"At the center of the novel is the celebrated "Massacre" of Brittish troops and their families by Indian allies of the French at Fort William Henry in 1757. Around this historical event, Cooper built romantic fiction of captivity, sexuality, abd heroism, in which the destiniy of the Mohican Chingashgook and his son Uncas is inserperable from the lives of Alice and Cora Munro and of Hawkeye the frontier scout..."