The Pioneers is a 19th century historical novel written by James Fenimore Cooper. At the time the story takes place, America and its people are just starting to come into their own. The country is expanding westward, with people similar to those in The Pioneers searching for discovery and successful lives somewhere unfamiliar to them. The novel’s plot revolves around a group of pioneers living in Templeton, a settlement in the state of New York. They plan to explore the American frontier, and eventually begin to do so by the end of the novel. Using a definition appropriate for the novel, a frontier is the land or territory that forms the furthest extent of a country’s settled or inhabited regions. The frontier is unknown and unestablished land to the pioneers. However, it has a deeper significance. It represents opportunity, change, and progress for a young but rapidly growing nation. The 19th century pioneers of America were fearful of how their journey across this uncharted territory would turn out, but at the same time were optimistic of the promising opportunities that lie ahead.

A prime example of change is when Leatherstocking’s close friend, the Mohican Indian Chingachcook, dies. His death represents America’s fear for the displacement, and potential eradication, of the Indians. For over almost two centuries, European-Americans had been establishing states and territories from present-day Maine to Georgia and as far west as what is now Michigan, Illinois, and Mississippi. Pioneers were continuously advancing west, gradually phasing out Native American tribes. Since Indians had no concept of owning land and Americans did, they struggled to find common ground during this time of expansion in the late 18th century and well into the 19th century.

A question to think about:

Can the idea of the frontier be applied to modern-day America?

           Natty Bumppo is an old woodsman who has lived in the wild for his whole life. He came across Judge Marmaduke Temple, who had witnessed him shoot a deer out of hunting season. The judge tried to impose civil laws on him, but he those laws should not apply to the wilderness in which he lived. He was even put in jail, until Elizabeth aided in his escape. She saw him as a hero since Natty save her twice, from the dangerous cat and the fire. Her father tried to pay him off with $200, but he refused the money.

          As the novel progressed, he developed a sense for the wastefulness of the civilized people; he noticed their waste of resources and the negative effect on the environment. By the end of the novel, he burns his own hut instead of the village taking it over. It was more of an act of protest than anything else. He would not comply with regulations set by people who were less knowledgeable about the wilderness. The novel ends with him disappearing into the sunset; He paused at the edge of the forest to wave a sentimental, final goodbye to Edward and Elizabeth Effingham. I thought this ending scene was very dramatic and was a great conclusion to the story.

The novel The Pioneers by author James Fenimore Cooper, takes the reader into the lives of those who are brave enough to begin lives in the vastly large frontier of America at that time.  The novel delves deep into the difficulties that occur in the day-to-day lives of everyone living around Templeton.  Each character has their own story and purpose, but what is clearly shown is the hard work each of them must put in so that they may provide for themselves and survive.

One of the things that jumped out to me most was the simplicity in the lives of those living in Templeton.  For example, when Elizabeth is being attacked by a mountain lion, she is saved by Leather Stocking as he kills the beast with two shots.  Previously, Leather Stocking had killed a deer as well, which is illegal as it was not hunting season yet.  Judge Marmaduke is at a crossroads because Leather Stocking saved his daughters life, but he did also break the law.  In modern times this could cause a different sentencing, but back then things were much simpler.  Leather Stocking committed the crime so he must take the punishment, and he has no issue with that.  Back then rules were rules, and if you broke them you were obligated to take on the punishment.  This sense of honor is something that you see throughout the characters in the story, and speaks greatly to the temperament of early pioneers in America.

The Pioneers recreated the story of the Pioneers’ conquest of nature as well as the establishment of civilized society. Before the invasion of the civilized group, Bumppo was hunting with his Indian brothers. They enjoyed everything that nature provided them, and they were obeying the rules of nature at the same time. There was peace between human and nature before the Pioneers took over, and humans constraint their desire and behavior based on self-disciplines. After the Pioneers came, they cut the woods and build a urban system at the expense of destroying the nature. Law, Educational institutions and religions were created upon civilization. Cooper portrayed a clear conflict of two completely different lifestyles between two opposite groups: the civilized group who were trying to overrule the nature, and Bumppo and the Indians, who lived alone with the nature. One clear conflict occurred due to the difference of believes towards nature. which was the deer hunting. Bumppo hunted a deer based on what he believed as “only hunting for survival when necessary”, but he was penalized by Judge Temple for violation of the law. As the result, Bumppo and the Indians were forced to keep heading towards the West, and more civilization were built in the West by the pioneers at the expense of destroying natural resources. In the end, Bumppo eluded from civilization, which I considered as Cooper’s indication of the conflict: When a civilization is built on destroying another civilization, and it seemed to be inevitable, how should we view this form of conflict.

