The last of the Mohicans : or, A narrative of 1757

Front matter

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REFERENCE LIBRARY OF ai

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Introduction

By SUSAN FENIMORE COOPER.

In the summer of 1825, a travelling party of some half dozen gentlemen left New York with the intention of making an excursion to Saratoga and Lake George. Of this party the author of ‘The Spy” was one. Several young Englishmen of note were among his companions, all of whom, at a later day, became prominent in public life, important members of the British Government. Among them was Mr. Stanley, better known forty years later as Lord Derby, Prime Minister of England, and the translator of Homer. The excursion proved a very pleasant one. Parts of the ground were new to the author, whose eye for natural beauty was sensitive as that of a poet, while at the same time in everything practical, in all true progress, his interest was quite as thorough and comprehensive as that of the most plodding utilitarian. The conversation of a party of highly educated young men, with European views of things, naturally gave much additional interest to the journey. Mr. Cooper was struck with a remark on the size of the forest trees of America, those on the Atlantic coast at least being smaller than was anticipated, scarcely equal in size, it was asserted, to those of the older parks, and church-yards, and village greens of England. One is scarcely prepared,

‘indeed, for this result of civilization. We should natu _ rally have supposed that the pride of the forests would: reveal itself in grander forms in the wilderness, — that the xii THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS.

fostering care of man could do little for the woods. Such was then the usual American idea of this subject; but we are beginning, it is hoped, to learn another lesson ; to discover that the forests and groves are one of the higher forms of husbandry, —that to foster the woods and protect every tree of peculiar grandeur and beauty is the act of a manly civilization. As yet, in America, we have done little indeed to improve, but much to waste, to mar, this great gift of Providence. _

A conversation occurring at the time, in connection with a very different subject, may be alluded to; it relates to a ‘point connected with that singular fragment of feudal ages, the framework of English society, — to a point of legal precedence in rank among the English peers — as to which of the House of Peers could claim to be premier Baron of England. Mr. Wortley, at a later day Lord Wharncliffe, asserted that it was the Duke of Norfolk as Baron Fitzalan. Mr. Cooper, who had been recently amusing himself with reading English Biography and Heraldry, — declared that Lord de Ros was the oldest Baron of England. A wager was made on the subject, which was won by Mr. Cooper, his English friend giving him a seal with a baron’s coronet and the Scotch motto, ‘He that will to Cupar, maun to Cupar.”

The party moved slowly up the Hudson, halting i in the Highlands, at West Point. Thence to Catskill, which the author of “ The Pioneers” had already seen with delight as Natty could testify. Farther up the river, the poor deluded Shakers were visited, and beheld with compassion in their beautiful valley and neat village at Lebanon. Good dinners were eaten at hospitable tables in Albany. The Cohoes, formerly a very favorite spot with the author, one with which he had been familiar from boyhood, was visited, and stil] admired, in spite of the busy

INTRODUCTION. xvil mills already at that day springing up on the banks. In 1825 the falls were much more striking than they are to-day. Another English acquaintance, visiting them with Mr. Cooper a year or two earlier, struck with amazement at the beauty of the cascade, exclaimed: “If you had told me this was Niagara, I should have believed you!”

The gentlemen mingled awhile with the gay throng at Saratoga and Ballston. Thence they passed to Lake George. There the ground was quite new to the American as well as to the English members of the party. With this lake, still so freshly wild, the author was greatly charmed. After lingering awhile on its banks with great delight, visiting also Ticonderoga and Lake . Champlain, the party retraced their steps, pausing for half a day at Glenn’s Falls. The hand of man had already been busy here, turning the power of the stream to account for industrial purposes, but there was far more of natural beauty surrounding the spot,than can be found there to-day, and the singular character of the dark and silent caverns in the heart of the troubled stream was then very impressive. The travellers were struck with those stern, sombre rocks, and the flood falling in fantastic wreaths of white foam about them. While in the caverns, one of the gentlemen of the party observed to Mr. Cooper that here was the very scene for a romance. Some pleasantry passed between them on tle subject, and the writer promised his companion that a book should actually be written, in which these caves should have a place; the idea of a romance essentially Indian in character then first suggesting itself to his mind. The gentleman to whom the promise was given was Mr. Stanley, recently deceased as the Earl of Derby. Before leaving the Falls. the ground was examined closely, with a view to accurate description at a later hour. The existing xiv THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS.

