On my way thither, Clithero appeared in sight. His visage was pale and wan, and his form emaciated and shrunk. I was astonished at the alteration, which the lapse of a week had made in his appearance. At a small distance I mistook him for a stranger. As soon as I perceived who it was, I greeted him with the utmost friendliness. My civilities made little impression on him, and he hastened to inform me, that he was coming to my uncle's, for the purpose of meeting and talking with me. (668)

Edgar Huntly's interaction with other ethnic groups is often mentioned in contemporary criticism of Charles Brockden Brown. First, Edgar's interaction with the Native American tribe does not fall into the traditional model of an Indian captivity narrative. In "The Significances of the Captivity Narrative," Roy Harvey Pearce writes:

Brown does not reproduce the captivity narrative as such; but he capitalizes on all that such narratives had come to mean for American readers - a meaning which rose out of emphasis on physical terror, suffering, and sensationalism. (15)

That is to say, Brown mobilized the imagery inherent in Indian capture without actually using it; Edgar's situation and the threat of the possibility of capture by the Indian tribes is enough for readers to understand the severity of the danger surrounding the main character. Pearce adds, "Brown was thus doing little that was new. He was simply legitimatizing much that was part of the captivity narrative and its sensational offshoots in the 1790's" (15). The legitimatization is a function of the plausibility of Huntly's capture which hinges on the contemporary (at the time of publication) reader's familiarity with such tales. Imitation, as the saying goes, is the best form of legitimatization.

Luke Gibbons' essay "Ireland, America, and the Gothic Memory: Transatlantic Terror in the Early Republic" discusses questions of Irish nationality and immigration in the American Gothic. Gibbons tackles questions of Clithero's humanity after fleeing civilization, "... and when Huntly finally discovers [Clithero], it is as if he has reverted from culture to nature - or perhaps to his true Irish national character" (32). Gibbons goes on to argue that the novel blames Clithero for Edgar's succession of misfortune, "It is largely as a result of [Edgar's] coming into contant with an unhinged Irish immigrant, and indeed his subsequent identification with him, that Huntly begins his descent into darkness" (34). Several in-depth studies of the historical bases for Edgar Huntly examine the relation of the novel to the Alien and Sedition Acts, XYZ Affair and to Brown's hostilities towards Indians to accurately portray a politically-charged novel that may not be apparent to the modern reader.