At the end of the novel, The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper, Natty Bumppo decides that he must depart the area around Templeton and move away to the Great Lakes. Natty claims that he must depart as the rest of his people, the Indians, are all gone despite being a white man himself. With no more of his ‘people’ around, he must leave behind the civilization that has encroached on the land he has lived off for years and find a new place, untouched by the settlers.

In the final line of the book, Natty is described as the, “foremost in that band of pioneers who are opening the way for the march of the nation across the continent” (436). Although Natty believes he is leaving civilization behind, the book ends by portraying him as the first of many pioneers who will move to other unsettled parts of the new nation. Natty dislikes Templeton and its wasteful ways, he admonishes the wasteful killing of pigeons and fish and is baffled when he is told when and where he can kill a deer. As a firm believer in taking only what is needed, Natty often clashed with the people of Templeton, specifically Judge Temple over artificial laws and the way of the land that Indian’s have abided by.

Although Natty is a white man, his values are more similar to the Indians which explains why he feels that he must leave Templeton. With no one else like him, Natty is a foreigner to the people of Templeton who work hard to build the ever growing town. Natty leaves to start over in a new, unsettled place, however his migration is the first among many steps of settling the land throughout the country. A man of the wilderness, Natty paves the way for the first pioneers that will come through his new home as he will have gained the experience needed to help them survive. Although Natty is against settling the entirety of the country, and consuming all the resources of the land, he is up against a relentless wave of pioneers moving out into the country. His way of life, the Indian’s way of life, is over and all he can do is run away from its reach.

In my History of the Adirondacks course, we explored many of the topics that Cooper discusses in his book. One of the most prominent was the relationship between the state and the individual and how the two understood conservation. It is difficult to find a character in the novel more connected to the wilderness than Natty Bumppo. He believes a person should only take what is necessary to survive from the wild and that no real hunter would break this code. However, throughout the story, we see Natty conflicting with laws, often supported by Judge Temple, that are designed to preserve the wilderness, as is the case with the deer Natty killed out of season.

The way Natty reacts to these laws is very similar to how Adirondack locals dealt with a rising state authority in their region. They believed people who exploited the land, like Dick Jones and to a certain degree Billy Kirby, as the real threat to the preservation. However, these locals, like Natty, were the ones the state targeted. The state targeted primarily those of lower social standing, like Natty, and allowed men like Dick, who had connections, to exploit natural resources. With this in mind, how does class affect the ways an individual views nature and the ways the state interact with them in the novel?

Judge Temple represents a unique challenge to this question. Clearly, he is well connected and comes from a considerable amount of wealth. While he often engages in destructive behavior, as with the pigeon hunt, he does have a deep appreciation for the wild and often tries to protect it. Even though he engages in the pigeon hunt, he does feel a certain level of guilt for engaging in the hunt. Does he represent the United States at the time of the novel’s publication? He certainly is a complex portrayal of an American dealing with a rapidly “civilizing” and changing nation.

In the classic novel The Pioneers by James Fenimore Copper, we are able to see serval examples of characters and ideas that shape the identity of the United states of America. Mores specifically we can see early examples of the frontiersman as the idealized American man, the frontier as something to be protected, and the united states as a nation of immigrants. Most of the characters in The Pioneers are strong, capable men who rely on themselves and value hard work and creativity, for example judge Marmaduke Temple who carves his own paradise out of the unsettled frontier. Many, such as Natty Bumppo are self-made outsiders who thrive on the outskirts of civilization and society. This ideal of the American man would come to shape other figures of American culture such as the noble gunslinger of the westerns or the modern nonconformist but brilliant CEO. Another aspect portrayed in the book that plays an important part in American culture is the idea of the frontier as something to both be built over and at the same time be preserved. The frontier is portrayed as a place for the above mentioned great men to go and seek their fortune and dreams, to build the world that they desire. As the same time however, it is shown to be finite and at risk of disappearing if over settled. This is shown in many characters talking about how the population of animals seems to be decreasing. Finally, The Pioneers depicts a diverse America made up of many different peoples. Characters are shown to follow many different Christian faiths and we see characters from many backroads such as White American, Native American, European, and African American. The backstories of characters also often delve into the situations that brought their ancestors over to America. All of these elements will play an important part in defining the American nation and its identity.

