savage

this highly ethnocentric term has been used to justify invading, dispossessing, and subjugating entire populations. In the case of Native Americans, their manner of defending themselves was called "savage" and Indian victories were called "massacres" while unprovoked attacks and indiscriminate killings of Indians were simply called "victories"); "any attempt to evaluate war as 'civilized' or 'savage' usually depends on which side one is on" (Thomas R. Frazier, ed., The Underside of American History). Slavery was made possible by labeling kidnapped Africans "savages." See also "discovery" of America, heathen, illiterate, massacre, pagan/neopagan, primitive.