Last of the Mohicans (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Read online

  Table of Contents

  FROM THE PAGES OF THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

  THE WORLD OF JAMES FENIMORE COOPER AND THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

  Introduction

  COOPER’S INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  CHAPTER XVIII

  CHAPTER XIX

  CHAPTER XX

  CHAPTER XXI

  CHAPTER XXII

  CHAPTER XXIII

  CHAPTER XXIV

  CHAPTER XXV

  CHAPTER XXVI

  CHAPTER XXVII

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  CHAPTER XXIX

  CHAPTER XXX

  CHAPTER XXXI

  CHAPTER XXXII

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  ENDNOTES

  INSPIRED BY THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

  COMMENTS & QUESTIONS

  FOR FURTHER READING

  FROM THE PAGES OF THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

  Few men exhibit greater diversity, or, if we may so express it, greater antithesis of character, than the native warrior of North America. In war, he is daring, boastful, cunning, ruthless, self-denying, and self-devoted; in peace, just, generous, hospitable, revengeful, superstitious, modest, and commonly chaste. (page xxvii)

  It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. (page 3)

  The eye of the hunter, or scout, whichever he might be, was small, quick, keen, and restless, roving while he spoke, on every side of him, as if in quest of game, or distrusting the sudden approach of some lurking enemy. (page 22)

  “An Indian is a mortal to be felt afore he is seen.” (page 45)

  A dark hand and glancing knife appeared before him; the Indian released his hold, as the blood flowed freely from around the severed tendons of the wrist; and while Duncan was drawn backward by the saving arm of Uncas, his charmed eyes were still riveted on the fierce and disappointed countenance of his foe, who fell sullenly and disappointed down the irrecoverable precipice. (page 68)

  “The memory of an Indian is longer than the arm of the pale-faces; his mercy shorter than their justice!” (page 108)

  “Natur’ is sadly abused by man, when he once gets the mastery.” (page 122)

  “Revenge is an Indian feeling.” (page 187)

  “Grass is a treacherous carpet for a flying party to tread on, but wood and stone take no print from a moccasin.” (page 207)

  “Reason and calculation are often outdone by accident.” (page 264)

  “It is true, my young men did not go out on the war-path; they had dreams for not doing so. But they love and venerate the great white chief.” (page 300)

  “The pale-faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the redmen has not yet come again. My day has been too long. In the morning I saw the sons of Unamis happy and strong; and yet, before the night has come, have I lived to see the last warrior of the wise race of the Mohicans.” (pages 363—364)

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  The Last of the Mohicans was first published in 1826.

  Published in 2003 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction, Notes,

  Biography, Chronology, Inspired By, Comments & Questions,

  and For Further Reading.

  Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading

  Copyright @ 2003 by Stephen Railton.

  Note on James Fenimore Cooper, The World of James Fenimore Cooper

  and The Last of the Mohicans, Inspired by The Last of the Mohicans,

  and Comments & Questions

  Copyright @ 2003 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

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  The Last of the Mohicans

  ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-137-9 ISBN-10: 1-59308-137-5

  eISBN : 978-1-411-43251-2

  LC Control Number 2004102190

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  9 10 8

  JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

  James Fenimore Cooper was born September 15, 1789, in Burlington, New Jersey, to William Cooper and Elizabeth Fenimore Cooper. In 1790 the family moved to the frontier country of upstate New York, where William had established a village he called Cooperstown. Although cushioned by wealth and William’s position as a judge, the Coopers found pioneer life to be rugged, and only seven of the thirteen Cooper children survived their early years. Profoundly affected by the challenges of frontier living, James would repeatedly draw on his childhood experience in The Pioneers and many of his other novels.

  Cooper was educated by private tutors at Yale, where he enrolled in 1803; he was expelled in 1805 after setting off an explosion that blew off another student’s dormitory door. As a midshipman in the U.S. Navy, he served at an isolated post on Lake Ontario and in a relatively leisurely assignment in New York City, where he met his future wife, Susan Augusta DeLancey, daughter of a wealthy family. In 1811 he resigned his commission to marry her.

  According to family lore, Cooper fell into writing on a dare: One evening he threw down a novel in disgust, saying he could write a better book himself; when Susan challenged him and reminded him that he could barely stand to write a letter, Cooper wrote his first novel, Precaution, published in 1820. Encouraged by favorable reviews, Cooper wrote other books in quick succession and was soon regarded as a major voice in America’s emerging literary tradition. He eventually published thirty-two novels and was the first American to make a living as a professional novelist. Natty Bumppo, who appears in Last of the Mohicans and the four other Leatherstocking Tales that Cooper published between 1823 and 1841, became one of America’s favorite fictional heroes. Cooper and his family lived in Europe for seven years but returned to America in 1833. Eventually settling in Cooperstown, Cooper remained on the American literary scene as a prolific writer of political tracts, naval histories, and works of fiction. He died in Cooperstown on September 14, 1851.