natural features of the spot were combined in imagination with those which had been partially defaced by man; the ancient forests were restored, the first rude and unfinished steps of early civilization disappeared, and the waters fell once more, as they had fallen for thousands of forgotten years, in full natural torrents, unchecked by any barrier raised by human hands.

The book was immediately commenced. It was very rapidly written, and some three or four months from the time its first pages were composed, the last chapter was finished. Planned beneath the summer leaves, those leaves had scarcely fallen when the story was told, and Natty and Chingachgook were left in the wilderness, beside the rude grave of Uneas. It was with some hesitation that the writer attempted what has always been considered as a dangerous experiment, —the introduction for a second time of a prominent and successful character, already familiar to the reader in an earlier book. It was very seldom, however, that he now consulted with any friend but one regarding the work in hand; the affectionate counselor at his side, well aware that the consciousness of power might, in itself, render practicable a task in which so much interest was shown, advised his carrying out the plan. The step was taken. Natty and Chingachgook were once more brought before the reader, but at a period supposed to be earlier in their own career than the date of “The Pioneers,’ and beneath the shadow of the unbroken forest.

Mr. Cooper was then passing the summer with his family in a little cottage belonging to his friend, Coitonel Gibbs, of Sunswick, immediately on the Long Island shore of the Sound, opposite Blackwell’s Island—not far from Hal. lett’s Cove. The flourishing village of Astoria now occupies the same ground. In the summer of 1825 this was

INTRODUCTION, ° XV a perfectly quiet, rural region, nothing but open farms for miles around, with the exception of the little hamlet at Hallett’s Cove, and the flourishing village of Flushing, at a distance of three miles. Here the family attended church. The cottage stood on the brow of a wooded bank, perhaps thirty feet above the river. To live within sight and sound of the water was always a delight to the author of “The Pilot,’? and many were the hours he passed sitting on the narrow belt of grass before the cottage door, watching the varied fleet of sloop, schooner, brig, ship, and steamer, passing to and fro. The perils of Hell Gate lay just above, adding to the interest with which the movements of the different craft were watched, He often amused himself, in the summer evenings, with giving his children a lesson in the lore of a sailor, teaching them the names of the different craft, as they passed to and fro with the tide, according to their forms and rigging; mainsail, jib, and skysail were names with which the little ones soon became familiar, and, before the summer was over, they could even talk learnedly about periaguas and chebacco boats. Within a short distance to the southward, affording a pleasant drive, was a fine bay with a beautiful, shelving beach, where he frequently drove his family to bathe; quiet and safe, and rich in beautiful shells, this bay was bounded on, the eastward by a high point, covered with a breezy grove; here the views were charming, and the solitude perfect. The same spot is now crowded with busy life, the well-known college of. Dr. Muhlenberg having been built on the point.

Not content with driving on the banks, and watching the sails from the shores, the author launched a pleasure boat of his own. It was a little sloop of some twenty tons, to which he gave the name of Van Tromp. <A small wharf belonging to the farm lay within a stone’s é alan Vi THE ‘LAST OF THE MOHICANS.

throw from the cottage, and here the Van Tromp found a convenient port when not on duty. She was afloat daily, however. Scorning the steamboat, which stopped regularly at Hallett’s Cove, the author went to town almost every afternoon, or whenever the tide served, in his little yacht the Van Tromp, often both captain and crew himself. Very frequently some friend would return to spend a day with him. Little pleasure trips through the Sound were also frequent, and enjoyed with great zest. He delighted in being afloat.

