When we describe bigots as "of their time", we are effectively crowning them as the sole voice of humanity during said "time".

If anyone was "of his time" in 16th century, France, it was Michel de Montaigne. An extremely well-read, rich, and successful man, who had never seen a native American person in his life. And even he could see through the hypocrisy of the stereotypes colonialists had invented to justify genocide.

These stories would have been painfully familiar to Montaigne's readers, as the Wars were still ongoing when he wrote his essays.

Who are the French, Montaigne argues, to criticise such a sophisticated people as the Tupinambá, for extremely rare cannibalistic practices that are utterly insignificant compared to the mass murders that have come to be accepted as normal within French society? Are they not the ones who should be calling the French savages?