The Last of the Mohicans

Summary

The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 is set in the wilderness of northern New York during the French and Indian War. Colonel Munro, the Scottish commander of Fort William Henry on Lake George, which the scout calls the Horican, is threatened by the French general Montcalm and his Native allies. His daughters, dark-haired, grave Cora and fair, timid Alice, set out from Fort Edward to join him, escorted by Major Duncan Heyward and accompanied by David Gamut, a gentle, gangling singing-master. Their guide, the Huron runner Magua, called Le Renard Subtil, leads them astray. They are rescued by the white scout Hawkeye, known to the French as La Longue Carabine, and his friends, the Mohican chief Chingachgook and his son Uncas, the last of their line. Magua escapes. The party hides in a cave on an island at Glenn's Falls on the Hudson, where Hurons attack; when their powder runs out, Cora persuades Hawkeye and the Mohicans to swim away for help. The others are captured, and Magua reveals his grievance: Munro once had him flogged for drunkenness, and he offers to spare the party if Cora becomes his wife. She refuses, and Hawkeye and the Mohicans rescue the captives. After a night march they reach the besieged fort through the fog. Munro reveals to Heyward that Cora's mother was a West Indian woman descended in part from slaves, and gives him leave to court Alice. When General Webb sends no relief, Munro surrenders with the honours of war, but as the garrison and its families march out, Montcalm's Native allies fall on them in a massacre, and Magua carries off the two sisters, with David following. Hawkeye, the Mohicans, Heyward and Munro track them north. Heyward enters a Huron village disguised as a French juggler-physician, Hawkeye joins him disguised in a bearskin as a conjurer, and they free Alice; Uncas, captured and condemned, escapes in the bearskin while David takes his place. At the Delaware village the aged sage Tamenund at first judges for Magua, until Uncas is revealed by the tortoise tattooed on his breast as heir of the ancient Lenape chiefs. Bound by Delaware law, Tamenund lets Magua leave with Cora, and Uncas warns him that pursuit will begin once the sun clears the trees. In the battle that follows the Delawares rout the Hurons; on a mountain ledge a Huron stabs Cora, Magua kills Uncas, and Hawkeye shoots Magua as he tries to leap a chasm. The novel ends with the funerals of Cora and Uncas, Chingachgook's lament, and Tamenund's farewell to the last warrior of the Mohicans. Cooper published the novel in Philadelphia in 1826, the second of his Leatherstocking Tales.

Plot or Argument

• Chapters I-IV: The secret path

  Heyward, Cora, Alice and David leave Fort Edward with Magua as guide. Hawkeye, Chingachgook and Uncas, talking by a stream, meet the lost party; Hawkeye suspects Magua, who escapes into the forest.

• Chapters V-X: Glenn's Falls

  The party shelters in the caves of a river island. Hurons attack, the defenders' powder fails, and Cora sends the scout and the Mohicans downstream for help; the rest are taken prisoner.

• Chapters XI-XII: Magua's revenge

  Magua tells Cora that Munro had him whipped for drunkenness and demands that she become his wife. As the Hurons prepare to torture the captives, Hawkeye and the Mohicans fall on them and free the prisoners.

• Chapters XIII-XVI: The siege of Fort William Henry

  After a night in a ruined blockhouse and a dash through the French lines in fog, the party reaches Munro. Munro speaks of Cora's mother, Montcalm parleys, and Webb's intercepted letter shows that no help will come.

• Chapter XVII: The massacre

  The garrison surrenders and marches out with the honours of war, but the Native allies of the French attack the column. Magua seizes Cora and Alice, and David follows them.

• Chapters XVIII-XXI: The pursuit

  Among the ruins of the fort Hawkeye and the Mohicans find the trail. The pursuers cross the lake by canoe under fire and follow the traces north into Huron country.

• Chapters XXII-XXVI: Disguises in the Huron village

  David, spared as one touched in mind, leads Heyward to the village, where Heyward poses as a French healer. Hawkeye, in a bearskin, helps him carry off Alice from a cave; Uncas, captured and condemned, escapes in the bearskin, and David takes his place.

• Chapters XXVII-XXX: Tamenund's judgment

  Magua claims his prisoners before the Delawares. The ancient Tamenund judges for him until Uncas is revealed by his tortoise sign as a chief of the Lenape. Magua is allowed to leave with Cora, but Uncas warns him that the Delawares will follow once the sun is seen above the trees.