The frontier in Cooper’s The Pioneers is not the alien, foreboding prison that Mary Rowlandson experienced, but is rather an attractive, captivating opportunity for a diverse collection of self-made American characters.  The frontier invites and offers potential to those willing to embrace its possibilities, including organizers and planners like Judge Marmaduke Temple.  That is not to suggest that there are not dangers; travel can be difficult; fires, Indians, panthers, and other natural obstacles demand care, but they do not prohibit co-existence between man and nature.

Modern (19^th century) man, however, brings dangers of his/her own – perhaps especially in the concept of progress. Nature has a pattern and plan structured by the ordinary demands of the environment; man-made institutions, arrangements, hierarchy, and laws are an intrusion which upset the balance.  They create a chaos as destructive as any found beyond the frontier’s border.

Cooper’s novel presents an imagined (mythical?) vision of a young United States.  Struggling to survive, embracing diversity and progress without fully appreciating its implications, searching for balance between individual and community rights, and probing for the meaning of tradition in a quickly changing world.  It also introduces an extraordinary cast of characters – none more “American” that Natty Bumppo.  He departs Templeton at the end of the story as “the foremost in that band of Pioneers who are opening the way for the march of the nation across the continent”(462).  But I am left wondering: Who are the pioneers of the title?  Natty and his elk? Chingachgook and other Indians? Judge Temple and the people of Templeton? Perhaps, in the final analysis, The Pioneers is the answer to Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur’s famous question from 1781, “What is An American?”  It is who we had become at the turn of the 19^th century, and it is the frontier which defines who we will be.

Denis Brennan

A Dialogue Between and Englishman and an Indian can be seen as a condensed, more personal version of Rowlandson’s Captivity and Restoration. The supposedly more civilized and sophisticated Englishman has a one-on-one conversation with the less civilized and savage Native American. The Englishman and Rowlandson share the same thoughts and ideas on Native Americans in general. It is not until the last line of dialogue that the Englishman has a change of heart in regards to his views on the Indian. What may have played a factor in this is how the Indian turns the tide on the Englishman by saying, “I know we are an uncultivated and unpolished people; but I am inclined to think there are some among the Europeans, and their descendants, as bad as we are, on many accounts.” After speaking with the Indian, the Englishman, like Rowlandson, finally realizes that Europeans really are not so different in terms of violence and cruelty. Rowlandson and the Englishman were ignorant people initially, firmly believing that their people and culture could do no wrong. What they were missing was that Native Americans are not savages and are in fact quite friendly and respectful people once they understood them. The Englishman is completely shocked by how well-spoken, and somewhat correct and reasonable, the Indian is. He and Rowlandson both admit that they had been mistaken and reject their prejudiced views of Indians.

John Smith’s minuscule play about a conversation between two gentlemen over tea as one’s wife and the other’s niece gossip is prefaced with a quote from Horace, “Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculous mus.”  translating roughly to “the mountains are in labor, an absurd mouse will be born” (Smith 9.) This quote comes from a letter written by Horace regarding The Art of Poetry, the quote is him mocking the way some poet’s open their work with a flowery explanation of what they will later be lamenting about in their poem, accusing the poet’s of never being able to live up to the expectations they set up themselves for the audience. The line itself is an allusion to an Aesop’s Fable regarding a mountain that was believed to be going into labor, exciting all the people who expected a grand thing to be produced from this event, but in the end everyone was let down when the mountain all gave birth to a mouse. It’s a tale about not living up to expectations and empty threats, a great set-up for A Little Teatable Chitchat. The satirical piece relays the consequences of inflation from the point of view of those benefitting from the depreciation of the dollar during the Revolution. Mr. Sharp, a farmer, brags nonchalantly about his new social power that came from his inflation, each statement getting a bit more ridiculous than the last until the end when he tells Mr. Pendulum that the assembly plans on “abolishing christianity” and then says that once the ministers are removed “you may kill half the town, and yourself into the bargain and nobody will care” (Smith 10.) These statements are juxtaposed with the lively tone of conversation and the setting of it being a casual tea table conversation between two men who had just met. It’s just two seemingly normal men casually discussing abolishing a religion, appearing to not be threats at all yet discussing quite a threat against society.