The intent isn't to present them as noble savages at all, but as real people with their own complicated motivations. The author is a white American and knows that he doesn't have to put any work in to humanize the European colonists. We do that by default. What requires work is to see them as the native people saw them, and to see native people not as caricatures or plot devices, but as agents themselves.
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It's probably my different perspective not being an American. I haven't read those textbooks he mentions and all I hear about Indians is these blogs which present the same general picture. I understand now that Americans will have been exposed to different material at school so this could appear as a novel viewpoint.