The Pioneers An Analysis of the Character of Natty Bumppo

The Pioneers: An Analysis of the Character of Natty Bumppo The Pioneers is the first in a series of five books by James Fenimore Cooper, though in the time period that the five books covers, it is the fourth, chronologically. The most famous book in this series is The Last of the Mohicans. Together, the five books are known as the Leatherstocking Tales, as they tell the story of Natty Bumppo, who also went by the alias of Leatherstocking. The Pioneers, like the other books in the Leatherstocking Tales series, exemplifies the conflict between the white settlers of the early American frontier and the wilderness (and the native people who lived in it) that they were disrupting and displacing. The Pioneers, as the first book in the series, starts out on this subject immediately, with the wilderness and its spokesperson, Natty Bumppo, being the protagonists, and the settlers being portrayed not quite as antagonists, but as naive, ignorant, and often destructive toward the wilderness and i ts native people in the pursuit of their own interests. There is a definite conflict between individual freedom and social conformity in this book. It is shown through the interactions of Natty Bumppo and the settlers. The settlers are using methods of taming the wilderness to their own ends that show them to believe they and the wilderness can not co-exist. They look at the wilderness as dangerous and to be conquered and tamed so they can live in it. This is exemplified in their