Savages within the Empire

In 1720s London, a well-known band of young ruffians gave themselves crescent tattoos and adorned turbans in honour of their so-called ''mohamattan [Muslim]'' Indian namesakes, the Mohawk. Few Britons noticed the gang''s mistaken muddling of North American and Indian subcontinent geographies and cultures. Even fewer cared in an age in which ''Indian'' was a catch-all term applied to theatre charac...