The American Indian in German novels up to the 1850s

A close look at a number of early German novels about the USA (e.g. Sophie von La Roche, Erscheinungen am See Oneida, 1798: Henriette Frolich, Virgini a oder Die Kolonie von Kentucky, 1820; Charles Sealsfield, Der Legitime und die Republikaner, 1833; Johann Christoph Biernatzki, Der braune Knabe, (18 39) reveals that they hardly ever portray Indians as noble savages in an en viable state of nature - the image prevailing in many late nineteenth-centu ry novels (e.g. by Karl May) that tend to sympathise with the Indians lot a nd even suggest a peculiar affinity between them and the Germans. On the co ntrary, the earlier novels wholeheartedly embrace the notion that the bast continent of Northern America is there to be civilised - which is to say: E uropeanised. The Indians are considered as representatives of a lower socia l and cultural order that will either voluntarily join the new, European or der of things or else disappear.