Takaki describes the construction of Native Americans as savages through political doctrine and cultural imagery-what Herman Melville called the "metaphysics of Indian hating"-as an ideology that facilitated the removal and extermination of Native Americans. See Takaki, supra note 16, at 8I (citation omitted). The "savage Indian" also served as the referential opposite by which whites defined themselves to be civilized. See generally id. at 56 (stating that Jefferson's efforts to civilize the Indians affirmed a definition of civilization and progress measured by distance from the savagery of the Indian); id. at 176-80 (describing George Custer's view of the "heathen and savage" Indians as "counterpoint[s] to civilization").
-Whiteness As Property by Cheryl I. Harris Harvard Law Review volume 106 June 1993 Number 8 pg.1721
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