Phil Thrash

February 27, 2005

   American Romanticism in The United States of America, “Red, White, and Black,” Cultural Issues of America: Racially Divided but Historically Connected.

     We are connected historically yet, racially divided here in the United States of America.  This is the major premise of this paper.  Theme of paper is to link this major premise to some specific examples in our early pre-romantic course readings, and transition to show how theme is linked to American Romanticism and manifested in The Last of The Mohicans. We are all romantics, like it or not, because we are prisoners and captives in a very real and maybe not an obvious romantic fashion.  We are prisoners in body we received not of our choice, and are of a race and skin color determined by plan or accident of birth. We are also prisoners of time and place, as we did not choose where or when we were born.  We, as individuals, are part of a particular race and exist in a specific historical time and occupy a specific place.  Race, history, time and place are constants and variables.  Race is a constant for a specific individual, but race can be mixed, by intermarriages, which result in childbirth of an individual with mixed blood.  Race in this situation goes from a constant to a variable, or perhaps a mix.  A specific instant of time in history may be constant, but subject to many perspectives and analyses.  Time is. It is past, now, and future.  Time past is history.  We are in the now, or present moment, which is the essence of being.  So now in the present moment, let us romantics visit some literary cultural issues of historical connections and racial division aspects, we have examined in our course readings, as they might romantically be conveyed and connected to Cooper’s The Last of The Mohicans.

     Racial issues clearly emerge from readings of the Columbus’s voyages in 1492.  Early letters from Columbus, a white European, back to his Spanish benefactors, Ferdinand and Isabella, were the first historical vestiges of American Literature.  His description of the New World describes the inhabitants, the natives, as “innumerable, and not opposed to his claiming the islands they inhabited for the Spanish throne.”(N 26)  This first instance of American literature set a historical precedent and became a harbinger of the European white race’s methods of acquisition, and expansion into the Western Hemisphere.  The natives of the occupied and conquered lands had no written history, and their perspectives are subject to speculation.  The Spanish took over these lands in

The West Indies, enslaved the natives to a point of their virtual demise, and introduced captured black African slaves in 1509 to the point of displacing the native Indian population by the middle of the 16^th century.   This early historical perspective shows the white race’s dominance over the original native Indians of the West Indies, and the capture and importation of black African slaves to Spain’s New World possessions.  Spain had made some inroads to the North American continent and by 1526 had brought black African slaves to what is now South Carolina, further illustrating the historical connection of the white race’s subjugation of the black race on the North American continent. (N 2-16)

     The French and English, white European rulers, became aware of Spain’s thrust into the Western Hemisphere, and made many attempts, mostly aborted failures, during the early to mid 1500s to create white settlements in the Western Hemisphere.  By 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh of England had established a site in Roanoke, Virginia, and the French Explorer Champlain, had gone down the St. Lawrence River, and established Quebec.  The French and English, white Europeans, were making settlements in the New World of the Native Americans, the Indians.  John Smith, a white European adventurer, had been influential in the formation of new settlements in North America.  Smith’s written accounts, another example of early American Literature, illustrate his experiences and generally amicable relationships between the white Puritans and the Native Americans, Indians, or “redskins” as they were called, however, the growth of the white Puritan settlements was forcing the Indians, or “Red Men” from their previously occupied territories.  Blacks arrived in 1619 upon a Dutch vessel at Jamestown as indentured servants.  The Dutch, white Europeans, had introduced Blacks as slaves into the Puritan colonies.  The precedent and harbinger of Columbus’s White European influence over the “red man” and the “black man” was becoming real in North America with the French and English expansions.   Native Americans were being dispossessed of their lands by the continued expansion of the white race, and the black race was being captured in Africa and imported to become slaves to the whites. (N42-55) 

