The Last Of The Mohicans: Ideological Issues

American ideological issues in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of The Mohicans

by Omar García

Subject: 19th Century Literature 

(with professor Diana Bustos)

In this this essay, I will talk about what I perceive as American ideological issues represented in some of the characters of the 1826 novel “The Last of The Mohicans” (TLOTM). To analyze this, I consider that is important not only to know the context of the story (set in the time of the Seven Years' War and located in the Northern frontiers of the British Colonies), but also to understand clearly which was the position of the author James Fenimore Cooper towards the topics that are touched throughout his novel. For this reason, I will try to relate, when possible, the events that occur in the story with his personal statements in other writings.

A first point of analysis has to do with the main character Hawkeye, who, in my view, represents the contradictory actions of the American fighters. He’s the one who murders the wicked Magua (compare it as white Great Britain vs France). Having pondered about his role in the story, I agree with those who may perceive the scout as a ‘brave fighter’ who, with determination, tries to do his best to defend the Monro sisters. However, Hawkeye is no moral hero. Actually, as I see it, he’s pretty much the opposite. His character and ideology is one that reflects the greatest “antithesis of character,” which Cooper mentioned in the Introduction of an edition of the book (Cooper, 1831). In Chapter 3, Hawkeye is literally depicted as a type of white supremacist who does not admit his own prejudices; someone who sees himself as superior because of his white skin, and someone who feels himself morally superior to his red-skinned fellows. He may have established a close Indian acquaintance with Chingachgook and Uncas, but still he looks down upon Indians, especially Iroquois or Hurons, whom he despises. At the same time, he is insanely obsessed with his own whiteness, as shown in his numerous remarks that he has so-called “white blood”. Hawkeye, in many senses, represents many soldiers of this period, as someone who unashamedly rejects America’s history of Native culture, but, in contrast, proudly exalts the “brave soldier” who defends the European ideals.

On this topic, the Munro family is also very symbolic: George Munro is another contradictory man, because while working as Colonel in the William Henry Fort, he expects to lead the British army and threaten the lives of his enemies; yet, he intends to keep safe the life of his daughters. On the one hand, he’s trying to keep alive, and on the other, he’s trying to do the opposite. The author shows that outcome of this “savage warfare” is unavoidable. In a war as such, eventually, the life of someone will be taken, either by “those who had pledged their blood to satiate their vengeance, or [by those who] uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant monarchs of Europe” (Ch. 1).

A second aspect I will deal with is the role of religion. Though some essayists have interpreted that the author used the character of David Garmout to criticize "the role of religion in the wilderness," to assume such interpretation would be to neglect Cooper’s own position towards religion. It’s worth mentioning that he was actually a religious man, and not only the big support he gave to his Episcopal Church is a testimony of it (Phillips, 1913: 6-7), but also some of his literary works and novels in which he demonstrates that Christian faith played an important element of his life (See Cooper 1824, 1842, 1847, 1848, 1849).

The doctrine of predetermination proposed by Calvinism is mentioned in Chapter 12 in this way: “He that is to be saved will be saved, and he that is predestined to be damned will be damned.” In opposition we have a doctrine called Arminianism, the theological teaching that rejects the Calvinist views, and reassures a God-given free will. This has a historical relevance because it has been a topic of lively discussions among prominent theologians, just decades before the writer’s birth  (e.g. Wesley vs Whitefield).

Cooper seems to have taken the side of the Armianists who reaffirmed the role of free will. He does not censure religion; what he does is to reject Calvinism; and this can be understood in the light of one of his later novels where he deals with the reasons why he dislikes it so much:

“The high-wrought and dogmatical Calvinist, in the midst of his fiery zeal, forgets that love is the very essence of the relation between God and man; the Quaker, seems to think the cut of a coat essential to salvation; the descendant of the Puritan, whether he be Socinian, Calvinist, Universalist, or any other "-ist," appears to believe that the "rock" on which Christ declared he would found his church was the "Rock of Plymouth"; and the unbeliever, in deriding all creeds, does not know where to turn to find one to substitute in their stead.” [The bee-hunter (1848), Chapter XI]

In plain words, Fenimore sees Calvinism as a sect that forgets the true meaning of religious experience: God’s love towards man. In this sense, by no means is he diminishing the role of religion in the wilderness. He actually is revindicating it on the recognition of freedom of will and the hopes of equality of rights before God, 'The Great Spirit'. It is in this way that he begins Chapter 6:

"Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide;

 He wales a portion with judicious care;

And 'Let us worship God', he says, with solemn air."—Burns

In addition, in the book under analysis, Cooper mentions the case of the famous arminian Quaker William Penn, founder of the colony of Pennsylvania where people were treated equally, and religious freedom being promoted and the liberty of minor groups being respected. Cooper wrote of him as someone who "was termed Minquon by the Delawares, and, as he never used violence or injustice in his dealings with them, [that] his reputation for probity passed into a proverb."