Meanwhile he was writing the “ Mohicans.” Although | this book was very rapidly written, yet during its progress — soon after commencing it indeed —the writer was seized with a serious illness. Naturally of a very sound and vigorous constitution, he had scarcely known, until lately, what a day’s physical ailing was. But a year or two earlier, while returning from a visit to the family of Governor Jay, at Bedford, the carriage he was driving broke down at one of the villages on the Sound, and, always glad of an excuse for being afloat, he took passage for New York, with his party, in a sloop. The wind began to fail; he was anxious to reach home, and, in order to make the utmost of the tide, he took the helm, steering the little craft himself through Hell Gate. The day was extremely sultry, and exposure to the intense heat brought on a sudden and severe attack of fever, which in its first stages partook of the character of a stroke of the sun. And now, in the autumn of 1825, exposure again brought on the same disease. During the height of the attack, his mind was filled with image connected with the book recently begun. One afternoon, suddenly rousing himself, he called for pen and paper; but too ill to use them himself, he requested Mrs. Cooper, watching anxiously at his side, to write from his dictation, Most

{NTRODUCTION. Xvli reluctantly, and in fear of delirium, she complied with the request, and solely with a view of relieving his mind from temporary excitement. A page of notes was rapidly dictated and written out; to his alarmed nurse they appeared the wild, incoherent fancies of fever, with which the names of Natty, Chingachgook, and Cora, already familiar to her, were blended. But in truth there was no delirium; a clear and vivid picture of the struggle between Magua and Chingachgook filled his mind at the moment, and only a few days later the chapter — the twelfth of the book — was actually written from that rude sketch. And this proved to be one of the very few instances in which preliminary notes, relating to a work in hand, were thrown on paper. At the same period, while still confined to his bed, he was visited by his old college tutor and friend, Professor Silliman, who left the house with very serious fears as to the result of the attack. By the mercy of Providence, however, he soon recovered from all immediate danger; though for several years he suffered from the consequences of the disease, by a form of nervous dyspepsia previously unknown to him.

When Mr. Cooper determined to write an Indian romance, and to bring Natty again before the reader, it became a natural consequence that he should choose the Mohican Chingachgook, the.comrade of Natty, as a principal character. Very little was accurately known at that day —nearly half a century since — with regard to the Indians and their tribal distinctions. Vague notions prevailed in connection with such subjects, even among educated people. Ethnology was a science still in its infancy in America. The country was in its early youth. There were too many practical questions of engrossing interest, of vital importance, pressing constantly on the attention of the people, for Americans to look backward at what

Pea) ye < oe _—T | oer r *

XVili THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, may be called the dark ages of their history. During the | colonial period, the Indians filled a very prominent position in the foreground, whether as friends or foes; they were feared by the entire white population; they were courted and flattered by governors, and generals, an¢ legislative assemblies — aye, even the Crowns of England and France condescended to bow before them with a sort — of mock homage. High prices were paid for their services —and for their scalps. During a century and a half they always held a bold position, either as the bulwark or the scourge of the different colonies, After the Revolution, the change was signal. ‘They immediately dropped into the background. They were forgotten. The majority of the people scarcely remembered their existence. Even the best educated men of the generation, born immediately after the Revolution, knew very little about them. Vague notions prevailed regarding even such tribes as the Five Nations, and the Lenni Lenape. It was only here and there that some student, like Mr. Gallatin, or Mr. Dupon- — ceau, looked more closely into their languages and traditions. Very little was written about them. Still less was printed and read on subjects connected with them. Such was the general state of things when the author of _ ©The Pilot” determined to write a romance essentially Indian in character and incidents. The volumes of Colden, Heckewelder, Penn, and Smith lay within reach. He had also been very much interested in the narratives of Long, Lewis and Clarke, and Mackenzie. Occasional personal intercourse with parties of the tribes still roving in diminished numbers over the western part of the State of New York had given the reality of life to his views of the race. Small bands of the Oneidas and other clans of the Iroquois still visited the shores of Lake Otsego, in his early youth, to fish, to sell the small wares made