     The red race of Native American Indians in Georgia was becoming a nuisance to the white race in the early 1800’s. The Indians, who had been on the land before written U.S. history, were sitting on gold, and this kindled an unquenchable fire in the whites to acquire the land and the gold.  Gold had been discovered in Georgia in 1829, near the western boundary of the Cherokee Nation, and influenced U.S. President Andrew Jackson to sign the Indian Removal Act.  This act would relocate eastern Indians to lands west of the Mississippi. The Cherokee Indians by this time had become able to write their own language, and they wrote and presented many eloquent grievances to the U.S. Congress to consider their plight and allow them to stay on the land they had occupied prior to the white man’s expansion.  These documents entitled “The Cherokee Memorials” were some of the first Native American pieces of literature.   The documents used and employed a language of kinship, or “familial address, brother to brother, returning to habits of 18^th century Indian oratory, when indigenous people treated one another more nearly as equals than as inferior to superior.” N (572).  Neither the textual or oral mode of the complainants kept the Cherokees from being driven from their homelands.   The American white race had legalized eviction of persons, the American Indians, the red race, from their homes and lands.

      Regarding this “legalized” policy of racial dominance of white over red, Alex de Tocqueville, the French social observer, visited America in 1831, and indicated:

          “The Spaniards by unparalleled atrocities which brand them with indelible shame did not succeed in exterminating the Indian race and could not even prevent them from sharing their rights; the United States Americans have attained both these results without spilling blood and without violating a single one of the great principles of morality in the eyes of the world.  It is impossible to destroy men with more respect to the laws of humanity”. N (572)  

This outrage of the racial discrimination by the white race of the red race is captured in April Patrick’s “Dissolving Boundaries in American Romanticism”, midterm paper, dated Fall 2003.  Her paper describes that The Cherokee Memorials argue, in a tone of dignity and respect, that the United States has no right to transgress the borders of their ancient, inherited land, much less try to usurp it.  “The land on which we stand we have received as an inheritance from our fathers, who possessed it from time immemorial, as a gift from our common Father in Heaven. We have already said that when the white man came to the shores of America, our ancestors were found in peaceable possession of this very land.  They bequeathed it to us children and we have kept it, as containing the remains of our beloved men…what better right can the people have to a country that the right of inheritance and immemorial peaceable possession?” N (579) This question highlights the historical connections and the divisive perspectives of white race and red race and is a good transition point from “Racial Divisions” and “Historical Connections” discussed so far to move to possible romantic aspects of their inclusion in Mohicans. 

      Prior to looking at racial aspects in Mohicans, it may be fitting to look at the racial and attitudinal make up of one of Cooper’s principal characters in the Leatherstocking series.  James Fenimore Cooper’s Pioneers, written in 1823 introduces the white European, Natty Bumpo, aka, Hawkeye in later novels.  Cooper seems to have projected himself into Natty’s makeup and character.  Natty, in the pigeon shoot reading in Pioneers, is depicted as isolated white man aware of the American white race’s relentless proclivities to subdue nature, the Native American Indians, and their possessions.  Natty seems to be Cooper’s alter ego or social conscience, as he tries to modify the disagreeable nature of the white majority in the pigeon shoot massacre.  These racial sensitivities, and attitudes of Natty, through Cooper, are carried into Mohicans.  (N 462)

     Cooper decided to start Mohicans during the historical period of the French and Indian Wars, which infers racial aspects just by the words.  Cooper will use words, “red, white, and black” in his story on several occasions to describe characters, situations, historical perspectives, and racial relations.  His depth as a writer seems to go far beyond a writer of a historical romance, to that of a social commentator on the racial state of affairs in America between the “red, white, and black.”   In his introduction to Mohicans, Cooper indicates, “The Mohicans were the possessors of the country first occupied by the Europeans in the portion of the country in the story.  They were, consequently, the first dispossessed; and the seemingly inevitable fate of all those people, who disappear before the advances, or it might be termed the inroads of civilization, as the verdure of their native forests falls before the nipping frost, is represented as having already befallen them.  There is sufficient historical truth in the picture to justify the use that has been made of it.” (6) Cooper acknowledges the white man’s influences on the Indians, to extent of dispossessing them of their lands by the inroads of civilization.  Cooper specifies his view that enough history exists to use white race and red race in his story. His intentions are specified directly to the white and red race, yet he does include the black race very clearly in the story.

