Cooper wrote The Last of the Mohicans with an attempt to surpass the works of other authors in the "frontier adventure" genre. By using such issues as racism and interracial marriage, Cooper also intended as his purpose to show the different underlying tensions and alliances among the French, English, and Native Americans during the former half of the French and Indian War.

Book Review

Although racial conflagrations did not begin to ascend their pinnacle until the latter 19th century, an idea of racial discrimination had uniformly existed in the perpetual tenets of numerous persons. However, never deliberately admitting to such a belief, Major Duncan Heyward was among those affected by such a canon during pre-American independence.

In contrast to the racial conflicts of later eras, Heyward was not a cultural bigot in an outrageous sense. He exhibited traits unknown to himself that indicated his prejudice. One...