El último mohicano

Native Americans

in

The Last of the

Mohicans

Contents

Introduction

History: French and Indian War

Life in the frontier
The Massacre of Fort William Henry

Native Americans Tribes

The Six Nations

Good VS Bad
In the middle of two worlds

Conclusion

Introduction

It is the aim of this paperto show the unknown world in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans. About this topic I will examine differences about different aspects: First of all, Native Americans, tribes who fought against other tribes in a hopeless confusion of loyalties, compared with colonizers, as we find samples of civilization and progress that were of fundamental importance to the colonial society duringthe war on its frontiers. That civilization can appear both recommendable and destructive in the novel. So, I will argue that the author is far from alone in dramatizing the deep difference between civilized and native attitudes towards nature, about Cooper’s assumptions about racial and social roles, showing as a central example how the carnage of the massacre of Fort William Henry may beunderstood as a violation of European theories of warfare, and how this violation reveals Cooper’s attitudes toward the New World environment, and the two sides that were involved in this event.

And furthermore, I will talk about differences between different tribes of Native Americans: that is, the Delaware group, who protected the British, and the Hurons, who collaborate with the French with a hiddenpurpose, which gives sense to the developing of the story.

1. History: French and Indian War

Life in the frontier
The narrative of The Last of the Mohicans (1986) puts us at the time of the struggle between English and French wars or as they become known in American History “Franco- British Wars” for control of North America’s colonies, which were held in the Great Lakes territory, butalthough they also has its part of fiction. The Canadian Encyclopedia (1999) says the following:

Hostilities began in 1754 in America's Ohio Valley when a Virginian major of militia, George Washington, ambushed a small French detachment. He was subsequently forced to accept humiliating terms dictated by the commander of the French force sent to bring him to account. The British thenordered 2 regiments, commanded by Major-General Edward Braddock, to America (…).In April 1756 more French troops and a new commander, the marquis de MONTCALM, arrived in Canada, and the next month Britain declared war (…). (ibid.).

The Last of the Mohicans is the kind of novel that talks about events in the past. A fiction introduced in a historical setting.
The author talks about life in thefrontier. He offers an initial approach to these places at the beginning of the novel when he describes the territory in which the plot is focused on The Last of the Mohicans. The lake "du Saint Sacrement" (the Holy Sacrament), of which Cooper talks about and named like that for the Jesuits, was the south-west of Lake Champlain that was renamed Lake George by the English in honour of the second houseHannover: “...and to obtain for it the title of the lake ‘du Saint Sacrement’ (...) when they bestowed the name of their reigning prince, the second of the House of Hannover” (1986: 11). This "appointment" was conducted by General William Johnson. Neither the Jesuits nor English people respected his original name given by the Indians, “the Horicon”. Cooper's description continues as offering thereader a tour of those wilderness places to reach the banks of the Hudson. It must be emphasized that the novel is full of good and detailed descriptions that serve the reader to better understand the land of the Great Lakes, and many references to several places such as Glenn’s Falls, on the Hudson River or Lake Ontario, Alleghany Mountains, the Salt Lake…

The Massacre of Fort William Henry...