  THE WORLD OF JAMES FENIMORE COOPER AND THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

  1789 The twelfth of thirteen children, James Cooper is born on Septem ber 15 to Judge William Cooper and Elizabeth Fenimore Cooper in Burlington, New Jersey. George Washington is inaugurated presi dent of the United States.

  1790 The Coopers move to the frontier country of upstate New York, where William had founded Cooperstown a few years earlier. In his later
novels, James will repeatedly draw on the rigors of his early frontier experiences.

  1803 James Fenimore Cooper enters Yale.

  1805 He is expelled from Yale for blowing off a fellow student’s door with gunpowder.

  1806 Cooper works as a sailor on the Stirling, a merchant vessel. His trav els take him to Spain and England.

  1808 Cooper joins the Navy, making Atlantic passages and serving at an isolated post on Lake Ontario.

  1811 Cooper marries Susan Augusta De Lancey, the daughter of a wealthy family in Westchester County, New York. The couple, plagued by fi nancial troubles for the next several years, moves to various towns in New York State before buying a country home near Scarsdale, where they settle with their seven children.

  1812 The United States declares war on Great Britain.

  1814 British troops set fire to Washington, D.C. Francis Scott Key writes “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

  1819 Washington Irving’s tale “Rip Van Winkle” appears.

  1820 After accepting a challenge from his wife to write a book, Cooper pens Precaution, a novel of manners. The Missouri Compromise draws the line between free states and slave states.

  1821 The Spy, a historical romance set during the American Revolution, is published, establishing Cooper as a major literary figure.

  1823 Cooper publishes The Pioneers, the first of the five Leatherstocking Tales, which are set in the 1700s, both before and after the Amer ican Revolution, and tell the life of hunter, trapper, and scout Natty

  Bumppo, known as Leatherstocking; the books follow Natty through various periods of his life, but not in chronological order.

  1826 The Last of the Mohicans, the second Leatherstocking Tale, is published; Natty aligns himself with Uncas, the Indian of the title, and works as a scout in the British army. The Cooper family moves to Europe, and resides in Paris, Switzerland, Belgium, and England for the next seven years.

  1827 The Prairie, the third novel in the Leatherstocking series, is pub lished ; Natty Bumppo dies among the Indians west of the Missis sippi, where he has been driven by the advancing line of pioneers.

  1829 Cooper publishes Notions of the Americans, a reflection on his native land and one of six books he writes while living abroad.

  1833 Cooper returns to the United States.

  1834 Cooper writes A Letter to His Countrymen, in which he criticizes Ameri can provincialism and announces his retirement from writing fiction. He publishes Sketches of Switzerland, one of his many travel narratives.

  1837 In response to hostile treatment in the Whig press, Cooper instigates a series of libel suits, in which he remains entangled for years to come.

  1838 Feeling financial strain, Cooper resumes fiction writing with Home as Found and Homeward Bound, which combine adventure with reflec tions on American society. On the so-called Trail of Tears, thousands of Cherokee Indians die during their removal from ancestral lands in Georgia.

  1839 Cooper publishes The History of the Navy of the United States of America. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” is published.

  1840 The Pathfinder, the fourth Leatherstocking book, appears; it takes place in 1760 during the French and Indian War.

  1841 Cooper publishes The Deerslayer, the last of the Leatherstocking Tales; it describes Natty Bumppo’s youth, when Natty and his friend live with the Delaware Indians and fight the Hurons.

  1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written by Dou glass, appears.

  1846 Cooper publishes Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers.

  1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is published.

  1851 James Fenimore Cooper dies in Cooperstown on September 14, 1851.

  INTRODUCTION

  We must not fall for the fiction Cooper uses to organize the story he tells in The Last of the Mohicans. There has never been a “last” Mohican. The tribe Cooper refers to by that name survives to this day, on a small reservation in Wisconsin. According to Cooper’s version of the Mohicans’ story, the death of Uncas in the middle of the eighteenth century is the last act in the tragedy of a once-mighty nation. There are a number of tragic elements in the real history of the people who, when they learned to write English, referred to themselves as the Muhheakunnuk or Moheakunnuk, but the story they have written with their actions is that of a people who, while remaining true to key elements of their heritage, made great efforts to adapt to and earn a place in the new world that descended on them with the arrival of the traders and settlers from Europe.

  As Patrick Frazier recounts that story in The Mohicans of Stockbridge, the tribe accepted Christianity about two decades before the events Cooper dramatizes in the novel; two decades after the supposed death of the last Mohican, they fought on the American side during the Revolutionary War. When the tribe relocated from Massachusetts to the vicinity of NewYork’s Oneida Lake in the mid-1780s, just a few years before the infant James Cooper was carried to Cooperstown on the banks of nearby Lake Otsego, they took with them a letter from George Washington attesting that the Muhheakunnuks “have fought and bled by our side ... as our friends and brothers ... [and] as friends and subjects to the United States of America.” No efforts could stop the tide of white pioneers from diminishing their population and driving them farther west, but like nearly all the original Native American tribes, they survive despite the centuries of cultural loss, economic dispossession, white aggression, discrimination, and neglect.

