ABSTRACT
Smith was not so taken with Indian life to pass up a chance to escape in 1759. He did not become a “white Indian”, one of those captives who voluntarily remained with their new families and fully adopted their way of life. He returned to white society, gained prominence, and led military expeditions against the Indians. To a degree his account represents a critique of his own culture and his society’s military conventions. He had a low opinion of British officers in the woods and believed that Americans had won
their freedom from Britain by adopting the Indian way of war. In Smith’s memoir, the image of the Indian as a “noble savage” becomes a metaphor for American independence.4
