AH+Last+of+the+Mohicans+Paper

The Last of the Mohicans Reflection In __The Last of the Mohicans__, by James Fenimore Cooper, there was a lot of fighting before the Native Americans and the French and British colonist even met. The Native Americans were already fighting with themselves because of their past and ancestry. The French and British may have the same goal in the “New World”, exploring and expanding, but because of that goal they are too fighting with each other. Putting these already violent problems and cultural issues together is not a good idea. When they are put together though, it is easily seen how Native Americans and the French and British colonist differ in many ways, like their knowledge about nature and the uses for each other. They are similar in one way though, and that is their hatred for each other.

The saying “learn from experiences” is completely true. Through out life, learning never ends, and the things learned get passed down from generation to generation. Because of this cycle Native Americans have learned the way of the woods and land around them, they have learned to live and use nature. This is opposite for the new French and British colonists. When comparing the colonist to the Native Americans it is pretty embarrassing (the colonists are full of themselves on their little knowledge about the environment). Once the colonists realized how unknowledgeable they were about the new land they turned to the Native Americans and started to use them as an advantage in the woods.

Native Americans did not have everything the colonist had (guns, “firewater”), so in trade of those objects, they would work for the colonist (they used each other). After this system started to become more common it started to be taken advantage off. For example of Native Americans taking advantage of the naïve colonist, Magua took advantage of Alice, Cora, and Major Duncan Heyword’s trust of being safely guided through the woods to their father. The Native Americans were not the only ones playing tricks like this. An example of colonist taking advantage of the Native Americas is when; Munro gives Magua “firewater” then beating him for it because he got drunk. Because of misleading situations like those, and how the colonist barraged in and treat the Native Americans, the views towards each group are negative and based off of stories, until proven other wise (like the massacre).

Two wrongs do not make a right. Native Americans and the French and British colonist come from two different types of worlds. The Native Americans have become “one” with their world vs. the colonist are just learning the ways of theirs. When putting the two worlds together, with each culture trying to keep or take over land, problems become inevitable. Working together and combining skills, knowledge, and other resources sounded like a good idea, and could work if the two groups had a good relationship with each other, but they did not so their teamwork did not either. When comparing the Native Americans and the French and British colonist it is obvious that based off of their knowledge and ideas of each other sharing the land as a community would not work and how the Native Americans and how the French and British colonist differ.