The Pioneers
The Pioneers
Book excerpt
Date: 1823
Source: Cooper, James Fenimore. The Pioneers. New York: G.P. Putnum and Sons, 1823.
About the Author: James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) was an American writer and pioneer novelist. He was born in Burlington, New Jersey, on September 15, 1789, to Judge William and Elizabeth Cooper. Their forefathers had immigrated to America in 1679, where Judge Cooper inherited and established large tracts of land in New York and Pennsylvania. Beginning in childhood, Cooper had a liking for pranks and freedom. He and his brothers spent their childhood in the dense woods of upstate New York. The wilderness of the surroundings greatly appealed to him. It was in the Hudson River and central New York region that Cooper came to be in touch with the native Indians. These profound experiences formed an essential foundation for many of his writings in his later life. For two years he studied at Yale, but was expelled from the college as the result of a series of pranks. He then began life as a seaman and first set sail on a ship called Sterling bound for Cowes, United Kingdom. His experiences on stormy North Atlantic voyages and his brief commission in the Navy form the background for many of the seafaring novels he wrote years later. Cooper began his writing career in New York, starting with The Spy (1821). He wrote nearly fifty other novels and books such as The Prairie (1827), Notions of the Americans (1828), A Letter to his Countrymen (1834), American Democrat (1838), Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer (1841).
INTRODUCTION
Though Cooper never intended to become a writer, it was the death of his father and a series of other deaths in the family (that of his brothers and sister) that accidentally brought out his writing skills. He inherited a small tract of land and money after his father's death. In 1811, he married Susan Delancy and settled as a gentleman farmer. For nearly ten years, he moved to various locations and ultimately was left devoid of any finances. It was at this time that his wife encouraged him to write and thus his professional literary career was born.
While studying Cooper, it is useful to understand that his family descended from the Quakers, also called the Society of Friends in Great Britain. The Quakers perceived Christ as the inner light and believed in the reformation of the Church by conducting silent prayer. They did away completely with many customary rituals of the Catholic Church and considered priests and middlemen as barriers between God and humanity. This led to discrimination against them in England and some regions in the United States. The strict principles of the Quakers and their teachings of nonviolence find their way into The Pioneers.
Written in 1823, The Pioneers is the first book in a five-part series called the Leatherstocking Novels. It draws heavily on Cooper's personal experiences from his childhood days and spiritual upbringing. There are many characters in this novel. The prominent ones are Judge Marmaduke Temple, the wealthy emigrant; Elizabeth Temple, his daughter; Natty Bumppo, the ideal native; Mohegan, the great warrior; and Billy Kirby, the wasteful wood chopper.
The themes of the book revolve around American culture, the portrayal and philosophy of American independence, the perception of the whites by native Americans, the wasteful and improper ways of the settlers. Feelings about nature and civilization, advocating conservation and living within means, exhibiting restraint and self-discipline, maintaining public and personal order, and controlling chaos internally and in society are also evident throughout.
PRIMARY SOURCE
… Marmaduke had been wandering about the grove, making observations on his favorite trees, and the wasteful manner in which the wood-chopper conducted his manufacture.
"It grieves me to witness the extravagance that pervades this country," said the Judge, "where the settlers trifle with the blessings they might enjoy, with the prodigality of successful adventurers. You are not exempt from the censure yourself, Kirby, for you make dreadful wounds in these trees where a small incision would effect the same object. I earnestly beg you will remember that they are the growth of centuries, and when once gone none living will see their loss remedied."
"Why, I don't know, Judge," returned the man he addressed: "it seems to me, if there's a plenty of anything in this mountaynious country, it's the trees. If there's any sin in chopping them, I've a pretty heavy account to settle, for I've chopped over the best half of a thousand acres with my own hands, counting both Varmount and York States; and I hope to live to finish the hull, before I lay up my axe. Chopping comes quite natural to me, and I wish no other employment; but Jared Ransom said that he thought the sugar was likely to be source this season, seeing that so many folks was coming into the settlement, and so I concluded to take the 'bush' on sheares for this one spring. What's the best news, Judge, consarning ashes? do pots hold so that a man can live by them still? I s'pose they will, if they keep on fighting across the water."
"Thou reasonest with judgment, William," returned Marmaduke. "So long as the old world is to be convulsed with wars, so long will the harvest of America continue."
