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What interested me was not so much whether the term was insultingly used originally - who knows when we're dealing with a literary work set down around the time of Chaucer & recounting events from centuries before that - but whether the current translator was motivated by a belief that Skraelings is 'offensive' & if he used 'natives' because that was felt to be more 'neutral'. We have something similar happening at Christmas over here, where the word 'Christmas' itself is not used & Christmas trees are not put up 'in case it offends non-Christians'.
The real question related to changes made in translations of Tolkien's works. The change from Master to boss is very significant in that it restricts the range of meaning & what is being said about the Frodo-Sam relationship. The introduction of overtly 'religious' expletives on Bilbo's part in Russian translations of TH is also interesting, in that someone who only reads the works in translation will form some very different opinions about the works than a reader of the original.
It also begs the question of how sensitive a translator should be to the feelings of his/her readers & how faithful they should be to the original?
'Natives' doesn't convey 'wretch' or 'barbarian' in the same way that Skraelings did to the original hearers/readers of the Sagas & it can be taken as a 'neutral' term in a way that Skraelings couldn't. If modern Icelanders would understand Skraeling as an (archaic) term of abuse then is their understanding of the term when reading the original correct or incorrect - either way a modern Icelander reading about Skraelings in Vinland is not going to have the same response as a modern English or American reading about 'natives' are they?
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