• Chapters XXXI-XXXII: Battle and pursuit

  The Delawares under Uncas defeat the Hurons. On a mountain ledge Cora is stabbed, Magua kills Uncas, and Hawkeye shoots Magua as he clings to the edge of the precipice.

• Chapter XXXIII: The funerals

  The Delaware maidens lament Cora and Uncas. Munro thanks them in words Hawkeye declines to translate; Chingachgook mourns his son, Hawkeye clasps his hand at the grave, and Tamenund dismisses his people.

Characters

• Hawkeye (Natty Bumppo), scout and hunter

  A white woodsman raised among the Delawares, called La Longue Carabine for his rifle killdeer, who insists he is a man without a cross of mixed blood.

• Chingachgook, Mohican chief

  Hawkeye's lifelong friend, called the Great Serpent, father of Uncas and last sagamore of his people.

• Uncas, Chingachgook's son

  A swift, noble young warrior, the last of the Mohicans, revealed as heir of the Lenape chiefs and drawn to Cora.

• Magua, Huron runner and chief

  Le Renard Subtil, an exile among the Hurons who seeks revenge on Munro through his daughter Cora.

• Cora Munro, Munro's elder daughter

  Dark-haired, dignified and fearless, the daughter of Munro's West Indian first wife.

• Alice Munro, Munro's younger daughter

  Fair, gentle and easily overcome by fear, beloved of Heyward.

• Major Duncan Heyward, British officer

  A brave young Virginian who escorts the sisters and courts Alice.

• David Gamut, singing-master

  An awkward, devout teacher of psalmody whose simplicity protects him among the Hurons.

• Colonel Munro, commander of Fort William Henry

  A proud Scottish veteran and loving father, broken by the fall of his fort and the loss of Cora.

• Montcalm, French general

  The courteous commander of the French army besieging Fort William Henry.

• Tamenund, Delaware sage

  A chief of extreme age, revered by the Lenape, who judges between Magua and his captives.

Lessons

• Friendship across peoples

  Hawkeye and Chingachgook have hunted and fought together for years. At Uncas's grave in Chapter XXXIII Hawkeye tells the grieving chief that he is not alone, and the two men bow their heads together over the grave. Cooper places the deepest loyalty in the book in a friendship between men of different peoples.

  • How do Hawkeye and Chingachgook depend on each other's skills throughout the novel?
  • What does Hawkeye mean when he says that God has placed them to journey in the same path?
  • Why does Cooper end the novel with this friendship rather than with Heyward and Alice?

• The roots of revenge

  Magua's hatred begins with drink and a flogging at Munro's order. In Chapter XI he asks whether it is justice to make evil and then punish it, and Cora answers that her father did justice. Cooper lets Magua argue his case forcefully while showing where vengeance leads: to the deaths of Cora, Uncas and Magua himself.

  • Is Magua's grievance against Munro just? Is his revenge?
  • Why does Magua want Cora rather than Munro's death?
  • How does Magua's revenge finally destroy him?

• Courage of different kinds

  Cora's courage is calm and selfless: at Glenn's Falls she sends her rescuers away to save themselves, and on the mountain she kneels and gives herself to God. Alice is fragile, Heyward gallant, David gently stubborn in his psalms. Cooper shows that courage can take quiet forms as well as the scout's skill with a rifle.

  • Why does Cora urge Hawkeye and the Mohicans to leave the cave?
  • What does Cora's prayer on the ledge in Chapter XXXII show about her?
  • Is David Gamut brave or simply innocent?

• Elegy for a vanishing people

  Chingachgook's lament in Chapter III and Tamenund's farewell in Chapter XXXIII frame the book as a lament for a people whose line ends with Uncas. Cooper honors the dignity of the Mohicans and Delawares and the grief of their passing from the land.

  • What image does Chingachgook use for the members of his family who have died?
  • Why does Tamenund say that his day has been too long?
  • How does the title change in meaning by the end of the novel?

