In many ways Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans" is the first American adventure novel, the first American popular novel, and the first novel that features Native Americans as main characters. It became probably the icon by which all Native Americans were drawn for generations after that. The Native Americans in Cooper's novel seem either entirely good (Uncas and Chingachgook) or entirely evil (Magua and most of the Hurons). Magua is a chief in the …
showed first 75 words of 813 total

showed last 75 words of 813 total
…they are all children of nature, people of honour and bravery. They all have "savage, repulsive" garments, war-paint on his face, weapons in their hands, but it is not their fault. The colonisation has made them ruin and kill. That is the great mistake of history that the "empire" of Indian tribes was destroyed. But James Fenimore Cooper has immortalised them for ever, and I consider this novel to be a possession of the mankind.