Editing Noble savage (section)

===Benjamin Franklin===
Benjamin Franklin was critical of government indifference to the [[Paxton Boys]] massacre of the [[Susquehannock]] in [[Lancaster County, Pennsylvania]] in December 1763. Within weeks of the murders, he published ''A Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancaster County'', in which he referred to the Paxton Boys as "Christian white savages" and called for judicial punishment of those who carried the Bible in one hand and a hatchet in the other.<ref>{{cite web |title=A Narrative of the Late Massacres |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-11-02-0012 |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref>

When the Paxton Boys led an armed march on [[Philadelphia]] in February 1764, with the intent of killing the [[Moravian Church|Moravian]] [[Lenape]] and [[Mohicans|Mohican]] who had been given shelter there, Franklin recruited [[associators]] including [[Quakers]] to defend the city and led a delegation that met with the Paxton leaders at [[Germantown, Philadelphia|Germantown]] outside Philadelphia. The marchers dispersed after Franklin convinced them to submit their grievances in writing to the government.<ref name="Kenny">{{cite book |last1=Kenny |first1=Kevin |title=Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment |date=2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=9780199753949 |url=https://archive.org/details/peaceablekingdom0000kenn |url-access=registration}}</ref>

In his 1784 pamphlet ''Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America'', Franklin especially noted the racism inherent to the colonists using the word ''savage'' as a synonym for indigenous people:

{{blockquote|text=Savages" we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility; they think the same of theirs.<ref>{{cite web |title=Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-41-02-0280 |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref>}}

Franklin praised the way of life of indigenous people, their customs of hospitality, their councils of government, and acknowledged that while some Europeans had foregone civilization to live like a "savage", the opposite rarely occurred, because few indigenous people chose "civilization" over "savagery".<ref name="ForgottenFoundersCh5">{{cite book |title=Forgotten Founders: Benjamin Franklin, the Iroquois, and the Rationale for the American Revolution |publisher=Gambit, Inc. |location=Ipswich, Massachusetts |isbn=9780876451113 |year=1982 |chapter=Chapter 5: The Philosopher as Savage|first=Bruce E. |last=Johansen |chapter-url=http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/FFchp5.html|author-link=Bruce E. Johansen}}</ref>