Context

The novel's frame is real: in August 1757, during the French and Indian War, the Marquis de Montcalm besieged Fort William Henry at the head of Lake George. Its commander, Lieutenant Colonel George Monro, surrendered when General Daniel Webb at Fort Edward sent no relief, and Native warriors allied to the French then attacked the paroled garrison and its followers as they marched away. Cooper's Munro, Webb and Montcalm are drawn from these men, while Hawkeye, the Munro sisters, Magua and the Mohicans are invented. His Mohicans combine traits of the Mahicans of the Hudson valley and the Mohegans of Connecticut, and much of his picture of Delaware life came from the Moravian missionary John Heckewelder's account of the Delawares.

Composition

Cooper wrote the book in 1825 and published it in Philadelphia in February 1826. It was the second Leatherstocking Tale, following The Pioneers (1823), in which an aged Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook appear. For the 1831 London edition in Bentley's Standard Novels Cooper added an introduction explaining the Indian names and his sources, with a later addition of about 1850 in which he admits inventing the name Horican for Lake George; the library text includes this introduction.

Reception

The novel was Cooper's most popular book and was quickly translated across Europe, shaping the European picture of the American wilderness and its peoples for generations. Mark Twain mocked Cooper's style in a famous 1895 essay, but the story's set pieces, the cave at Glenn's Falls, the massacre and the chase to the mountain, have been retold in many films, including adaptations of 1920, 1936 and 1992.

Comparisons

• ivanhoe

  Cooper was often called the American Scott: both write historical romances of peoples in conflict, with captive heroines, sieges, disguises and a doomed love between a dark heroine and a man who marries her fair rival.

• the-song-of-hiawatha

  Longfellow drew on the same early ethnography that shaped Cooper's Delawares, and his poem likewise closes with an elegy for a passing Native world.

• the-sign-of-the-beaver

  Speare's younger novel turns on a friendship between a white boy and a Native boy in the Maine woods, echoing Hawkeye's bond with Chingachgook and Uncas.

• the-scarlet-letter

  Hawthorne and Cooper both used the early American forest as a place of danger and freedom outside the settled town, though Hawthorne's interest is moral and psychological rather than adventurous.

• the-iliad

  Both works end with funerals and laments for a fallen young warrior; Chingachgook mourning Uncas recalls Priam and the Trojans mourning Hector.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The contrast between Cora and Alice in every danger, from the forest path to the mountain ledge.
• Hawkeye's repeated insistence that he is a man without a cross, and his talk of the different gifts of white men and Indians.
• Magua's speeches to Cora in Chapter XI and to the Delaware council in Chapter XXIX, where Cooper lets him argue his own case.
• The disguises in the Huron village: Heyward as a healer, Hawkeye as a bear, Uncas and David changing places.
• The two laments that frame the book: Chingachgook's in Chapter III and the funeral rites in Chapter XXXIII.

Key terms and names

Sagamore

A chief; Hawkeye addresses Chingachgook by this title, and Chingachgook calls his line the blood of the Sagamores.

La Longue Carabine

The Long Rifle, the name Hawkeye's enemies give him for his marksmanship with his rifle killdeer.

Horican

Cooper's name for Lake George, put in Hawkeye's mouth; Cooper admits in his introduction that he chose it from an old map.

Mingo

Hawkeye's contemptuous name for the Iroquois and their allies, including Magua's Hurons.

Lenape

The Delawares' name for themselves; Tamenund is their revered sage, and Uncas descends from their ancient chiefs.

Tortoise

The sign tattooed on Uncas's breast that reveals him to the Delawares as heir of their oldest line.

Fort William Henry

The British fort at the head of Lake George commanded by Munro and surrendered to Montcalm in 1757.

Psalmody

The singing of psalms, which David Gamut teaches and practises in every danger.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension How does Magua betray the party in the opening chapters, and who rescues them?
2. Comprehension Why does Munro surrender Fort William Henry, and what happens to the garrison afterward?
3. Comprehension How is Uncas revealed to the Delawares, and what does Tamenund decide?
4. Interpretation Why does Cooper make Cora, not Alice, the one Magua desires and Uncas admires?
5. Interpretation Why does Hawkeye refuse to translate Munro's message to the Delaware women in Chapter XXXIII?
6. Interpretation What does Cooper suggest by giving the last words of the novel to Tamenund?
7. Big Question Can a just grievance ever justify revenge like Magua's?

Faith Connections

• Acts 17:26 (Scripture)

  Paul tells the Athenians that God has made of one blood all nations of men. Munro's hope of a day when all will gather before God's throne without distinction of color echoes this teaching.