INTRODUCTION, X1X by the women, or even occasionally to hunt the last deem lingering in those forests. Mohicans and Delawares came to the village from time to time, frequently lingering for months in the adjoining woods. Certain individuals ef these different clans were regular in their visits, and their faces familiar to his boyhood. At a later day, when serving as a midshipman on Lake Ontario, he met the red men in large numbers, and in a more wild condition. He appears to have always beheld these rude people with a peculiar interest, partially of curiosity, and also of compassion. The writer of these notes remembers more than one old volume relating to the red man, lying on his table ror months, during her nursery years — volumes which greatly excited her own childish curiosity, and in which she was occasionally allowed to spell out a page or two. During those same years, — now looking so dim and far away, —she also remembers the lively interest with which her father would relate, to the gentlemen visiting at his house, little incidents come to his own personal knowledge in connection with the red men. There were always so much spirit and animation in his countenance and manner, such an appropriate and graceful gesture, and such an easy flow of language when conversing on a subject in which he was interested, that he never failed to command the attention of his listeners. Even the little ones about him were probably far more interested in his anecdotes than he was himself aware of. And it was in this tone of interest that at that period of his life he generally spoke of the red man. 3 It was quite natural for a New Yorker to choose a Mohican for his Indian here. When Hudson discovered _ the river now bearing his name, the Mohicans were among the first tribes he met. They are said to have held possession of both banks of that noble stream, at different xx THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. .

spoints, as far north as the mouth of the Mohawk. Their

greatest force lay on its eastern shore. So numerous indeed were the Mohicans on the banks of the great stream, in that century, that the river tribes generally received from the Dutch and English the name of Mohicander, or Mohikanneuw. These Mohicans of the Hudson, the Mohicander or river tribes, the Mohegans of New England, — as well as the Pequots and Narragansets, were all kindred clans with similar dialects, and all belonged to the Algonquin race. They were a numerous and important people, though broken up into many clans, more or less widely separated. In 1684 the French numbered their warriors at twelve hundred, as allies or tributaries of the Iroquois, to whom they gave the respectful title of ‘ Uncles,’ while these looked upon their Algonquin tributaries as ‘‘ Nephews,”’ a generation below them in wisdom and influence.

Already, as early as 1617, the Mohicans were in a measure subordinate to the Iroquois, or Five Nations. — At that date a solemn treaty is said to have been made at Tawassentha, “the place of the many dead,’? now Norman’s Kill, near Albany, between the Hollanders and the Five Nations, and several tributary tribes in partial subjection to the last. These tributaries were treated as ‘‘women,’ non-combatants, no longer warriors. The wampum belt of alliance was upheld on one side by the Iroquois, on the other by the Hollanders, while the inferior tribes were placed between the principal negotiating parties, and received the belt on their shoulders, The Mohicans were one of these inferior tribes, so says tradition, supported by old historical authorities of the whites. Only a few years later, in 1628, the Mohicans living near Fort Orange rose against the Mohawks; they were defeated and driven to the eastward, where they built

INTRODUCTION. | xxi themselves a village on the banks of the Connecticut. Here, with the rest of their tribe, they were in time attacked by the Pequots. Long and bitter was the strife ; but the English Colonists took sides with the Mohicans and their chief, Uncas, and as is well known the Pequots were cruelly exterminated by the New Englanders. Then, some ten years later, followed the bitter war between Unceas, with his Mohicans, and the Narragansets. The chief foree of the Mohican race was at this period in New England, although kindred clans bearing the same name were still to be found on the banks of the Hudson, and at a later day still farther west. These Mohicans were during two centuries the friends and allies of the New England colonies; and yet nothing in fiction could be imagined more truly melancholy than the actual recorded history of these Connecticut Mohicans in their struggles against the fire-arms, the cunning, the grasping cupidity, the cruelty, and the poison fire-water of their white neighbors, crushing out their very life and spirit. One Uncas after another succeeded to the title and empty dignity of Sachem, or Sagamore —a title becoming more of a mockery with every year.

