Comparing Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, And James Fenimore Cooper

Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, and James Fenimore Cooper tackle the issue of the racial superiority present in the nation of America, throughout different time periods, in their respective works.

In his work Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America, Franklin addresses the superiority the whites feel they have over the Native Americans, while also proving it to be a senseless notion. For instance, he states, “Savages we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility; they think the same of theirs.” (358). He goes on to describe specific examples of Native kindness and civility, which are then compared to the rude ways of the whites. One example is that of how the Natives hold public

councils; Franklin details how the speaker is able to speak while all else remain silent, and even after the speaker is done, the silence continues in order to allow him to add anything else to his speech. Franklin then follows that up with a comparison to how in the British House of Commons they are ceaselessly being called to order, and in normal conversation they cut each other off mid-sentence due to impatience. Furthermore, Franklin provides another example of how the so called “savages” are actually more decent than the “far superior “whites. He discusses how a particular Native patiently and attentively listens to the Gospel that a Swedish minister shares with him; however, when the Native tries to share his creation story, the minister rudely cuts him off and asserts it is all a lie. Through these specific examples that Franklin gives, one gets a sense of the how the colonists felt superior over the “savage” Native Americans, and how reversed the indecency actually was at times.
While Franklin addresses the racial superiority of the colonists over the Natives, Douglass focuses on the superiority of whites over African Americans; he approaches this through the lens of slavery in America.

The whole institution of slavery is founded upon this belief that one is superior to another; in the case of American slavery during this time period, it is the whites who maintain superiority over blacks. Douglass, throughout his work Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, repeatedly touches on the notion of ignorance as a tool the whites use to stay superior. Within the first few sentences of the first chapter, he mentions that he does not even know how old he is, and he speculates that the masters purposely keep this hidden from their slaves in order to keep them as ignorant as animals. He later reinforces this idea of ignorance as a tool when he describes his first experience with learning to read and write. His mistress, Mrs. Auld, was caught trying to teach him by his master; in this instance Mr. Auld states, “It would forever unfit him to be a slave . . . It would make him discontented and unhappy.” (20). When Douglass hears this, he immediately understands that whites are able to enslave black men, and maintain their notion of being the superior race, by keeping those enslaved utterly devoid of any education; if they don’t understand how unjust their slavery is, they cannot do anything about

it.
Cooper, in his novel The Deerslayer, tackles the issue of white superiority over Natives, like Franklin does, but he does so while actually writing in the time period of slavery and not early colonialism. Most of the racial superiority beliefs are made apparent in the early conversations between Deerslayer and Hurry Harry, where Hurry is “one of those theorists who believed in the inferiority of all the human race who were not white”. (50). One instance of Hurry expressing such beliefs is when he asserts that there are three colors: white being the highest, and “therefore the best man”, black is next and lives in the same neighborhood as the white man, “fit to be made use of”, and red is last, which apparently shows that Indians were never meant to be “accounted as more than half human” (41). Cooper rejects these ideas of racial superiority and speaks through Deerslayer in order to convey that no race is either inferior or superior. For instance, Deerslayer counters with saying that God made all three alike, each with different gifts and reasons for being colored a certain way, but that they all are ultimately human that share the same feelings and emotions.