Motion History: The Last of the Mohicans

But this war – and this is a frontier where European flags don't have a lot of sway over the private and bloody war that the natives are waging on settlers. Magua betrays Cora and Alice, but they're rescued by the impossibly handsome Hawkeye, the equally handsome Uncas, and the noble Chingachgook. The trio promises to accompany the ladies to the fort, and a thorny relationship blossoms into true love. It's a relationship that has to survive the siege and fall of Fort William and the ruthless determination of Magua to wipe out the Munro family.

The Historical Background

The French and Indian war is really one of those misty areas of American history that our classes gloss over. It was only one fight between England in France in a long, ugly, complicated was between every European power of the 18th century. The origins of both the French and Indian War and the Seven Years war are murky territorial claims that just exploded into war. It's similar to World War I – a lot of bloodshed over something vague and weird that everyone probably felt really silly about later. Especially France, since they lost all of their American territory.

It's often pointed to as the first stirring of the American Revolution, and it was. The conflict that you see in the movie between sturdy colonials and stiff upper-lipped Englishmen is pretty accurate. This was the first major exposure a lot of Americans had to the English military. They'd been living in "salutary neglect", an unofficial British policy of leaving well enough alone in order to turn a good colonial profit. In 1754, war breaks out, and England wants the colonists to step up and do their part. The American militias did, though they weren't as forthcoming with aid as England expected. After all, this wasn't really their war, and they had their own homes to protect, and their families to care for. England resented that. It's the beginning of a rift that would explode in a declaration of independence.

The attitude of someone like Hawkeye – neither English, nor French nor American, but someone raised by the outcasts – is even more understandable. He just wants to be left in peace. There were probably a lot of men like him. This is edge of the known world, remember, and a lot of people were just interested in carving a living out of it. Who cared about something like The Austrian Succession and where the French were moving into? Not a man like Hawkeye.


Is It Accurate?

Surprisingly, yes. Michael Mann didn't skimp on anything, and it shows. The clothes, the guns, and the locations are all spot on. It's beautifully done. No one looks freakish or out of place, even if Day Lewis' shirt does fall open a surprising number of times. (What is that, a leather poet's shirt? Why doesn't it lace up? It's a thing of masculine beauty, but I'm not convinced it would have been worn by anyone in the 18th century. You buttoned up in those days. It was cold!)

Many of the historical figures appearing in the film existed. There really was a Col. Edward Munro. His unremarkable military career would never have made it into the history books except that he happened to be dispatched to Fort William Henry. The fort was attacked by a force led by Marquis de Montcalm, and comprised of French and Native soldiers. The fort was cut off from English troops (the closest detachment was commanded by General Daniel Webb at Fort Edward. He appears in the film too!), but they managed to hold out for an entire week. Munro was forced to surrender, but he had fought so valiantly that the Marquis gave him generous terms. Munro was able to negotiate for safe passage for his troops to Fort Edward. These troops weren't just armed soldiers, but included wives, children, and servants. Roughly 2,000 people
set out on foot and horseback to Fort Edward, seventeen miles away.

Seventeen miles was an epic distance in those days, though. A lot could happen – and did. Munro and his troops were attacked by Montcalm's Native allies. It's gone down in history as a massacre, but recent studies have suggested it wasn't the "horrid scene of blood and slaughter" that eyewitnesses described or that the film portrays.


Why? Was it a French betrayal? Native Americans striking back at Europeans. No. The Native soldiers wanted, for lack of a better word, booty. They felt they had been denied by the French, and the French didn't have control of the situation. (They were accused of turning a blind eye. Considering how strict the rules of warfare were, though, I doubt they would have wanted a broken truce to their reputation.) The hysterical eyewitness claims of "blood and slaughter" also admit it lasted three hours – an awfully long time for a sudden massacre – in which the natives "stript them of their Packs and Cloths and the most of their Arms." Even one Col. Frye, who describes scalping and baby-killing, admits their attackers went for "Hatts, Swords, Guns, and Cloaths, stripping them to their Shirts, and some officers left no shirt at all." Prisoners were taken, as the Natives knew soldiers could be ransomed back for a good price. It was more valuable to take prisoners than kill anyone. Historian Ian K. Steele believes the total loss (including those who lived as permanent captives) was around only 184.

Munro wasn't one of the 184 dead or missing. He didn't have his heart cut out by a vengeful Magua, because Magua didn't exist, and he never angered him. But Monro died only three months later in Albany, allegedly from the strain of the battle. Luke Grindlay's Diary of 1757 says he was "striken with apoplexy in the street" which was the catch-all term for a stroke. Probably a far better death than having your heart cut out.