‘The burial-place of the family of Uncas still exists not far from Norwich in Connecticut. The tomb of the Great Uncas is marked by a granite monument erected by the whites. The epitaph, written by some English admirer and poet, is certainly peculiar : —

“UNCAS.

“For Beauty, witt, for sterling Sense For temper mild, for Eliquence , For Couradg Bold, For things Wauregeon He was the Glory of Mohedgon Whose Death has Caused great lamentation Both in ye English & ye Indian Nation.”

xxii THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS.

Another stone bears the following inseription, to a ' young man, a contemporary of the Unceas of fiction : —

“Here lies Sam Uncas the second and beloved Son of his father John Uncas, who was the grand-son of Uncas, Grand sachem of Mohegan.

The darling of his mother being daughter of said Uncas Grand sachem. »Je died July 31st 1741 in the 28th of his age.”’

It was about the same period, or rather earlier, in 1743, that a young Mohegan, for so was the name spelled in Connecticut, appeared one winter’s day at the door of the Rey. Eleazar Wheelock, a prominent Congregational minister at Lebanon, coming on an unusual errand. He had been a pagan, born at Mohegan, and was now about twenty. During the previous year he had become a Christian, and now came a suppliant for religious training, hoping in time to become a preacher to his own people. His name was Occum. His request was granted, and at the end of four years he had made very good progress, not only in English, but also in Greek and Latin, and was learning Hebrew, when his health failed and his - sight became affected. During ten or eleven years he wandered about, preaching to the red people, supporting himself by fishing, hunting, making wooden spoons, pails, etc., etc. His home was in a wigwam made of mats, A number of Indians were converted by his preaching at this time. His studies were kept up with much perseverance under the difficulty of weakened eyesight. In August, 1759, he was regularly ordained by a Presbytery on Long Island. The example of Occum led to the opening of an Indian school by Mr. Wheelock. He began with two Delaware boys in 1754. Ten years later he had twenty students, among them an Uncas. ‘The majority of the pupils were Delawares. But there were Mohawks also, including the celebrated Brant, sent there by Sir William Johnson. The war with France, still raging,

INTRODUCTION. XXlll prevented this school from receiving the support it deserved. In 1766 a fresh movement was made in its behalf. Occum was sent to England, with a Presbyterian clergyman for his companion, and for the express purpose of obtaining funds for the ‘“ Moor Charity School,” as the foundation was then called. The Rev. Samson Occum, the Mohegan preacher, was at that time forty-four years old; he was thoroughly Indian in appearance, easy and unassuming in his manners. His sermons are said to have been forcible’ and solemn, and when delivered in his native language they were much more eloquent, and - delivered with more grace of manner and gesture, than when he spoke English. He preached with great applause to crowded congregations in England. In less than eighteen months he is said to have preached between three and four hundred sermons in English. In society he was received with great attention. King George IIL., _ assuredly a good Christian prince, whatever may have been his political errors, gave the school £200. Lord Dartmouth, a very devout man, befriended Occum greatly. Seven thousand pounds were raised in England, and two or three thousand in Scotland. The plan for the school was enlarged; it was removed to New Hampshire and became Dartmouth College, where there have been many American students, but only two or three Indians, it is said. Occum, the Mohegan preacher, removed eventually. to the Oneida country in New York, with a mixed band of his own and other tribes, to whom he gave the name of Brothertons. After a checkered career, he died, the minister of these Brothertons,'in 1792. He is said to have occasionally fallen into intemperance, and this impaired his influence and wounded his own conscience, but to have always rallied after these falls in sincere penitence, and to have died a humble, believing Christian.

XxXiv THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS.

The celebrated Hendrick, although a Mohawk sachem, | was, according to the rules of descent prevailing among the Indians, actually a Mohican. Descent is always counted through the mother among the red men; and it was from a Mohawk mother that Hendrick inherited his position among the Five Nations, His father was a Mohican, and Hendrick himself declared that he was born, and lived in his early childhood, among the Mohicans.

