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Eric Schweig (born Ray Dean Thrasher on 19 June 1967 ) is a First Nations actor best known for his role as Chingachgook's son Uncas in The Last of the Mohicans (1992). Eric Schweig was born in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, from Inuvialuit lineage on his mother's side and Chippewa/Dene with German descent on his father's side, the oldest of seven children, who were all adopted out as part of an assimilation programme. Schweig's biological mother died of alcoholism in 1989. He never met her. “She didn’t drink a drop of alcohol until we were taken away,” says Schweig. “We were part... MORE

Eric Schweig (born Ray Dean Thrasher on 19 June 1967 ) is a First Nations actor best known for his role as Chingachgook's son Uncas in The Last of the Mohicans (1992). Eric Schweig was born in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, from Inuvialuit lineage on his mother's side and Chippewa/Dene with German descent on his father's side, the oldest of seven children, who were all adopted out as part of an assimilation programme. Schweig's biological mother died of alcoholism in 1989. He never met her. “She didn’t drink a drop of alcohol until we were taken away,” says Schweig. “We were part of the whole assimilation program—forcibly taken away. But they told us that we weren’t.” Schweig was adopted at the age of six months by an English speaking German-French family. He spent his childhood in Inuvik until he was six, when his family moved to Bermuda. They later moved back to Canada, to Combermere, Ontario where he spent the majority of his childhood. Schweig's adoptive parents were severely abusive. In 1999, at the Vancouver Inner City Foster Care Conference, Eric Schweig indeed delivered a heartfelt testimony about his painful experience of adoption and abuse: "For years my adoptive parents LESS