How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
"The soaring hawk is not more certain of the dove than I am this moment of you, did I choose to send a bullet to your heart! Why should I not? Why!—because the gifts of my color forbid it, and I might draw down evil on tender and innocent heads." (29.21)
Here Hawkeye equates restraint to being white, and he appears to be quite proud of the fact. Are there other "white" attributes Hawkeye is proud to claim?
Quote #11
"The Spirit that made men colored them differently," commenced the subtle Huron. "Some are blacker than the sluggish bear. These He said should be slaves; and He ordered them to work forever, like the beaver." (29.46)
Whoa, Magua. Way to buy into racism. Also, way to mix metaphors: if someone is colored like a "sluggish bear" why would they be ordered to work "like the beaver"? That's like saying "Hey, you're as pale as a swan. That's why you have to hunt like a stripey black-and-orange tiger." The wha-?
Quote #12
"To tell them this," he said, "would be to tell them that the snows come not in the winter, or that the sun shines fiercest when the trees are stripped of their leaves."
Then turning to the women, he made such a communication of the other's gratitude as he deemed most suited to the capacities of his listeners. (33.36-33.37)
Munro's words were actually not very different from the Delawares'. Hawkeye deliberately mistranslates the man's words because the idea of racial equality is abhorrent to him.