Racism In The Last Of The Mohicans

Present Impacts of The Last of the Mohicans James Fenimore Cooper’s the Last of the Mohicans tackles the racism of the Jacksonian era through a story based around the late 1700s. He portrays the racism through his characters, for example, the main character proclaims after just learning someone’s race, “A Mingo [group of Native Americans] is a Mingo, and God having made him so, neither the Mohawks nor any other tribe can alter him” (Cooper 29). This quote shows how influential race is in the Last of the Mohicans. In his novel, Cooper proposes, through metaphor, that a coherent, interracial society can never exist and that Indians are brutal savages who deserved to lose their land. The symbolism of relationships used in The Last of the Mohicans can be analyzed to show the race motifs Cooper uses. Cooper represents two different races initially with the contrast between the Munro sister, Cora and Alice. Due to the difference in mothers, Cora has a darker skin tone, while Alice is white. The difference also holds true with personality and character “Alice is timid and sensitive, always shrinking and shrieking at the approach of danger; while Cora is quite a bold …show more content…
The act, passed by the United States in 1830, moved Indians with territory in the states to West of the Mississippi, which was unpopulated by Westerners (Library par. 1). This ensured no violence would ensue between United States Citizens and the Indians, and kept them separated with White dominance as Cooper’s novel suggests. Another piece of evidence is the widespread acceptance of The Last of the Mohicans, “the popularity of the novel is also evidence that Cooper’s representation of Indian-White relations won the approval of the American reading public” (Robinson 71). All though, overtime views of the public tend to