How Cooper Creates a Racial Archetype for the American Indian

In The Last of the Mohicans, Cooper portrays the white characters as greatly varied from each other. Heyward clings to European ideals, while Hawk-eye has rejected them completely. The scout's naturalistic philosophy also profoundly contrasts David's European religiosity and lack of traditional masculinity. Munro's despair cripples his resolve, while Heyward and Hawk-eye transform their problems into action. Montcalm's tacit endorsement of the massacre displays a betrayal of morals that the other characters are not capable of.

Cooper handles his Native American characters in a much more formulaic manner. Uncas and Chingachgook, though one more youthful than the other, display quite similar personalities, marked by loyalty, stoicism, and competence in battle. Page 222 explicitly points out their similarities, when the narrator states that Uncas sits down with "the same appearance of indifference as was maintained by his father." The similar characterizations of Uncas and Chingachgook, though apparent, do not necessarily confirm any racial misrepresentations or lack of realism; children mimic their parents' personalities (Alice certainly behaves like Munro).

But relation of blood does not account for a similar personality residing in Magua, the story's dreaded antagonist: "Magua continued to smoke, with the same meditative air that he usually maintained" (p. 281). The narrator also seems to point out that this stoic, though battle-like, trait is intrinsic to all American Indians by explicitly stating that "Those beings... were alike so impetuous, and yet so self-restrained" (p. 285). The narrator also states, and frequently explains, the American Indians' "characteristic" cunning (p. 314). 

Cooper's imagery also serves to dehumanize the American Indian. The narrator frequently describes war-like bands and crowds of Native Americans. On page 270, during the Huron pursuit of Uncas, the narrator describes the Hurons as "a dark mass of human forms, tossed and involved in inexplicable confusion." Similarly, regardless of specific character or tribe, all American Indian characters speak in notably exotic and musical voices (although this is probably due in part to the tonal nature of many American Indigenous languages) and express themselves in battle with violent and terrifying war-cries.

Cooper uses a prescribed formula that dehumanizes American Indians into an archetype entailing stoicism, apathy, exotic appearance and sound, war-like aggression, and prowess in battle, thus exhibiting them as little more than the physical manifestation of their perceived culture. The novel, though opening a vibrant and enticingly inconclusive discussion about race and its relevance to the formation of an American identity, fails to depict its Native American characters in an original, varying, or humanizing manner.