Delaware Person

The Delawares, also known as the Lenape, are a people whose political caution and eventual military mobilization shape the final conflict of the novel. Bound by the memory of earlier dependence on the Iroquois, they initially withhold assistance from the French; later, led by Uncas, they defeat the Hurons, but respond to victory with mourning rather than celebration. Their story also bears the novel’s larger account of Indigenous dispossession and decline.

Names, Homeland, and Historical Dispossession

The narrator’s preface explains that Lenni-Lenape, Lenope, Delawares, Wapanachki, and Mohicans are names for the same people or tribes of the same stock. It presents the Mohicans as the first possessors of the country occupied by Europeans in the region of the story, and describes them as among the first to be dispossessed. The preface connects this loss to the advance of European settlement, while acknowledging that the historical picture is not without truth.

The story’s geography makes that dispossession concrete. The lakes and wooded country between the English and French territories form a corridor for imperial warfare, while their original Indigenous names and rights are displaced by European naming and claims. The preface looks back on the region after the events of the tale: settlements and roads have expanded, the Indigenous people have left this part of New York, and only a few Oneidas remain on reservations. The narrator says that other peoples have disappeared from their homelands or altogether from the earth.

Political Position Between Empires

At the time of the final conflict, the Delawares are described as a half-tribe encamped near the Hurons, with a force roughly equal to that of their neighbors. They have followed Montcalm into English territory and raided Mohawk hunting grounds, yet withheld aid when the French most needed it. The French attribute this hesitation to the Delawares’ reverence for an old treaty that once made them dependent on the Six Nations for military protection and now makes them reluctant to fight their former masters. The Delawares tell Montcalm that their hatchets are dull and need time to be sharpened; Montcalm chooses to tolerate their inaction rather than turn a passive ally into an enemy.

The novel treats such divisions as part of a wider political disorder. Hawkeye argues that European policy has confused Indigenous friends and enemies: Hurons and Oneidas who speak nearly the same language fight one another, while the Delawares themselves are divided, with some fighting alongside the Mingoes and others in Canada opposing the Maquas. In his account, longstanding relations among peoples persist beneath changing European alliances, and colonial warfare disrupts rather than settles those older enmities.

The Council and Uncas’s Recognition

Magua’s appeal to the Delawares invokes their remembered greatness and their losses. He speaks of the Lenape as a favored people whose lands once extended between salt and fresh water, then turns the gathering toward its own traditions and injuries. The assembled listeners respond by naming the Lenape, and their attention shifts to Tamenund, whose authority gives the meeting its decisive weight.

When Uncas is judged by the Delawares, Tamenund declares that the law of the Manitou is just and that Uncas belongs to his people. The ruling reverses the immediate threat facing the captive and establishes the Delawares’ collective authority over what follows. Their response is not presented as the action of a single warrior: Uncas is recognized within a people whose political memory, inherited obligations, and judgments have become central to the conflict.

Mobilization and Battle

After the judgment, Uncas gathers the chiefs and organizes a force of more than two hundred Delawares. He gives Hawkeye command of twenty men and offers Duncan Heyward a position of equal authority; Heyward declines, preferring to serve beside the scout as a volunteer. Uncas appoints other Indigenous chiefs to positions of responsibility and sets out with the assembled force. Though he wants an immediate assault, he accepts deliberation and the counsel of his people before the advance.

Hawkeye proposes a coordinated attack: he will take twenty rifles along the stream to join Chingachgook and Colonel Munro, while Uncas drives at the front. The plan is intended to draw the Hurons into a fight from multiple directions and open a path to the woman held in the cavern. During the fighting, Hawkeye’s party comes under increasing pressure, but Uncas’s attack shifts the battle toward the village and draws enemy fighters away. The combined advance forces the Hurons to retreat. When Chingachgook arrives, Hawkeye yields command to him, and the Mohican chief leads the party onward through the woods as the battle continues elsewhere.

Victory, Mourning, and the Larger Meaning

The defeat of the Hurons is followed by a striking reversal of the usual language of triumph. The next day, the Delawares are described as a nation of mourners. Although they have avenged an older grievance and a recent quarrel, there are no victory songs or celebratory shouts. The warriors put aside the emblems of battle and join the community’s grief; pride and exultation give way to humility and sorrow.

The mourning scene gathers the people around the dead, including Cora, whose body lies beneath robes and flowers. Tamenund announces that the face of the Manitou is hidden behind a cloud. The women answer with a lament that passes from speaker to speaker, interrupted by collective grief. In this ending, the Delawares’ victory does not restore what colonial expansion and intertribal war have taken. Their military action is decisive within the plot, but the larger frame remains one of loss: the people who once possessed the country are shown in the novel’s retrospective preface as displaced from it, and their triumph carries no promise of recovered land or lasting security.