The author of the Indian romances can scarcely be accused of exaggeration with regard to the mental and * moral qualities of his heroes, Chingachgook and Uncas, when we remember that such men as Occum and Hendrick came of the same tribe, and lived at the same period. Whatever higher or more delicate coloring he may have thrown into his ideal pictures must naturally be attributed to the fact that it was a poetical romance which he wished to offer his readers, and not a series of mere dry ethnological skeletons.

And when he gave to this narrative the title of “The Last of the Mohicans,” the same poetical latitude must be allowed to the words. He knew perfectly well that the entire tribe was not extinct. Wandering Mohicans had often crossed his own path in his boyhood. But it was strictly true that towards the close of the last century the higher type of warrior and sachem had died out among the Mohicans. When Hendrick, or Soi-enga-rah-ta, fell at the battle of Lake George in 1755, the last warrior of general renown, who came of a Mohican parentage, passed away. No Mohican warrior of note has appeared since that day. It is true that when Hendrick died, his son, striking his own breast with energy, exclaimed, ‘* My father is not dead, his soul lives here!” But the subsequent career of that young brave was not remarkable.

At the period of the “Old French War,” different

INTRODUCTION. XXV tribes had become very much mixed. Small bands of the Delawares and Mohicans were frequently found together in close alliance, especially on the eastern border, of New York. They called each other “cousin,” a de gree of relationship considered as closely fraternal by the red men. These facts led to the impression that they were but different clans of the same tribe. So general was this opinion, that several of the writers of the last century confirmed it by their printed assertion. It was declared that like the league of the Six Nations, so the Delawares, the Mohicans, and the Munsees were but one confederacy. But this was not strictly true. The Iroquois tribes were united by much closer bonds than their neighbors and tributaries of the Algonquin race. Theirs was a regularly constituted framework of government, with certain laws unwritten but generally acknowledged, and closely connected with it was an intricate network of

- usage founded on the ties of blood, penetrating into every lodge, and inclosing within its folds the most remote wan- _derer of their race. No other confederacy in Northern America had anything approaching to the same strength. In spirit it was like our own government, a close union and not a mere alliance. The Lenni Lenape and the Mohicans were often allies, were often much mixed up together, they spoke kindred dialects, and both belonged to the Algonquin family. But they were nevertheless distinct tribes, often acting with entire independence of each other. On this point Mr. Cooper has no doubt fol. lowed too closely the impression prevailing in the beginning of this century. He was probably misled by some one of the writers who asserted that these tribes formed but one integral people. | The siege of Fort William Henry is the central point about which revolve all the incidents of ‘The Last of the

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Mohicans.” And yet it was not the intention of the au-' thor to write a historical romance. He purposely avoided taking that course, as he wished to throw the chief interest of the narrative over the forest scenes, and some few individuals among the pale-faces and the red men. The gallant defense of the fort by Colonel Munro is well known to be strictly historical He was left at this frontier outpost of the Colony, to receive alone the full bruné of the invading army, and bravely did he meet the shock. His resolute gallantry deserves the greater credit from being in strong contrast with the conduct of other English commanders in America at that particular period. The defeat of General Braddock was a fact so utterly unforeseen, so entirely incomprehensible to the military mind of England, that for some years it appears to have had a paralyzing effect on their general officers. Lord Loudon, General Abercrombie, and General Webb were thrown into a state of salutary caution wherever combined forces of French and Indians were opposed to them. The American officers were not so much disturbed by the recollection of the defeat at Fort Duquesne; they knew better how to account for it; they understood Indian warfare thoroughly from actual experience, and from the traditions of several generations. Such men as Colonel Washington and his American comrades were as ready to meet their allied foes in 1757 as they had been two years earlier. But General Webb, commanding in the Colony of New York at that moment, appears to have had his military powers completely paralyzed by the approach of this combined invasion of the French and the Canadian Indians, He lay intrenched on the Hudson within twelve miles of Fort William Henry with a force of four thousand men under his command, and an additional force of militia within call. But he left Colonel Munro to his fate,