But naturally, you wouldn't have The Last of the Mohicans without a good dash of romanticism. Munro didn't have any daughters (there's no record he ever married), so there was no Cora or Alice who braved the frontier to meet him at Fort William. But Cora (who dies in the book – the movie reverses the two sisters' fates) was based on a real woman: Jane McRae. McRae was killed during the American Revolution by a group of Native Americans led by a Wyandot (or Huron) named Le Loup. She set out from her brother's home to meet her Loyalist fiancee, and had reached old Fort Edward. The town was attacked, and she was taken hostage. She was either killed by a tomahawk due to a quarrel between two of the men, or she was accidentally shot in the back by a stray American bullet. Take your pick. Allegedly, one of them men wore her "distinctive scalp" on his belt, and it was recognized, causing a huge outcry. Her death was used heavily as propaganda by the Patriots, who insisted they could protect Americans better than British and Loyalists could, and they saw an increase in recruitment numbers. (Trivia buffs should note that Day-Lewis stops to gaze at a painting of The Death of Jane McCrae in The Age of Innocence.) It may also be worth noting that Cooper's Cora is of African-American descent, something no cinematic version has yet to incorporate. I've always thought it was a shame. If she suffered any prejudice, that's why she would be so tough, and so sympathetic to Hawkeye!

There was also an Uncas that James Fenimore Cooper used as a loose inspiration for the entire book. Uncas was a 17th century Mohegan sachem who was an ally to the English during the Pequot War of 1635. One of his descendants, John Uncas, died in 1842 and a newspaper erroneously reported he was "the last of the Mohegans." Cooper saw that, and spun it into a quite a tale, confusing the Mahicans and the Mohegans, and apparently believing they were extinct. This was untrue. The Mohegans and the Mahicans are both federally recognized tribes, and still exist today. It's a dramatic lie with disturbing implications.Native Americans were something to lament if they were gone, but it's not as though we were giving any time or thought to the ones that were "still" around in 1842! (Do we now?)



It's this inaccuracy – the last of the Mohicans bravely looking over the land he has lost – that I find intriguing. Mohicans was, without a doubt, part of the progressive trend to showing Native Americans in a positive light. Hollywood had been inching towards it for decades. But the 1990s takes all the credit thanks to Dances With Wolves in 1990 and The Last of the Mohicans in 1992. I'm sure it's no coincidence they happened alongside the Native American Graves and Reparation Act, which was passed in 1990.

The Last of the Mohicans is not only the beginning of a new Western film – Native Americans can be noble, too – but it's also the last gasp of the old. Remember, it's still a film about a white man living as a native. It evocatively bills that white man as "The first American hero" while simultaneously lamenting the last of a people. Couldn't a Native American be the first American hero? Not yet. Especially not when the film still relies on bad Native Americans who march off with white women, cut out hearts, and burn people alive. (While captives were certainly taken, I can find no evidence of the last two tortures. The Aztecs are the only ones I know of who cut hearts out of living victims. I've read that some Native tribes did burn individuals over fire, but it's all second hand evidence, and fragmentary.) While not all Native Americans were good – there were plenty of atrocities committed on both sides – it's strange to see a film resort to barbaric stereotypes and disproved massacres to heighten the romance and entertainment. Cora could have simply been a captive – it's more likely they would have kept her alive and useful -- and it wouldn't have changed the great scene where Hawkeye strides in to save her. But no. She has to face death by burning because it wouldn't be as horrific otherwise!


Despite its use of new and old stereotype (the noble Native American is just as much a sketch as a savage one), it is a very good film and it tried harder to be more sensitive than any previous adaptation before it. I think the timing of it is fascinating – not only does it come right on the heels of NAGPRA, but The Last of the Mohicans set a tone for the decade. Cooper's original Hawkeye is, arguably, the first "cowboy" hero in fiction. He's the epitome of what America thinks a man ought to be - a man of aristocratic qualities, but not origin, lacking higher education but skilled in common sense and the ways of nature, a rugged individualist who shuns society because of its civilizing evils.

I'm convinced his reemergence as a cultural figure in 1992 is no accident. This is a new era of movie heroes. As the 1990s began, the Gordon Geckos are fading away, counterculture antiheroes are passe, and the fall of the Soviet Union eliminated the need for our commandos, spies, and Stallones. Hawkeye's reinvention (Day-Lewis' version is a far warmer man than Cooper's) suggests we need look to our past heroes to create new ones. Considering all the swords, swashbuckling, and sandals that we've had over the past two decades, I suspect Hollywood took the lesson to heart.