        France and England had been having border disputes during the 1750s along Canada and the Northeastern United States long before the two countries declared war on one another.  I will attempt to look at some of the characters, and their interactions to show romantic historical and racial aspects in Mohicans. Cooper romantically, sensually, suggestively, and subtly racially describes Cora’s perception of her first glimpse of Magua, as he passed her, “her veil was allowed to open its folds, and betrayed an indescribable look of pity, admiration and horror, as her dark eye followed the easy motions of the savage.  The tresses of this lady were shining and black, like the plumage of the raven.  Her complexion was not brown, but it rather appeared charged with the color of rich blood, that seemed ready to burst its bounds.” (19) (Italics mine)

Possibly, as we learn later, Cora’s mixed blood, lend to her not too subtle initial fascination and acknowledgement of Magua’s physical characteristics.  She later chides her sister Alice’s distrust of Magua in the following words, “Should we distrust the man, because his manners are not our manners, and that his skin is dark!”(21) Cora is clearly depicted as being more sensitive to race than her pure white sister Alice.  Whether Cooper was using Cora’s racially mixed blood as a basis for her diversity sensitivities is an open question, yet it seems to appear in these comments.

     Cooper shifts from Cora, Hayward, Alice, and Magua to the introduction of Hawkeye, Chingachgook, and Uncas in the narrator’s historical fashion, and also in a racially romantic fashion.  In chapter III, two men are described as lingering on the banks of a small stream, not more than an hour from Webb’s fort.  One is described as a loiterer showing the “red skin and wild accoutrements of a native of the woods, while the other through the mask of his rude and nearly savage equipments, the brighter, though sun burnt and long-faded complexion of one who might claim descent from European parentage.” (30)  Cooper brings the red and white race into the story in describing these two principal characters.  The two are engaged in a romantic argument of their pasts and origins.  Hawkeye tells Chingachgook, “that his fathers came from the setting sun, or of Asiatic origin, crossed the big river, the Mississippi, and fought the people of the country and took the land; and mine came from the red sky of the morning, over the salt lake, and did their work much after the fashion that had been set them by yours; then let God judge the matter between us and friends spare their words!”(31) Cooper describes wars between the red race, Indians, for conquest of land, and also brings the white European domination and land acquisition through these romantic passages of the two’s origins.  Chingachgook indicates, “My tribe is the grandfather of nations, but I am an unmixed man.  The blood of chiefs is in my veins where it must stay forever……and when Uncas follows in my footsteps, there will no longer be any of the blood of the Sagamores, for my boy is the last of the Mohicans.”(32)  Cooper romantically describes this fierce Indian heritage of “one blood” not to be racially mixed in this passage.  Cooper has brought a historical connection between the two men, yet maintains the separateness of their races, through his romantic language and style.

     The first clear indication of Cooper’s inclusion of the black race comes in   Duncan’s exchange with Munro about desiring to marry Alice, which was met by some conversation from Munro regarding Cora’s racial bloodlines.  Munro explained to Heyward, that his military duty had called him to the West Indies, where he made a “connexion” with a daughter of a gentlemen of the isles.  Munro further states regarding the woman, “whose misfortune it was, if you will, to be descended remotely, from that unfortunate class, who are so basely enslaved to administer to the want of a luxurious, people.  Ha! Major Heyward, you yourself born of the south, where these unfortunate beings are considered of a race inferior to your own!” (159)  Munro had in these words from Cooper indicated that the white Scotsman had co-mingled with a woman of color of slaves or some degree of blackness. The Spanish had imported black slaves from Africa to populate their West Indies possessions after the Spanish had decimated the local populations.  Cooper explains the mix of the white race, of Munro, and his black West Indies wife, whose union produced the racially mixed daughter, Cora.  Cooper has made historical connections of white European expansion and black racial make up of the West Indies in these romantic passages.   Through Munro’s words, “unfortunate class” Cooper has captured an early white stereotype of the black race.  Munro’s words, “born of the south where these unfortunate beings are considered of a race inferior to your own!” clearly capture Cooper’s take on the traditional stereotype of southern racial attitudes.

