples of 'savages' not being exactly what Rousseau had imagined when he wrote about them in passing. These societies were far more advanced than he gave them credit for. The Cherokee Nation is an example of this sort of advanced society; while they might not have had a written syllabary until the early 1800s, they had a spoken language and history for many generations. They were not savages that merely survived. They were a synthesized society with advanced art and language. The Cherokee society has very developed art practices from basket weaving to specific dancing rituals . While Rousseau does make the distinction that others use the savages as an example for man's cruel basic nature, and he refutes this by saying that those societies have already come quite far from the natural state of man. However, the cruelty of Native Americans pales in comparison to the cruelty wrought upon them by the United States government when they forced them on to reservations.
There have been misconceptions, in societies derived from European conquests, about Native Americans, as well as other 'savage' people's, cultures ever since Europeans started exploring and finding peoples that had different kinds of societies from their 'normal' idea of society. The Native Americans in the United States are no exception; they have been framed as dangerous because they were different. They didn't live in the same way as Europeans so they must have been violent and unsophisticated savages. These 'savages' actually lived in a much more peaceful way than Europeans have for most of their history. They have had territorial wars, but it is unknown to me if they have had nearly as many bloody revolutions.
I believe that Rousseau would have stood by his conclusions because of evidence that Native Americans were more civilized than he gave them credit for being. If the 'savages' were in fact more civilized than a man in Rousseau's idea of society that would further prove his point. His point being: going into society is a movement towards inequality, and that man has a more natural state of being equal. The Native Americans would have helped Rousseau show that the society that he lived in was farther away from the natural state of man because of their comparatively less unequal way of doing things. Rousseau was trying to prove that man is naturally compassionate and solitary, while the Native Americans would not have helped his ideas that humans are by nature solitary. They do help him prove that humans in his society are more cruel than those in 'savage' and less civil cultures.




References:
Wooton, David. Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.: 1996.
“Cherokee Arts”. Cherokee Nation Website, http://www.cherokee.org/Culture/CulInfo/CherokeeArts/Default.aspx.
“History of Sequoyah, and the Sequoyan Syllabary for the Cherokee Language”. Cherokee Nation Website, http://www.cherokee.org/Culture/CulInfo/Facts/192/Default.aspx.