For Cooper, God shows no partiality towards his Creation, and people must do it neither. So strongly did he believe in that, that in one his non-fiction writings, Cooper openly manifested his regret that America had failed to put into practice the Christian principles, and had instead been divided by sectarianism:

“In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Deity, and with erecting temples in his honor, where all can bow down with reverence, the pride and vanity of human reason enter into and pollute our worship, and the houses that should be of God and for God, alone, where he is to be honored with submissive faith, are too often merely schools of metaphysical and useless distinctions. The nation is sectarian, rather than Christian.” [The American Democrat (1838), On Religion]

That leads us to a third important topic in the novel, which has to do with equality. In the closing of TLOTM, Cooper shows a beautiful thought declaring that “the gifts of our colors may be different, but God has so placed us as to journey in the same path”. Now, let us relate this to the symbolic characters of Cora and Alice, who may well represent the mixed “children of America” or a young generation of people whose home was now America: they are both of black and white descent, but at the end, children of a same father. This very idea would appear in another Leatherstocking Tale, (the sequel of TLOTM), where Cooper would write that “God has given the salt lick to the deer; and He has given to man, red-skin and white, the delicious spring at which to slake his thirst” (The Pathfinder, 1840). Thus, man, for Cooper, has received a different and diverse physical appearance, but still we are intended to have equal treatment. Cora poses a question in this way: “should we distrust [a] man because his manners are not our manners, and [because] his skin is dark?” (Ch. 2). In the American Democrat (1838), he would firmly advocate for equality of rights: “with an equality of civil rights, all men are equal before the law.”

Actually, the topic of equality of rights is addressed by Cooper since the beginning of the novel, when he states that the English and the French powers had “robbed… the native right” to even name the place where their ancestors had lived for years. It is so grievous that Europeans fought the Natives to take the land as they pleased, that Chingachgook asserts “we were one people, and we were happy. The salt lake gave us its fish, the wood its deer, and the air its birds. We took wives who bore us children; we worshipped the Great Spirit” (Ch. 3). European powers shouldn’t have taken that away from the Natives, and a decade later, Cooper would delve on this topic manifesting:

“Obstructing the progress of other nations… causes us to undervalue the high blessings we so peculiarly enjoy, to render us ungrateful towards God and to make us unjust to our fellow men, by throwing obstacles in their progress towards liberty” [A letter to His Countrymen (1834)]

In conclusion, The Last of The Mohicans can clearly be seen as a remarkable reflection of important social issues and ideological interests in America’s society during the 18th and 19th century. Its main characters are people whom with usually one could not totally agree or disagree, just like we cannot totally agree or disagree with all the things that happened in America during that period. Nonetheless, Cooper did a unique job exploring both the good and bad sides of each topic that he addresses through the mindset of its characters, and that is a very clear reason why this novel has gained an essential place in American literature even nowadays.

Bibliography

Electronic sources:

• Cooper, James Fenimore (1826). The Last of the Mohicans. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library http://web.archive.org/web/20110111151619/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=CooMohi.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1

• Cooper, James Fenimore. (1831). Introduction / to The Last of the Mohicans. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Last_of_the_Mohicans/Introduction

• Cooper, James Fenimore (1834). A Letter to His Countrymen. New-York: John Wiley. http://external.oneonta.edu/cooper/texts/letter.html

Books:

• Cooper, James Fenimore (1824). The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea. [Preface] John Lane. New York Public Library.
• Cooper, James Fenimore (1838). The American Democrat . or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America. Cooperstown, NY: H. & E. Phinney.
• Cooper, James Fenimore (1840). The Pathfinder. Lea and Blanchard. New York Public Library
• Cooper, James Fenimore (1842). The Wing-and-Wing or, Le feu-follet : a tale. New York : Henry Holt
• Cooper, James Fenimore (1847). The Crater; or, Vulcan's Peak: A Tale of the Pacific . New York Stringer and Townsend.
• Cooper, James Fenimore (1848). Oak Openings or The bee-hunter. New York. Hurd and Houghton
• Cooper, James Fenimore (1849). The Sea Lions or The Lost Sealers. New York : John W. Lovell.
• Phillips, Mary Elizabeth (1913). James Fenimore Cooper. New York, London. John Lane Company