United States History Student Edition

D

The Pioneers While Washington Irving is regarded as the United States’ first short story writer, James Fenimore Cooper is known as the country’s first novelist. Cooper grew up in upstate New York and was well educated. He began writing novels in the 1820s. In 1823, he published The Pioneers , the first in a series of five novels called The Leatherstocking Tales . In this excerpt, Cooper introduces his main character, Natty Bumppo, a man of the wilderness who has adventures on the American frontier. Over the course of the five novels, Cooper developed this singularly American character. PRIMARY SOURCE: LITERATURE “ He was tall, and so meagre as to make him seem above even the six feet that he actually stood in his stockings. On his head, which was thinly covered with lank , sandy hair, he wore a cap made of fox-skin, resembling in shape the one we have already described, although much inferior in finish and ornaments. His face was skinny and thin almost to emaciation ; but yet it bore no signs of disease—on the contrary, it had every indication of the most robust and enduring health. . . . A kind of coat, made of dressed deer-skin, with the hair on, was belted close to his lank body by a girdle of colored worsted . On his feet were deer-skin moccasins, ornamented with porcupines’ quills, after the manner of the Indians, and his limbs were guarded with long leggings of the same material as the moccasins, which, gartering over the knees of his tarnished buckskin breeches, had obtained for him among the settlers the nickname of Leather-Stocking. ” — from The Pioneers (1823) meagre [meager] lean; thin lank straight, flat, thin, and limp emaciation the state of being very thin worsted yarn made from wool EXAMINE THE SOURCE 1. Identifying What did Natty Bumppo appear to have in common with Native Americans? 2. Identifying Themes What overall impression is presented of Natty Bumppo? How does he appear to represent an American identity? Do you think the description is an authentic or idealized version of an American living on the frontier? Why might Cooper have chosen to develop his character in this manner?

PHOTOS: Stock Montage/Archive Photos/Getty Images; TEXT: Cooper, James Fenimore. The Pioneers Or, The Sources of the Susquehanna. Hoboken: Charles Wiley, 1823.

The Early Republic 293