Final answer:
In Chapter 4 of 'The Scarlet Letter,' Hester Prynne and her fellow Puritan settlers hold the biased view that they are more civilized than the indigenous population, justified by their religious and cultural superiority and by figures like John Winthrop and William Bradford who denoted the settlers as the 'chosen people' and the indigenous as 'savage'.
Step-by-step explanation:
Based on Chapter 4 of The Scarlet Letter, the biased view that Hester Prynne and most of her fellow settlers hold of themselves in relation to the indigenous population is that they see themselves as more civilized (option a).
This belief is rooted in the Puritan view that they were the chosen people with the right to occupy and transform the land, as articulated by figures like John Winthrop who envisioned Massachusetts as a 'city on a hill' and by the general sentiment that the land was given to the 'Saints'. The settlers, fostering a sense of religious entitlement and cultural superiority, regarded the Native populations as 'savage' and 'barbarous', as expressed by William Bradford.
Such attitudes are further underscored by the broader historical context, which shows that the Puritans' belief in their spiritual mission and divine favor justified their expansion and domination over what they considered untamed wilderness. This view led them to see the indigenous people as uncivilized and as having only a 'Naturall Right' to the land, a perspective that allowed the settlers to rationalize their seizure of territories they deemed underutilized by the natives.