     Cooper introduces the racially laden words, “red, white, and black”, when Duncan had taken on his medicine man disguise and spoke to the Chief regarding the Great Father’s relation to his children.  Heyward indicated, “When our Great Father speaks to his people, is it with the tongue of a Huron?......He knows no difference in his children, whether the color of the skin be red, or black, or white, though chiefly he is satisfied with the brave Hurons.” (234)  Cooper invoked for the first time in the story the three skin colors or races with the specific words, “red, black and white.”  Heyward was playing on the prejudices of the Indians, by patronizing the Hurons, to facilitate his will in the story.  This could be an attempt by Cooper to show how the white race, used deception and chicanery to deceive the red race.

     One of Cooper’s most evident and important romantic uses of the “red, white, and black” racial divisions come when Magua speaks to placate, and mollify the Delaware.  Magua indicated, “The Spirit that made men, colored them differently.   Some are blacker than the sluggish bear.  These he said should be slaves; and he ordered them to work forever, like the beaver.  You may hear them groan, when the south wind blows, louder than the lowing buffaloes, along the shores of the great salt lake, where the big canoes come and go with them in droves.   Some he made with faces paler than the ermine of the forests: and these he ordered to be traders; dogs to their women and wolves to their slaves….more plentiful than the leaves on a tree, and appetites to devour the earth.  He gave them false tongues, to teach warriors to fight his battles, and his arms enclose the land from the shores of the salt water.  He gave him enough, and yet he wants all.  Such are the pale-faces.”   Magua went on to describe the Indians, “Some the Great Spirit made with skins brighter and redder than the yonder sun.  He fashioned them in his own mind.” (300-302)

Magua in the fashion of a “Byronic Hero” had been brutalized by the white race, Munro specifically.  Magua makes an eloquent soliloquy and romantically verbalized some of the Indian’s historical traditions.  In the process Cooper clearly included historical connections to the black race’s enslavement in the south, and the territorial acquisition of the white race through Magua’s beautiful romantic descriptions.  Magua’s words regarding the black race of slaves, “you may hear them groan when the south wind blows”, indicates clearly the red race’s acquiescence, and knowledge of the slavery of the blacks in the south.  Magua describes the white race’s greed, “He gave him enough, and yet he wants all.”(302)  Cooper masterfully encapsulates the major historical connections and racial divisions “red, white, and black” in these romantic passages.

     At Uncas’s funeral Cooper uses romantic racial comparisons, which Chingachgook states, “I am a ‘blazed pine’ in a clearing of pale faces.  I am alone.”  “No, no,” cried Hawkeye …the gifts of our colors maybe different, but God has so placed us to journey in the same path.  He who made us all, whatever may be our color or our gifts, forget me. Uncas has left us for a time, but, Sagamore, you are not alone.  The two grasped hands across the fresh earth, bowed their heads together, while scalding tears fell to their feet, watering the grave of Uncas, like drops of falling rain.”(349)  The Tamenund lifted his voice to disperse the funeral with these words, “The pale-faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red-men has not yet come again…and yet before the night has come, have I lived to see the last warrior of the wise race of the Mohicans.”(350)   Cooper beautifully, captures, the romantically unique, yet unlikely, friendship of the white and red races, with the words of  Chingachgook and Hawkeye.  He ends the story with the wise old chief’s realistic admonitions of  the historical aspects of the white mans’ domination of the red-men, yet, ends on the romantic nobility of the Indian race by the chief’s tribute to the last  of the Mohicans.

     America is still historically connected and racially divided.   Examples of this premise have been examined in this paper thru digests, and portions of the earliest Pre-Romantic American Literature. The theme of this premise has been linked historically to America’s earliest pre-romantic literature.  The theme of the historical connections and racial divisions within American Romanticism is manifested and conveyed into Cooper’s The Last of The Mohicans.  Cooper’s breadth as not only a romantic novelist, but also a social commentator is shown thru his allusions to the racial makeup of  early America in Mohicans.   He captured and utilized historical connections as specified in his introduction to Mohicans.    He followed the intentions specified in his introduction to Mohicans.   Racial division aspects were also captured, intended or not.

                We are all still captives.   Long live Romanticism!