American Literature
" Though widely viewed as a sympathizer, if not a staunch
advocate, for Native Americans, "Cooper was ambivalent about the westering advance of the society to which he belonged." Perhaps that is the
reason why he did not clearly reveal in The Leatherstocking Tales his stand on the cultural clashes between the whites and the natives, especially
the removal of the native from their lands. He seems to be more concerned with the ways of acculturating the native into the white society. While
believing in the superiority of the Western civilization and the justification for dispossessing the "uncivilized" Native Americans, the typical mentality
in the 19th century America, Cooper did not advocate a total elimination of the Native American way of life. But his solution to the cultural clashes
between the two is the Native American appropriation to the Western culture through "acculturation," rather than "assimilation
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