The eponymous last Mohicans are two tribesmen who assist Natty Bumppo in his exploits. They are Chingachgook and his son Uncas. Cooper seems to have erroneously believed that the Mohegan/Mahican had become extinct by his own lifetime. In fact both remained extant peoples, except that they had largely given up their hunter-gatherer lifestyles by that time. Also, the Mahican had become known as the Stockbridge Indians, having settled in the town of Stockbridge. Cooper was a city dweller, so was rather out of touch with anthropological accuracy. Besides, the title lent the story an air of romanticism and nostalgia, so Cooper may well have invented the myth to suit his literary ends.
The historical setting for the novel is the Seven Years War (1756–63), in which all of the European powers vied for supremacy on the world stage. In America it became known as the French and Indian War. It was actually fought between the British and the French, with the Native Americans siding with the latter. Ultimately the British won, which is why the official language of the US is English. The French took Canada. Central to the plot of the story is the kidnap of the British commander’s daughters by members of the Huron tribe. It is Chingachgook and Bumppo who rescue them and deliver them back safely, thereby living up to the idea of the noble savage. In a way, it was convenient for Cooper to kill the Mohicans off. In the early 19th century Native Americans were perceived as an inconvenience by the European descendants and were persecuted as an inferior race. By allowing the Mohicans to have died out Cooper preserved them as a kind of legendary tribe who were somehow above all others because their values were similar to the white-skins. Uncas, it is explained, is the last Mohican because there are no more pureblood female Mohicans with whom he can bear children.
In truth the Mohegan tribe did ally themselves with the English and there was a real chief named Uncas, although he lived a century before the character in Cooper’s story. Evidently Cooper brought a number of elements together in writing The Last of the Mohicans, but gave himself artistic licence to adapt and embellish. It is always important to be mindful of the fact that fiction is fictitious and designed to be entertaining. Cooper wasn’t writing a historical novel. He was writing an adventure story to capture the imaginations of an American population becoming increasingly divorced from its turbulent past. The US had only existed since 1789 and people had an appetite for those kinds of stories.
The Deerslayer
The Deerslayer (1841), although the last of Fenimore Cooper’s five Natty Bumppo novels – known collectively as the ‘Leatherstocking Tales’ – to be published, is chronologically the first, being set in the 1740s. Its subtitle, The First War-Path, makes it clear that this novel is a prequel to the others. The author uses this tale to establish the character of Natty Bumppo. He is a ‘White Indian’ (as opposed to a ‘Red Indian’), loosely based on Daniel Boone, a real-life frontiersman who adopted the ways of the Native Americans in order to exploit the resources available to him in the wilderness.
Bumppo also adopts the ethics of the aboriginal peoples of America, only hunting wildlife for what he needs and never wasting anything. In essence, he is at one with his environment, in marked contrast to the colonialists who are expanding New York like a manmade growth spreading across the land.
This first story sees Bumppo at odds with his mixed heritage. Both of his parents were white, yet he is culturally native. Other frontiersmen are not sympathetic to the plight of the Huron tribe who are besieging the colonialists in a bid to hold territory. They plan to invade the Huron camp and scalp their captives as proof of each killing they have made, but Bumppo is not party to this. When things go wrong, Bumppo helps to release some frontiersmen who have been captured. One of them is subsequently scalped by the Huron when they counterattack.
The Deerslayer tries to take an impartial view of the atrocities that occurred during the formative years of the US. On the one hand, the Huron have every right to defend their ancestral lands from the colonialists but, on the other hand, many of the colonialists are born and bred Americans by this time, so they simply view the Huron as the enemy. It is this contrast in perspectives that provides the running theme for Fenimore Cooper’s pentalogy of novels.
Cooper’s Legacy
Cooper’s work is not generally regarded highly for its literary merit, but rather for his ability to weave a good yarn. If anything, his characterization left something to be desired, especially his female characters, who are considered by many to be rather two-dimensional and clichéd. He did, however, always have an eye for the commercial appeal of his books. He was a professional writer, in that he churned out a prolific number of works and enjoyed the fiscal rewards. These days, the five ‘Leatherstocking Tales’ are considered to be the pinnacle of his achievement. Incidentally, the term ‘leatherstocking’ refers to the leather leg coverings worn by men to protect their legs while travelling through wilderness.
While some critics have praised Cooper for his evocation and romanticism, others have actively attacked his prose. Mark Twain felt so strongly that he actually wrote an essay titled ‘Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses’. Twain felt strongly that one should be able to tell a good story and write well to boot, but his criticisms appear to have been ignored as Cooper’s books held a special place in the affections of the US public. Artistic snobbery mattered little to a readership which had grown to love popular family books that harked back to a bygone era. They were the blockbusters of their time, filled with action, adventure, and easy-to-follow plotlines.
Cooper wrote more than 20 novels in total, along with many short stories and travelogues. For every person who disliked his populist style there were many fans. As a consequence Cooper has earned himself a place in the pantheon of great US writers, alongside Twain, despite Twain’s negativity towards his work.
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore.
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal”
Childe Harold.
On the human imagination events produce the effects of time. Thus, he who has traveled far and seen much is apt to fancy that he has lived long; and the history that most abounds in important incidents soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity. In no other way can we account for the venerable air that is already gathering around American annals. When the mind reverts to the earliest days of colonial history, the period seems remote and obscure, the thousand changes that thicken along the links of recollections, throwing back the origin of the nation to a day so distant as seemingly to reach the mists of time; and yet four lives of ordinary duration would suffice to transmit, from mouth to mouth, in the form of tradition, all that civilized man has achieved within the limits of the republic. Although