  That true story, however, is one the United States is still reluctant to tell, and repressed almost completely throughout the nineteenth century as the pioneers moved westward across the continent. On the other hand, Americans loved the story Cooper tells in Mohicans. Published in 1826, it was Cooper’s sixth novel; he was already America’s most successful novelist, a position he held through most of his career, and among the thirty-two novels he wound up writing before his death in 1851 were a number of best-sellers. The Last of the Mohicans was first among them all: his most popular book, and one of the most widely read American novels ever. Like most of Cooper’s novels, especially those he wrote in the first half of his career, it derives from the model of the historical romance that Walter Scott established in Waverley ( 1814) . The subtitle of Cooper’s novel—A Narrative of 1757—echoes Waverley’s subtitle, ‘Tis Sixty Years Since, and in his preface to the book’s first edition Cooper warns mere novel readers that by “narrative” he means historical fact, not imaginative fancy. But the project of The Last of the Mohicans is myth making, not history writing, and the myth it makes served contemporary readers precisely by replacing history as the nation was enacting it with a story about the fate of the Indians that both moved and reassured the whites who were in fact (but not in Cooper’s fiction) the agents of that fate.

  As Cooper tells the story, the first person to label Uncas “the last of the Mohicans” is actually his own father. Chingachgook himself is still a vigorous warrior, and the narrative repeatedly refers to Uncas as “young” and “youthful”—that such a father would be anticipating the death of such a son rather than looking forward to his eventual marriage and children seems to violate the truths of the human heart, but as Cooper tells the story, even Uncas accepts his ominous title. In fact, he enters the narrative exactly at the moment in chapter III when Chingachgook tells Hawkeye that when Uncas dies the whole tribe will be extinct, “for my boy is the last of the Mohicans.” “Uncas is here!” is the next line, as “a youthful warrior” steps out of the woods to join the conversation. “Here,” this introduction to him implies, “but not for long”—Uncas will figure throughout the novel as a character with an expiration date. As a rescuer of the story’s two white heroines and as the lost prince of the Delaware nation, Uncas is regarded by both the narrator and the white characters with considerable admiration. His head may be naked except for its “scalping tuft,” but the narrative calls it “noble.” Alice looks upon him as a heathen, “a being partially benighted in the vale
of ignorance,” but she also associates his “graceful,” “dignified,” “pure,” and “proud” form with classical ideals, “some precious relic of the Grecian chisel.” Cora goes further: “Who that looks at this creature of nature, remembers the shade of his skin!” To her, that’s a rhetorical question, but her companions’ “short and embarrassed silence” in reply keeps the line between races firmly in place. Combined with the epithet “the last,” that racial boundary lets readers know that all the sympathetic admiration they bestow on Uncas is extended provisionally. Within those limits, the narrative allows Uncas to grow increasingly heroic. After the first rescue scene, for example, while his father scalps the Mingoes they’ve slain, Uncas hurries with Duncan, the white officer and gentleman, to the side of the two white maidens. Duncan is not ashamed to cry at the sight of their deliverance. Uncas doesn’t go that far, but his eyes nonetheless “beam with a sympathy that elevated him far above the intelligence and advanced him probably centuries before the practices of his nation.”

  While that sentence doubtless sounds patronizing, if not racist, to most twenty-first century readers, Cooper’s books display more respect and admiration for Indian characters like Uncas than was the norm in his culture. Indeed, his depiction of Uncas as so noble a savage came under attack from a number of critics. A novel like Robert Montgomery Bird’s Nick of the Woods (1837), also a best-seller, was written expressly to contest Cooper’s “poetical illusions” and “beautiful unrealities” by describing instead what Bird in his preface calls “real Indians,” who are unrelievedly “ignorant, violent, debased, brutal.” Mark Twain made the same argument in Roughing It (1872), and began a sequel to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) that takes Huck and Tom into the Indian Territory so he can debunk Cooper’s romances by exposing the boys to a series of atrocities committed by treacherous Indians. In 1851, shortly before Cooper’s death, the Chippewa chief and activist George Copway publicly thanked the novelist for having created Uncas as a “hero” who “possesses all the noble traits of an exalted character,” an Indian whom Native Americans could read about with pride. Yet although Cooper advances Uncas centuries ahead of his tribesmen, he is careful never to suggest that the last Mohican could progress to the point where he belongs inside American civilization. He lifts Uncas high enough to make his passing tragic—but readers mourn for him at the end, as they admire him throughout, from within the safety of a world out of which he has already disappeared.