Sedgwick shows the complicated attitudes represented among Puritans regarding American Indians. In some ways, William is progressive in his attitudes about racial equality (especially regarding exceptional individuals, like Magawisca), but at the same time, he uses racist, animalistic comparisons in talking about tribes as a whole. Sedgwick’s American Indian characters are a blend of historical and fictional characters. Sedgwick cites Trumbull’s
Complete History of Connecticut (1797) as praising Mononotto’s modest and sensible wife, though she is not named; neither are the children.