KWK-Last+of+the+Mohicans

Kenny Kliesner Mr. Rowells – 7 AP US History 18 August 2009 Last of the Mohicans Paper  The British and the French have always fought over land. James Fenimore Cooper’s, //The Last of the Mohicans,// greatly depicts the troubles, struggles, and fights between England and France, but it also reveals another ethnicity, the Native Americans. During the battles over land, alliances were formed between the French and the Native Americans, although some Native Americans remained neutral and chose not to take sides. The French and the Native Americans became allies after the French told the Native Americans that Britain was planning on colonizing all over North America while the French were just going to trade furs and return to France. This made the Native Americans want to side with the French because they wanted to fight the British and get them out of the Americas. The character, Magua, in //The Last of the Mohicans// was a Huron Indian who sided with the French because English Colonel Munro led him to be exiled from his tribe. The French also gave the Native Americans new technology such as guns and other goods. The French wanted to fight the British because they both wanted to claim North American land for their prospective countries. The Huron Indians and many more Native Americans allied with the French over the struggle for land. The British and the Native Americans started being allies after the French had become allies with the Hurons. The Hurons told the French to shoot at the Iroquois and this scared the Iroquois off because they thought the gods were intervening. Once the Iroquois discovered what the gunshot sound really was, they were humiliated and enraged so they formed an alliance with the British to get revenge on the French and Huron Indians. The Last of the Mohican Indians were Chingachgook and his son, Uncas who allied with the British because they suspected that Magua was leading Cora, Alice, Major Duncan Heward, and David Gamnt to their deaths and they wanted to help. The British also had many problems with other Native American tribes because they were expanding to the West and they ran into many rebellious Native Americans. The British and Mohican alliance helped the British obtain more land. Some Native Americans did not want to create alliances with either the French or the English because they just wanted to be left alone and they wanted to keep their land. Those Native Americans were the type who would attack both the French and the English. These Indians attacked the English at villages along the Frontier of the Ohio Valley. Although these Native Americans attacked many colonists, in doing so they contracted diseases from the English and then slowly died off. The Native Americans who did not make alliances did not only lose their land, but their lives as well. Alliances were made between the French and Native Americans, the British and Native Americans, and some Native Americans just stayed apart, but they all fought over North American land. The French made an alliance with the Hurons to take land peacefully. The British made an alliance with the Mohicans for protection and guidance. The other Indians stayed neutral because they wanted anonymity. No matter who the Native Americans sided with, America was still taken over by the European colonists.