The Last of the Mohicans

Author: Cooper
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-08-01
Features: "The Last of the Mohicans" is the most outstanding work in "The Leatherstocking Tales." The story takes place in the late 1950s of the 18th century, during the third year of the "Seven Years' War" between Britain and France for control of North American colonies, set in the area around the source of the Hudson River and Lake George. At that time, it was a battlefield of fierce battles. The novel follows the experiences of Colonel Munro's two daughters, Cora and Alice, who are kidnapped on their way to visit their father at Fort William Henry, as the main plot unfolds a series of thrilling scenes of tracking, ambush, and battle in the wilderness. The protagonist, Natty Bumppo, has already become a scout for the British army and has earned the nickname "Hawkeye." Along with his old friend, the Mohican chief "Blacksnake" Chingachgook, and Chingachgook's son "Lightning" Uncas, they bravely step forward to rescue the sisters and engage in a hair-raising struggle with the kidnappers, which ultimately ends in a fierce battle. On the surface, it seems a bit like a "robinsonade-style" romantic story, but in reality, the work first tells us: the British and French colonizers are the source of all evil. They launched the war to plunder this land of the Indians, and together they implemented fraudulent, brutal, and even horrifying policies of ethnic extermination against the Indians. They paid high prices for Indian scalps, used "firewater" and the Bible to the Indians' morale, forced them to serve as cannon fodder through deception and coercion, and maliciously incited the various Indian tribes to fight each other to their mutual destruction. Chingachgook was once the great chief of the Mohican tribe, and his tribe was tragically destroyed under the guns and treachery of white colonizers. He once sadly told his old friend Bumppo: "Before the British came, our tribe was united, and we lived happily. Salt lakes gave us fresh fish, forests gave us deer, the sky gave us birds, we married wives, and our wives gave us children. After the Dutch landed, they gave firewater to my people until they could no longer distinguish between heaven and earth. Later, they were forced to leave their land and gradually driven away from the beloved banks, until they reached this point: as a leader and great chief, I can only see sunlight through the gaps in the trees and never get to visit my ancestral graves!" Unfortunately, even his only heir, Uncas, died at the hands of Magua, another Indian. Like the Mohican tribe, the Wanyandotte tribe, which was used by the French colonial authorities, was "completely destroyed" by the shores of Lake Huron in the final battle. This allows us to vividly see that the history of the development of North American colonies is, in essence, a history of blood and tears for the Indians.