67 pages • 2 hours read
James Fenimore CooperThe Pioneers
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1823A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Natural Law Versus Human Law
The primary theme in The Pioneers is the conflict between natural and manmade law. This is dramatized primarily through the conflict between Leatherstocking and Judge Temple. Leatherstocking represents the old style of natural law. He believes that man should be left alone to his own devices and that society should intrude as little as possible. Leatherstocking tries to live in harmony with nature, disrupting the environment as little as possible. In contrast to the settlers, Leatherstocking does not attempt to live in comfort, but rather takes only what he needs from the environment. Although Leatherstocking is a white man, he is shown to be closest to the Native Americans, particularly the Mohicans, from whom he learned these beliefs and his considerable woodsman and hunting skills. Leatherstocking’s beliefs—i.e., that man should be able to kill what he sees, keep what he kills, and only take what one needs to survive—place him in conflict with the expanding settlement of Templeton, which has replaced what was once wilderness. Leatherstocking resents the settlers for several reasons. First, they have made game scarce by clearing the trees for pastures, farms, and villages. In addition, the settlers do not care for the environment; their carelessness causes the forest fire at the climax of the book. Finally, Leatherstocking resents the imposition of manmade law on his lifestyle.
Judge Temple represents the coming of manmade law and society to the formerly uncivilized wilderness of America. As a Judge, politician, and wealthy landowner, Temple believes in the expansion of society and civilization, which must be backed by laws. Notably, he implements hunting, fishing, and environmental protection laws in Ostego County, laws that both Leatherstocking and the settlers (generally represented by Temple’s cousin, Richard) dispute. While Temple believes that mankind should seek to increase its wealth and comfort, he also believes that this drive needs to be tempered so as not to exhaust the natural resources. Leatherstocking mocks this idea because, to him, a true hunter would never kill animals out of season or deliberately harm the environment; rules are not necessary to keep his honor in check. By contrast, the settlers reject Temple’s laws because they believe the resources are inexhaustible and see no need to limit their use.
This conflict comes to a head late in the book in the courtroom scene. There, Leatherstocking’s plain speaking and simple beliefs are put in conflict with the complexity of the law. Although Temple is grateful that Leatherstocking saved his daughter, he cannot allow himself to be seen to play favorites, and so sentences him to jail. In this way, Temple upholds Hobbesian order and Leatherstocking represents Lockean self-control. In the end, Hobbesian order wins, in that Leatherstocking elects to leave the Temple Patent and move west—an attempt to resign lands he considers lost to the settlers and retain his way of life elsewhere that modern audiences know is fruitless. The victory of Hobbesian order is especially ironic because the Americans just overthrew the British monarchy; yet, here, they are establishing what to Leatherstocking seems to be a similar social system.
Man’s Relationship to Nature
The second primary theme of The Pioneers is environmentalism and man’s relationship to nature. Here we see a contrast between those closest to the land (such as Leatherstocking and Mohegan) and those who believe the environment is inexhaustible (such as Richard), with Judge Temple attempting to find a middle path. However, even though Leatherstocking and Temple both exhibit preservationist instincts, they differ in their reasons. Leatherstocking frequently defends the environment for aesthetic reasons, noting the beauty of the areas that he has seen in his long life. In contrast, Temple frequently defends the environment for utilitarian reasons —he believes that the environment needs to be protected so that it is not inadvertently destroyed. This is emphasized in the contrast between their lifestyles. Leatherstocking believes in living frugally and simply, only taking what one needs from the environment, whereas Temple believes in steadily increasing one’s comfort and making the environment ‘safe’ by transforming it. Finally, the settlers of Templeton (exemplified by Richard) believe in living as easily and in as much comfort as possible. They generally believe that the resources of the land are inexhaustible, and as such there is no reason to limit their own happiness. This is shown by their extreme waste, such as leaving the pigeons and the fish to rot, and in Billy Kirby’s destruction of the maple trees to make syrup.
While Richard is often characterized in the novel as a comic villain, modern audiences understand that his brand of consumerism has dominated American cultural and economic mores. Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales romanticize a closer bridge between “American” commercialism and “Native,” more natural ways of living off the land, which both positively affects readers in developing a greater appreciation of the land and its original inhabitants and negatively affects Native American agency in representing themselves rather than being objectified by a white writer for white audiences. Cooper’s work is therefore both highly regarded and held suspect in the American canon.
Age
A secondary theme of the novel is age and the passage of time. The book argues that the time of Leatherstocking and Mohegans (and by extension, the Native Americans) is passing, to be replaced by the white settlers. Cooper expresses a number of reservations about this process. While Temple is shown to be a good man doing the best he can to preserve the environment during the settlement process, many of the villagers and settlers engage in what Leatherstocking calls ‘wasty ways.’ The novel ends with Mohegan’s death, symbolizing the passing of the Native Americans, and Leatherstocking’s departure to find unspoiled wilderness in the West. However, there is a bittersweet note to his departure, as Cooper notes in the final lines that civilization is sure to follow closely behind Leatherstocking.
The Mohicans were, in fact, one of the first tribes decimated by white settlement, and while Cooper wrote the book to decry such an injustice, contemporaneous audiences didn’t receive the book in that way. In the article “James Fenimore Cooper and the Image of America,” author Renata R. Mautner Wasserman explores the ways in which Cooper used Native and pioneer characters to legitimize American political, social, and economic order. In other words, during Cooper’s life, his books served to exoticize and fetishize Native American culture and validate white Anglo-Saxon democracy. In point of fact, the Mohegan and Mohican tribes were quite different and settled in different territories, and while Mohicans were driven west, the Nation still exists today (Mohegan was not actually “the last”).
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By James Fenimore Cooper
