SOURCE: “Cooper's Wyandotté: The Indian as Split Personality,” in Cimarron Review, Vol. 46, January, 1979, pp. 25-31.

In the following essay, Barnett explores the character of Wyandotté/Saucy Nick, who embodies both of Cooper's stereotypes of Native Americans: the noble warrior and the debased drunkard.

Perhaps prompted by criticism of his Leatherstocking Indians,¹ Cooper attempted a more ambitious Indian characterization in his late novel Wyandotté (1843). For the mature Cooper the absolutes of the Leatherstocking world dissolve into ambiguities: the earlier neat division between red and white gifts is replaced by a broader outlook of cultural relativity and human universality; the simplistic separation of Indians into good and bad according to their friendship or hostility toward whites is superseded by a character treatment which insists upon redefining good and bad and combining them in one complex personality; and a more pressing sense of white guilt and possible retribution deepens the presentation...