“We all know that in the fictions of literature and narrative films, any correspondence to real life is ‘purely coincidental.’ However, we must keep reminding ourselves that seeing Native American characters in a film is not seeing real Native American people of the past or present.” Indians were either noble savages or villains, as far as filmmakers were concerned. LEARN MORE

James Fenimore Cooper (1789‐1851) established an American literary prototype with his novel The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 (1826), second of his five‐volume frontier series. While the book’s hero was raised by Delaware Indians, and his best friends were his Mohican foster‐brother Chingachgook and his son Uncas, none of the characters nor the setting was in New England. Cooper meant his book title as literary symbolism, not veracity. Chingachgook was based on a real Delaware man, Uncas on a real Mohegan. LEARN MORE