The Last of the Mohicans and ultimately capture the Huron village, but Magua escapes with Cora and two other Hurons; Uncas, Hawk-eye, and Heyward pursue them up to a high mountain. In a fight at the edge of a cliff, Cora, Uncas, and Magua are killed. The novel concludes with a lengthy account of the funerals of Uncas and Cora, and Hawk-eye reaffirms his friendship with Chingachgook. Tamenund prophesies: "The pale-faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red-men has not yet come again...". According to Susan Fenimore Cooper, the author's eldest daughter, Cooper first conceived the idea for the book while
The Last of the Mohicans opportunities to meet and talk with Native Americans: "occasionally some small party of the Oneidas, or other representatives of the Five Nations, had crossed his path in the valley of the Susquehanna River, or on the shores of Lake Ontario, where he served when a midshipman in the navy." He read what sources were available at the time—Heckewelder, Charlevoix, William Penn, Smith, Elliot, Colden, Lang, Lewis and Clark, and Mackenzie. By using the name Uncas for one of his characters, he seemed to confuse the two regional tribes: the Mohegan of Connecticut, of which Uncas had been a well-known sachem,