AR+Last+of+the+Mohicans

Ashley Rosales 8/10/09 AP U.S. HIstory

Throughout the entire book you can feel the tension between the Native Americans and the French and British. The Native Americans are not treated in a very positive way. The French and British colonists seem to look at them with a mixture of awe and terror. In the first chapter when Cora sees Magua she looks at him with fascination but is still extremely scared of who he is. You can tell that she is only afraid of him because of his skin color and the fact that he is a Native American. Mostly all the colonists seem to have the same opinion on the Native Americans as she does. They are interested in them but terrified of what they could do to them. The Native Americans know the land so much better than the colonists, which fuels the fire for the colonists to be frightened. The racial tension is definitely there because people are afraid of even the Native Americans that are friendly towards them. At the same time, some of the colonists are okay with the Native Americans. Hawkeye, who is white, is friends with a Native American named Chingachgook. They have a friendly relationship and Hawkeye does not view him as scary, or as a threat. The relationship between Unca and the two sisters is also different. They don't seem to fear him as much as they feared other Native Americans in the beginning. They're almost getting used to him in a sense and are no longer as scared. Especially since Cora feels attraction towards Unca, you can tell that she is changing her perception of certain Native Americans. The relationship between the colonists and the Native Americans grows exponentially as they travel towards their destination. You can see them collaborating more and think of each other as more equals. The colonists realize that the Mohicans are the only ones that can navigate the forest safely and without them they would be completely lost in the wild. This makes them trust the Mohicans more and makes their relationship better. But at the same time when the colonists are attacked it makes them frightened once more of the Native Americans and what they're capable of. Although the ones they are travelling with haven't done anything wrong, when they witness the Iroquois it makes them skittish. Throughout the entire novel, tension is definitely rough between the Native Americans and the colonists. Some of the Native Americans are trying to get rid of the French and British and kill anyone they can. But you can see from characters like Unca and Magua that there are definite differences between Native Americans from different tribes. Some of the Native Americans are okay with the colonists being there and are not trying to destroy them to get their land back. Overall, the French and British regard the Native Americans with fear and sympathy and the Native Americans regard the French and British with hate. Most of the Native Americans do not want them there and will fight to make them leave. The relationship of the French and British and the Native Americans was quite rough.