"Well, it's an ill wind, Judge, that blows nobody any good. I'm sure the country is in a thriving way; and though I know you calkilate greatly on the trees, setting as much store by them as some men would by their children, yet to my eyes they are a sore sight any time, unless I'm privileged to work my will on them; in which case I can't say but they are more to my liking. I have heard the settlers from the old countries say that their rich men keep great oaks and elms, that would make a barrel of pots to the tree, standing round their doors and humsteds and scattered over their farms, just to look at. Now, I call no country much improved that is pretty well covered with trees. Stumps are a different thing, for they don't shade the land; and, besides, if you dig them, they make a fence that will turn anything bigger than a hog, being grand for breachy cattle."
"Opinions on such subjects vary much in different countries," said Marmaduke; "but it is not as ornaments that I value the noble trees of this country; it is for their usefulness We are stripping the forests, as if a single year would replace what we destroy. But the hour approaches when the laws will take notice of not only the woods, but the game they contain also."
With this consoling reflection, Marmaduke remounted, and the equestrians passed the sugar-camp, on their way to the promised landscape of Richard. The wood-chopper was left alone, in the bosom of the forest, to pursue his labors.
SIGNIFICANCE
The Pioneers holds a singular place in American literary history. The book instantly established Cooper as a groundbreaking author. For this matter, though The Pioneers was not the first American novel, it was the "pioneer" American novel in many ways.
Until this time, there was a dearth of contemporary American literature. The Pioneers found its way directly to the wider U.S. audience, and Cooper bypassed critics with much popular acclaim. Simultaneously, the book belongs to a period that is known for many revolutionary issues and events in U.S. history. Readers, consequently, were able to identify with the characters in the book and relate it to their own experiences and aspirations about their newly adopted nation.
Experts maintain that The Pioneers can essentially be classified as a historic romance. It is historic as it describes a significant point in history when the Americans fought off the British colonialists to win the American Revolution. The book reflects the debate in the mind of the pioneer settlers, after the war, about the nature of their government—whether the new country would be a democracy or a republic.
The book revolves around the mindset of its various characters and the conflict of their thoughts with the surrounding environs and wilderness. To put it in simpler terms, the settlers mentioned in the book had issues of land ownership. They wanted to colonize lands that were inhabited by native Indians. At the time, the country also had abundant resources in terms of wild land and forests. The settlers in the book were also faced with the conflict of clearing forests and setting up colonies. In the book, Cooper termed this as "wastefulness" on the part of the settlers.
This is where the significance of the book lies. The issues and conflicts mentioned above were widely prevalent in the country at the time. The settlers engaged themselves in activities such as logging of woods, mass clearing of lands for settlement and farming, and killing of wildlife such as bison and pheasant, as well as other fauna that were considered sacred by native inhabitants, for pleasure and sport.
The book cautioned that excessive utilization of resources would destroy the natural landscape with which the United States had been bestowed. In the twenty-first century, the United States and most countries around the world face various conservation and sustainability issues like power, energy, decreasing domestic oil and gas production, renewable energy, and the growing consumption of natural resources such as paper, metals, and minerals. Natural resources all over the world, including those in the United States, are being used up at a high rate to fuel development and commercialism.
FURTHER RESOURCES
Web sites
Canada, Mark. "James Fenimore Cooper, 1789–1851." University of North Carolina at Pembroke. 〈http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/17841865/lit/cooper/index.htm〉 (accessed March 15, 2006).
Evans, Sarah, Abby Fifer, and Jenn Reynolds. "James Fenimore Cooper: A Literary Pioneer." American Studies at the University of Virginia. 〈http://xroads.virginia.edu/∼ug02/COOPER/toc.html〉 (accessed March 15, 2006).
"James Fenimore Cooper." JamesFenimoreCooper.com. 〈http://www.jamesfenimorecooper.com〉 (accessed March 15, 2006).
"James Fenimore Cooper." The Literature Network. 〈http://www.online-literature.com/cooperj〉 (accessed March 15, 2006).
"James Fenimore Cooper." Mohican Press. 〈http://www.mohicanpress.com/mo08002.html〉 (accessed March 15, 2006).
"James Fenimore Cooper: The Last of the Mohicans." University of Wisconsin. 〈http://www.uwm.edu/Library/special/exhibits/clastext/clspg134.htm〉 (accessed March 15, 2006).