Article Abstract index4

From the 16th century, European intellectuals and scholars shaped and defined the images of American Indian through two approaches that were theological and anthropological, which highlighted every aspect of their lives in a different manner. In the long run, it generated a conflicting debate about the legitimacy of colonial domination as theological discourse represented by Tzvetan Todorov, Bartolome de Las Casas and Anthony Pagedan sparked conflicting views about Amerindians as barbarians, while categorizing them as rational beings that need careful investigation because they used the concepts of humanity, natural slavery and superior Christianity to justify their practices. Anthropologically, scholars such as Vine Deloria Jr., Dee Brown, and Ruth Benedict described the lives of indigenous people to challenge Eurocentric views. This paper explores different perspectives to portray that the images of American Indians were not fixed as they were influenced by social, cultural and political ideologies that clearly described rich historical and cultural traditions.
Keywords: American Indian, Theology, Anthropology, Colonialism, European, Ethnography