James Fenimore Cooper Racist

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D.W. Griffith and James Fenimore Cooper were two American authors who created famous texts, nearly 100 years apart, regarding the creation of America. The men clearly shared the desire for a thriving and united American (in Cooper’s case English, and then to be American) country, one in where coloured people lived beneath them. Although both men were clearly racists as they portrayed and described people of colour in their stories, one can gather that Cooper and Griffith’s visions of America would be dramatically different. By demonstrating Griffith’s innate and overwhelming racism in technical and narrative aspects, I will establish his vision of a white supremacy driven America. On the other hand, it will be accepted that Cooper was racist…show more content…
Abundantly throughout his novel, Cooper’s white English characters refer to the native antagonists (the Huron) as savages and describing scenes that would make it near impossible to be sympathetic to them. The Huron were allied with the French at the time of the war, however, the French were never illustrated as brutally murderous as their native companions. In the midst of the story, after the English surrendered Fort William Henry, they streamed out past the Huron carrying their belongings on their way to a new home. The innocent and defenseless scene was abruptly made horrendous when a Huron warrior stole a woman’s baby and then “dashed the head of the infant against a rock, and cast its quivering remains to her very feet”. This act of senseless violence initiated a bloody slaughter of the innocent English people, perpetuating the reader’s dislike toward the native foe. His racism is continued at the end of the novel when two main characters, Cora and Uncas, are killed. Their death is brought upon them because in many instances in the novel there is lust shown between the two, often renowned as a fate worse than death in Cooper’s eyes. The white hero, Hawkeye, expresses this contempt for biracial relations and it can be suggested that this is Cooper speaking directly through his character. Their inevitable deaths at the end of the text further demonstrate Cooper’s

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