Old, New, and the Land in Between

One aspect of the novel that I found particularly interesting was the manner in which its small band of main band of main characters acts as a microcosm of America’s condition during the French and Indian war. It contains, among others, the last of a particular tribe of Native Americans– who are, in a sense, the original Americans– as well as a character who represents another type of “first” American.

What does it mean to be an American, and how did the first one come to be? Does one need to be born in America? Have American parents? Embody American culture (whatever that may be)? I would argue that the cultural aspect is the most important part, even though we discussed race at length in class as well as how race compares to culture. And in the case of the novel, American culture seems intrinsically tied to land.

The concept of the frontier is very American. When settlers arrived from Europe, a continent mapped down to the inch, they arrived on a barely tamed patch of land with thousands of miles stretching to the west. The concept of exploring the back country, first on the fringes of the original thirteen colonies, then further west, and further, was essential to the early days of the United States. And Cooper demonstrates that that land was a major link between Native Americans and new Americans. The Mohicans in the novel have an intimate understanding of the land, and seem almost a part of the landscape itself, in the way they are able to move about it unnoticed. Hawk-eye, on the other hand, is eager to embrace the land, though not as skilled as moving through it. He therefore embodies the spirit of the early American adventurer, and, indeed, becomes an image of the first American. He owes the land, and his knowledge of it, to the Native Americans; his zeal for understanding it (which will later translate, for America, into a zeal to conquer it) is what makes him American. The land is the link between the old and the new.