The Importance of The Character of Magawisca In Sedgwick’s Hope Leslie

In this reading reflection, I want to analyze the importance of Magawisca’s character. I personally like her role in the novel, and I feel that she isn’t given the justice that she deserves. Sedgwick depicts Magawisca in a positive light; she possesses qualities that lead to her heroic deeds, but there are underlying meanings of the details. When we are first introduced to Magawisca, she is described as, “Her face, although marked by the peculiarities of her race, was beautiful even to the European eye” (23). The color of her skin and the markings on her face represented her Native American identity, and that is what separated her from the settlers. However, it was still acceptable because she looked aesthetically pleasing to European standards of beauty.

This notion undermines her culture, considering the markings as strange and unpleasant, but Magawisca’s beauty still glows beneath it. On the other hand, Magawisca was also stereotyped as a noble savage; Mr. Fletcher tells his wife how the girl’s tribe was killed, but her and her brother were spared because of the reputation that their Indian mother had for being kind to the settlers. Mr. Fletcher says not to bother about her Indian clothes, so it doesn’t “interfere with her innocent peculiarity” (22). With underlying tones to how well dressed she was despite her being a Native American, it is portrayed that Magawisca held a higher level of intelligence and elegance because she was the princess of her tribe. Native Americans were viewed as an inferior group, so acting above what Puritans expected of her race was a “peculiar” thing and is what made her special.

We can see that Magawisca is also self-confident and can defend herself instead of letting the settlers take advantage of her. When asked to defend herself in court, she replies, “I am your prisoner, and ye may slay me, but I deny your right to judge me. My people have never passed under your yoke–no one of my race has ever acknowledged your authority” (302). Here, Magawisca denied the Puritans the authority to judge her, and her “race” were the Pequods who lived in the wilderness, free from the influence of the white settlers and the corruption of their society. While her confidence is admirable, there is a confession undertone in the way the white settlers and even the author view Magawisca.

By making her seem “innocent,” they are claiming she lacks knowledge or wisdom that is expected while living in white, Christian New England. In the end of the novel she can’t be with Everell and Hope, and she has to go back to being alone. She is still not welcomed by the majority of the settlers. She has been pushed out of her home, her people have been killed and she must continue to stay away to be safe from the oppression of the white settlers. It’s her land, her home and her rights, yet she is the one who has to leave it all to avoid being corrupted by the people who took everything away from her.