The Pioneers

The fourth and last work chronologically in Cooper's Leather-stocking Tales, "Pioneers" is a historical novel that follows the later life of Natty Bumppo. Already introduced by the previous novels as the archetypal American frontiersman and friend to Indians, Natty now struggles with hunting and new societal laws that restrict the freedom of the wilderness he has always known. He finds allies of his rebellion in a local landowner's daughter and a mysterious young visitor in this rich depiction of early frontier life and the essential American character that clashes with the expanding nature of society. James Fenimore Cooper wrote a climactic drama that contains elements of an ecological novel which ultimately established him as one of the first great American novelists.