Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz
Fachbereich Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft
Hauptseminar “White on Red – Representation of Native Americans in U.S. Fiction and Film”

A Comparison of James Fenimore Cooper′s "The Last of the
Mohicans" and Robert Montgomery Bird′s
"Nick of the Woods"

 
Wintersemester 2005/06

Contents:

0 Introduction ...1

1 Similarities and Differences of both Novels ...3

1.1 Themes ...3

1.1.1 The Theme of Flight ...3
1.1.2 Aristocratic Romance ...3

1.2 Equivalent Characters ...4
1.3 Interracial Relationships ...6

2 Native American Stereotypes – Racism in both Novels ...7

2.1 Native Americans in Bird′s “Nick of the Woods” ...7
2.2 Native Americans in Cooper′s “the Last of the Mohicans” ...11

2.2.1 Cooper′s “bad Indians” - the Hurons ...11
2.2.2 Cooper′s Prototype of the “bad Indian” - Magua ...13

2.3 Cooper′s “good Indians” ...14

2.3.1 Chingachcook ...14
2.3.2 Uncas ...15
2.3.3 What makes an Indian “good?” ...16

3 Conclusion ...18

4 Bibliography ...19

0 Introduction

Native Americans have played an important role in early American literature. After all, the Pilgrim Fathers and their descendants have had to deal with Native Americans from the very beginning, since the land on which the United States of America would be proclaimed in 1776 was already inhabited by tribes which were generally referred to as “Indians.” Over the decades and centuries, the image of Native Americans as depicted in novels and reports underwent quite a lot of dramatic changes.

In this paper, the main focus will be laid on the image of Native Americans as it was drawn by two major novels of American literature: James Fenimore Cooper′s “the Last of the Mohicans,” which was first published in 1826, and Robert Montgomery Bird′s “Nick of the Woods,” which was published, eleven years after Cooper′s work, in 1837. A reader familiar with both novels might notice that they represent two different approaches and attitudes towards Native Americans. On the one hand, there is Cooper who coined the term and image of the “Noble Savage,” depicting Native Americans as dignified, noble, honorable and beautiful “sons of the forest.” His work shows a comprehending attitude towards Native Americans, an attitude that is indicated in the introduction of his novel, where he claims that the native tribes were robbed of their territories by white settlers (Cooper 2). His image of Native Americans could be referred to as the “Eastern point of view.” On the other hand, there is Bird and what we could call the “Western point of view.” Bird directly attacks the image of Native Americans as Cooper drew it when he says in his introduction that Cooper [...] had thrown a poetical illusion over the Indian character, [...] [creating] a new style of the beau ideal – brave, gentle, loving, refined, honorable romantic personages – nature′s nobles (Bird 7). He claims that this picture is by no means an appropriate description of Native Americans and “that such conceptions as Uncas [...] are beautiful unrealities and fictions” (Bird 7). Another more subtle attack on Cooper′s depiction of natives is found on page 43, where Bird mentions the tribes of the Delawares, Hurons and Shawnee. It is quite interesting that Bird chose two of the tribes explicitly mentioned and depicted in Cooper′s work, putting them in the same category to indicate that the differences distinguished by Cooper are not valuable at all. Furthermore, he claims that “the Indian is doubtless a gentleman; but he is a gentleman who wears a very dirty shirt” (Bird 7). Bird does not deny the possibility that Native Americans are capable of creating civilizations, as for example the Aztecs and Maya did in Mexico, but he concludes that “in [their] natural barbaric state, [they are] barbarian[s] and [...] could [not] be any thing else” (Bird 7). Therefore, Bird′s intention could be summed up as the attempt to set the record straight by providing an image of Native Americans that is, at least from his point of view, more realistic than the one created by Cooper. In fact, Bird himself explicitly states this intention when he says: We look into the woods for the mighty warrior, “the feather-cinctured chief,” rushing in to meet his foe, and behold him retiring, laden with the scalps of miserable squaws and their babes. (Bird 5)

It seems quite clear, then, that in these two novels we face two fundamentally different approaches towards the nature of Native Americans, namely Bird′s racist attitude on the one hand, which features a black-and-white picture of the good white settlers fighting the bad “Injuns” - as Bird frequently calls them - while on the other hand, there is Cooper′s supposedly more balanced approach, which seems to provide a more complex picture of Native Americans. Unfortunately, this is a premature conclusion that breaks down as soon as we look deeper beyond the surface of both novels and conduct a more detailed analysis of the themes and characters featured therein. In fact, as will be proved in the course of this paper, the two novels are very much alike when it comes to their literary themes and the image which both draw of the native inhabitants of America.

1 Similarities and Differences of both Novels

1.1 Themes

1.1.1 The Theme of Flight

Both novels feature flight as the main topic of the described action, and in both novels the agents which the main characters have got to flee from are malevolent natives. In Cooper′s “the Last of the Mohicans” we have the party of Duncan Heyward, Alice Munro and Cora Munro fleeing from the Huron chief Magua, who intends to capture and re-capture the two women in order to take revenge on their father, Colonel Munro, who humiliated Magua when ordering to have him whipped as a penalty for Magua′s drinking an inappropriate behavior. In their attempts to flee, they are supported by Hawkeye, Uncas and Chingachcook.

In Bird′s “Nick of the Woods,” the ones in flight from Indians are Edith and Roland Forrester, two cousins who are in love with each other and are captured and re-captured by Shawnee tribes due to the intrigues and schemes conducted by John Doe and Richard Braxley, either one having his own reasons for tricking Edith and Roland. Roland and Edith are rescued and supported by Nathan Slaughter as well as the United States Army and Cavalry.

1.1.2 Aristocratic Romance

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