The Pioneers

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The Pioneers, or the Sources of the Susquehanna; a Descriptive Tale

Author	James Fenimore Cooper
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Leatherstocking
Genre(s)	Historical novel
Publisher	Charles Wiley
Publication date	1823
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	2 vol.
ISBN	NA
Followed by	The Last of the Mohicans (1826)

For the Jamaican band, see The Pioneers (band)

The Pioneers: The Sources of the Susquehanna; a Descriptive Tale is a historical novel, one of the Leatherstocking Tales, a series of five novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper. The Pioneers was first of these books to be published (1823), but the period of time covered by the book (principally 1793) makes it the fourth chronologically.

The story takes place on the rapidly advancing frontier of New York State and features a middle-aged Leatherstocking (Natty Bumppo), Judge Marmaduke Temple of Templeton, whose life parallels that of the author's father Judge William Cooper, and Elizabeth (the author Susan Cooper), of Cooperstown. The story begins with an argument between the Judge and the Leatherstocking over who killed a buck, and as Cooper reviews many of the changes to his fictional Lake Otsego, questions of environmental stewardship, conservation, and use prevail. The plot develops as the Leatherstocking and Chingachgook begin to compete with the Temples for the loyalties of a mysterious young visitor, "Oliver Edwards," the "young hunter," who eventually marries Elizabeth. Chingachgook dies, exemplifying the vexed figure of the "dying Indian," and Natty vanishes into the sunset. For all its strange twists and turns, 'The Pioneers' may be considered one of the first ecological novels in the United States.

[edit] Characters

Natty Leather Stocking was "a melodious synopsis of man and nature in the West."

[edit] References

Wayne Franklin. 'The New World of James Fenimore Cooper.' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
Thomas Hallock. 'From the Fallen Tree: Frontier Narratives, Environmental Politics, and the Roots of a National Pastoral.' Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
James H. Pickering, Cooper's Otsego Heritage: The Sources of The Pioneers, 1979
H. Daniel Peck. 'A World by Itself: The Pastoral Moment in Cooper's Fiction.' New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977.
Thomas Philbrick. 'Cooper's Pioneers: Origins and Structure.' PMLA 79 (December 1964): 579-93
Donald A. Ringe. "Introduction." 'The Pioneers.' New York: Penguin, 1988.
Alan Taylor. 'William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic.' New York: Vintage, 1996.