“As part of the evolving belief that the Indians would be only too glad to become literal and figurative tribute-payers to the English nation, contemporary scholars had worked out an interesting theory: the indigenous Americans, they claimed, were very much like the ancient Britons--who had themselves been civilized by the Romans. This theory was both condescending and yet at the same time beautifully unprejudiced. On the one hand, it justified English insistence that they were superior in every regard at the present time; on the other, it acknowledged that there were no differences between English and natives.”