• Revelation 7:9 (Scripture)

  John sees a great multitude of all nations, kindreds, people and tongues before the throne. Munro's funeral words look toward the same vision.

• Romans 12:19 (Scripture)

  Vengeance belongs to the Lord. Magua's private revenge on Munro through Cora consumes the innocent and ends in his own fall from the precipice.

• Luke 23:46 (Scripture)

  Christ commends his spirit into the Father's hands. Cora, kneeling before Magua's knife, gives herself to God in words of the same surrender.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: The wilderness war of 1757 sets peoples against one another and rewards treachery and revenge; yet loyalty, courage and friendship can cross every boundary of nation and color. Because the Mohicans' line ends with Uncas, the novel's victory is also an elegy, and its consolation lies in friendship and in the hope of a final gathering before God.

Rhetorical device: metaphor. In Chapter III Chingachgook calls the dead of his family the blossoms of past summers and pictures himself on a hilltop about to go down into the valley.

Debate: Resolved: that Magua is more sinned against than sinning.

Memory Work

Where are the blossoms of those summers!—fallen, one by one; so all of my family departed, each in his turn, to the land of spirits. I am on the hilltop and must go down into the valley; and when Uncas follows in my footsteps there will no longer be any of the blood of the Sagamores, for my boy is the last of the Mohicans.

The gifts of our colors may be different, but God has so placed us as to journey in the same path.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Cooper ends his novel with two funerals. Argue what the deaths of Cora and Uncas mean for the book's view of friendship, love and the future of the American wilderness.

Comparison with Ivanhoe: Compare Cora Munro with Scott's Rebecca. Both are dark, courageous heroines who do not marry the hero. Argue what each author gains by denying her a happy ending.

Medical Lens

Medicine is marginal, but several threads interest a historian of psychiatry. Alcohol drives the plot: Magua traces his ruin to the fire-water brought by Europeans, and his flogging for drunkenness in Munro's camp is the source of his revenge. David Gamut moves safely among the Hurons because they take his oddity for a mind touched by the Great Spirit, the custom Hawkeye sums up by saying they never harm a non-composser; this reflects a widespread report, in Cooper's sources, of Native reverence for the mentally afflicted. In Chapters XXIV-XXV Heyward poses as a French healer called to drive an evil spirit out of a Huron woman who lies in a kind of paralysis, unconscious of her surroundings; Cooper describes the Native belief in possession and the pretended physician's discomfort at deceiving the sick. Munro's grief after Cora's death, Tamenund's extreme age, and the wounds of the fighting complete the picture. Any modern diagnosis of the sick woman or of David would be speculation.

• Chapter XI

  Magua tells Cora how fire-water led him into Munro's camp and to a public flogging.

  Alcohol
• Chapter XXII

  David explains that he passes freely among the Hurons, and Hawkeye attributes it to their sparing of those touched in mind.

  Madness Psychosis
• Chapters XXIV-XXV

  Heyward, disguised as a French healer, is led to a sick Huron woman lying paralysed in a cave, where David sings to her and Hawkeye appears as a bear-conjurer.

  Physicians Doctors
• Chapter XXXIII

  Munro sinks into melancholy at Cora's funeral, and Tamenund, worn by great age, laments having lived too long.

  Grief Aging Senescence

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Trace the journey on a map from Fort Edward to Glenn's Falls, Fort William Henry, the Huron village and the Delaware village, noting what happens at each place.

• Essay

  Is Magua simply a villain, or does Cooper give him a case? Argue from Chapters XI, XXIX and XXXII.

• Dialogue

  Write the conversation Hawkeye and Chingachgook might have on the night after Uncas's funeral.

• Poetry

  Write a lament for Uncas in the voice of one of the Delaware maidens at his funeral.

• Fiction

  Retell the siege and surrender of Fort William Henry from the point of view of a soldier of Munro's garrison.

Further Reading

• The Deerslayer, James Fenimore Cooper

  The last-written Leatherstocking Tale, showing Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook as young men.

• The Pioneers, James Fenimore Cooper

  The first Leatherstocking Tale, with Natty and Chingachgook in old age.

• Studies in Classic American Literature, D. H. Lawrence

  Includes two essays on the Leatherstocking novels.

• Montcalm and Wolfe, Francis Parkman

  Classic history of the war, including the siege of Fort William Henry.