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The Basis for Last of the Mohicans
Stillbirth of A Nation: End Notes
© 2015 James LaFond
DEC/21/15
Last of the Mohicans, the classic American leather-stocking novel by James Fenimore Cooper, was loosely based on the siege and fall of Fort Oswego in 1756, a battle in which Peter Williamson found himself on the losing side.
Ironically, the reason Peter joined the military, to avenge himself upon the French-backed Delaware Indians, did not figure in his actual duties. He was not even deployed to the same theatre he enlisted to protect. Indeed, he ended up being charged with fighting on the same side as the tribe which burned his cabin and murdered his neighbors, who were bought back over into “English interest” by the time he ever saw action.
It seems possible that Cooper may have used Peter’s account as one of the sources for his landmark work.
Overall, in what was called The French and Indian War, the French proved better at managing their Indian allies as light troops. However, the English had the strongest Indian nations as allies, which brought the question down to whose regulars and capital equipment could be put to better effect.
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jr     Dec 22, 2015

I had an ancestor captured at the Battle of Oswego presumably along with Peter. According to Wikipedia, there was a massacre of the captured by the Indians; which he survived and was taken to Quebec/Montreal.
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