Uncas: First of the Mohegans

Uncas: First of the Mohegans brings together all the complexities of human nature, as convoluted in the seventeenth century as they are today, to reveal a depth to history often skimmed over (or even ignored) in many textbooks.

When the English arrived in Connecticut in the 1630s, their presence upset the established balance of power among the region's Native American groups and brought rapid economic and social change. Native peoples had several choices in dealing with the newcomers including leaving the area, assimilating to some degree or completely into the white society, or resisting with violence.

Uncas chose to negotiate between the native and foreign cultures as each group maneuvered for access to and control of frontier resources. He was a quick study and quickly gained power over numerous tributary and other native communities in the region while successfully gaining the trust and cooperation of the local English inhabitants.

Was he really a friend to the English and a sell-out to his people? Or did he keep his people's best interests always in the forefront of his thoughts and actions, and merely use the English as a means to an end? Pick up a copy of this modest-sized, well-paced book with its vivid scenes to find the answer to the historical Uncas, an important leader of the Mohegan people of seventeenth-century Connecticut, who was not at all connected to James Fenimore Cooper's Uncas in The Last of the Mohicans.