The story The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper takes place in an unstable time of the United States history. During this time, the U.S., then British colonies, were at war with the French. The French, having held much of the unsettled territory, had formed an alliance with many of the existing tribes in the Midwest. The colonials and their unrestrained urge to expand their own lands looked west. The only things standing in their way were savage native tribes and the enemy of the British for hundreds of years, the French. This led to a declaration of war by the British against the French later called the French and Indian War. It is during this war that the book is set. The French eventually lost, and the war ended