Probably due to the issues surrounding the US vs indigenous people. Indigenous people were depicted as savages that scalped people yet at the same time scalping an indigenous person was a source of income yet somehow didn’t make colonizers savages.
This is exactly it. It’s like how the word “fag” as slang for gay came from when they used to throw gay men onto the pyres that they burned witches on along with the kindling - the other faggots of wood.
[…] in England, where parliament had made homosexuality a capital offense in 1533, hanging was the method prescribed. Use of faggot in connection with public executions had long been obscure English historical trivia by the time the word began to be used for “male homosexual” in 20th century American slang, whereas the contemptuous slang word for “woman” (in common with the other possible sources or influences listed here) was in active use early 20c. […]
You can read more under the second noun listing here:
Probably due to the issues surrounding the US vs indigenous people. Indigenous people were depicted as savages that scalped people yet at the same time scalping an indigenous person was a source of income yet somehow didn’t make colonizers savages.
This is exactly it. It’s like how the word “fag” as slang for gay came from when they used to throw gay men onto the pyres that they burned witches on along with the kindling - the other faggots of wood.
That’s actually a myth.
You can read more under the second noun listing here:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/faggot