The Battle Over Woman's Virtue: Sexual Imagery in The Last of the Mohicans and “A Panther Captivity”

The 1804 painting The Murder of Jane McCrea by John Vanderlyn portrays a helpless white woman at the mercy of two Indian savages prepared to claim her tresses. McCrea appears completely vulnerable, with the cleavage of her voluptuous bosom exposed to the nearly nude male captors, one of whom wields an ax high above her head. The painting, based on the actual murder of a white woman at Fort Edward in 1777, utilizes an imaginary context in which to tell the story. This imaginary context paints the murder as a highly sexualized act of violence. This type of imagery repeats itself throughout many captivity and Indian war narratives, such as in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans and “The Panther Captivity Narrative” written under the pseudonym Abraham Panther. Originally, the American frontier offered a truly masculine realm for the white man to explore his fascination with the red man, but the introduction of females to the wilderness undeniably upsets this exclusively male fantasy structure. Consequently, men of both races battle, not only for the dominion of the wilderness, but also to defend or possess the virtue of white women.

Captivity and Indian war narratives often aimed to displace the native as the proper hero of the American wilderness, and instead, suggested Indianized white men like Daniel Boone and Natty Bumppo should be the new chiefs of the frontier. Women, however, had no place in such a dangerous and intimidating territory. Colonists feared that a white woman captured by Indians might be defeminized by her interactions with the wild, or worse yet, that she might be forced to have sexual relations with – or even marry – an Indian. White men also feared that their women could potentially be attracted to these beautiful, physical and exotic natives. Therefore, colonists felt it necessary to protect the virtue of their women, and to a larger degree, the virtue of the nation. Violent sexual imagery like in Vanderlyn's painting helped many authors convey their anxieties about racial integration. Cooper's inclusion of women in the wilderness upsets the masculine balance that white men and Indians shared. The conclusion of The Last of the Mohicans indicates that racial integration is impossible, and that women have no place in the masculine wilderness fantasy between the white man and the red man. “The Panther Captivity Narrative,” on the other hand, challenges the notion that woman cannot survive in the wilderness, and instead indicates that not only Indians but men in general are a threat to woman's virtue.

Cora and Alice, the leading ladies of The Last of the Mohicans, are both inherently and potentially sexual characters. Alice is weak and innocent; she weeps and faints at the sight of physical danger. Cora starkly contrasts her sister, with a “rather fuller and more mature” figure, which quickly becomes the object of two Indians' affections (17). One of these men is Magua, a Huron Indian who threatens the white man's very fears of interracial relationships. Cora is prey to all of the perils white women taken captive by Indians face – defeminization, rape and Indianization. Vanderlyn's sexual imagery is evoked when Magua raises an ax above Cora's head, threatening to kill her: “The form of the Huron trembled in every fibre, and he raised his arm on the high, but dropped it again with a bewildered air, like one who doubted” (413). Magua's hesitation indicates a real affection for Cora. His feelings for her, predicated by violence, have become something more sentimental. Cooper ultimately determines that a white woman/red man relationship is immoral regardless of the foundation on which it is formed. The deaths of both Cora and Magua indicate that interracial relationships were not acceptable in the New World. Furthermore, the novel ends just as it began – with the wilderness as a masculine world with no room for female disturbances.

“The Panther Captivity Narrative” challenges notions that women have no place on the frontier. The tale of the woman taken captive by Indians in 1777 (ironically, the same year of McCrae's murder) is told within a letter to an unnamed recipient requesting information about the “Western wilderness” (211). The writer tells of how he and his companion, Mr. Camher, came upon a “most beautiful young lady! sitting near the mouth of a cave!” (212). As they approach her, the lady screams and swoons, and after coming to and being calmed by the men, tells them her story of captivity. The account, which began as a masculine tale of two men trekking through the wilderness, turns sharply at this point to accommodate the female captivity narrative. However, this captivity narrative does not resemble traditional tales of women like Mary Rowlandson or Maria Kittle. Instead, the woman presents all of the ways in which she is able to successfully survive in the wilderness after her capture.

First, she is driven into elopement by her father, who refuses to permit a relationship between the young woman and the man she loves. On the fourth day after she leaves her father's home, she and her lover are captured by Indians, and the latter is barbarously murdered. Surprisingly, by swooning and laying on the ground until her captors are preoccupied, the woman is able to escape, and subsequently wanders aimlessly in the wilderness for fourteen days. Most narratives would, at this point, focus on woman's lack of ingenuity and navigation in the wilderness. However, “The Panther Captivity Narrative” details this woman's ability to survive on her own: “By day the spontaneous produce of earth supplied me with food, by night the ground was my couch, and the canopy of heaven my only covering” (214).

On the fifteenth day of her wandering, she is approached by a “man of gigantic figure,” who captures her and leads her back to the very cave the writer finds her in (214). The man indicates that he would like to have sexual relations with the woman, and she declines his offer, prompting a scene very much like Vanderlyn's: “... at length he rose in a passion … and brought forth a sword and hatchet. He then motioned to me, that I must either accept of his bed, or expect death for my obstinacy” (214). Once again the woman objects and the man (whose identity is never clearly defined as white, Indian or other) ties her up for the night, giving her time to reconsider her decision. During the night, however, she frees herself from her restraints, and, taking up her captor's hatchet, “with three blows effectually put[s] an end to his existence” (214).

“The Panther Captivity Narrative” turns man's expectations of women in the wilderness upside-down, suggesting that, if white men have a place in the wilderness alongside Indians, so do white women. The woman in this narrative is neither masculinized or Indianized, as previously feared. Despite her nine-year experience in the wilderness, she still reflects a well-bred, sophisticated white woman. She swoons and cries, she is a gracious hostess to the men who discover her, she adopts a small dog as a pet, and her singing cannot be distinguished from that of a bird. Ironically, she also murders and dismembers her captor. This action is acceptable, however, because she commits the act in order to protect her chastity, which would have been wholly in line with white men's desires. “The Panther Captivity Narrative” helps displace the male wilderness fantasy by suggesting that women were indeed fit to survive on the frontier. The woman in the narrative is taken captive not only by Indians, but also by her father and another man whose race is unspecified, indicating that all men are a threat to woman's virtue.


Works Cited
Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans. New York: Signet, 2005. Print.
Panther, Abraham. “The Panther Captivity Narrative.” Edgar Huntly. Ed. Philip Barnard and Stephen Shapiro. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2006. 211-215. Print.