Savage (pejorative term)

Savage is a derogatory term to describe a person or people the speaker regards as primitive and uncivilized. It has predominantly been used to refer to indigenous, tribal, and nomadic peoples.

Sometimes a legal, military, and ethnic term, it has shifted in meaning since its first usages in the 16th century.^{[by whom?]}

Since 1776, American politicians have used the term savage to refer to uncivilized peoples as well as those affiliated with Nazism, Communism, and terrorism.^[1][2]

According to the National Museum of the American Indian, the word "served to justify the taking of Native lands, sometimes by treaty and other times through coercion or conquest".^[3]

During the 16th century, the noble savage, a romanticized literary archetype, emerged in Western anthropology, philosophy, and literature. The stock character symbolizes the mythical innate goodness and moral superiority of a character in tune with nature and uncorrupted by civilization.