The Last of the Mohicans

by James Fenimore Cooper Book 2 in the Leatherstocking Tales series.

First published 1826

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In 1757, during the French and Indian War, Cora and Alice Munro are travelling toward their father’s command at Fort William Henry when their party is betrayed and drawn into the forest war surrounding the fort. Hawkeye, Chingachgook and Uncas become their guides and protectors, while the Huron leader Magua pursues a revenge rooted in earlier humiliation.

The fall of Fort William Henry and the violence that follows turn the rescue story into a tragedy about imperial war, captivity and cultural conflict. Cooper’s frontier is shaped by British, French and Indigenous alliances, but its emotional centre lies with Uncas and Chingachgook as personal loss is linked to the larger displacement and destruction produced by colonial expansion.