A woodcut of New World Natives from the 16th century.

The picturing of native Carribbeans by European explorers affected authors such as Montaigne in his essay On Cannibals, which is thought to have influenced Shakespeare in The Tempest (Carribal = cannibal = Caliban). Here is how Montaigne (as translated by Shakespeare's friend Florio) describes the New World as superior to that of Plato's Republic:

It is a nation, would I answer Plato, that hath no kind of Traffic, no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate nor of politic superiority, no use of service, of riches or of poverty, no contracts, no successions, no partitions, no occupation but idle, no respect of kindred but common, no apparel but natural, no manuring of lands, no use of wine, corn, or metal. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulations, covetousness, envy, detraction, and pardon, were never heard of amongst them. How dissonant would he find his imaginary commonwealth from this perfection!

Shakespeare's Gonzago echoes Montaigne in trying to distract his shipwrecked companions by planning the administration of the island:

GONZALO. I' the commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
No occupation; all men idle, all:
And women too, but innocent and pure;
No sovereignty. (II.i.148-57)