The Pioneers

I'm a fan of Cooper and as such have enjoyed all of his works that I have read. The Pioneers is no exception

James Fennimore Cooper's five books known as "The Leatherstocking Tales" ( the Pioneers is the fourth in the series) are some of the most exciting books I've ever read. I highly recommend!

Classical Cooper work, it can't be beat. The state of New York is expanding, and the make up of the classes is expounded on. This is pioneer budding New York with the wilderness slowly turning its great land holdings into a people orientended land. This is the land our forefathers knew. The story isn't just about land, its about the people that inhabit it. Our hero is a Long Rifle. A man that was part of the landscape long before people were settling it. The times are changing and he has taken a young man under his wing, one with his own abilities. They both hold a secret known only to themselves. The cast of characters besides our two hero's, include the Squire, the Dr., the Squires black male servent, and of course a young woman, and many others. From the gracious living of the upper class, to the world of our heros, which is the forest, you won't want to put this book down. The events and lives of people in that century, cutting into what had been wilderness is covered, as only Cooper can.

It is Christmas eve 1793 in Central New York's pioneer village of Templeton. Although only seven years old, Templeton boasts of 50 structures, two lawyers, a doctor and a sampling of tradesmen and farmers. The town sits at the lower end of Lake Otsego and timber abounds, though the recent settlers cut it down without a thought for fuel and farmland as if it would last forever. Most of the native American Indians have moved west, having sold their land to the King, who then lost it to the successful American rebels. But title to local lands flows from an old Royal grant. And there is a shadow on the claim of the town's richest man, Judge Marmaduke Temple to own the many thousands of acres that he is systematically selling off to immigrants of many ethnic backgrounds. Before the Revolution the Judge had a school friend, son and heir of a well off English military officer, Major Oliver Effingham. This friendship made the Judge's fortune. Came the war, however, and the friends fought for opposite sides. The Judge's side won and the Englishman lost all. The Judge then bought up his onetime friend's lands at auction. Was this greed or deliberate protection of his friend's interests? Read the novel to the end through many mysteries and twists and find out! The Major, who lived in Connecticut, disappeared in the fog of revolutionary war, leaving a son Edward and grandson Edward Oliver. A "mysterious" young stranger arrives on the lake. He calls himself Oliver Edwards and he lives in a cabin with another white man, Natty Bumppo, a man of 67 and an even older native American Christian called variously Chingachgook, Big Serpent and Indian John. On Christmas eve, this trio is out hunting a deer. Judge Temple in a sleigh is driving his teenage daughter home from years of study in New York City. The Judge shoots at a fleeing deer, as do Natty and Oliver. Oliver's shot kills the beast, the judge's misses, hitting Oliver in the shoulder. But when the sleigh's team bolts, Oliver saves the party from danger, including his beautiful daughter Elizabeth. Has this plot beginning caught your attention? Then read on. For some initially unclear reason relating to land title, young Oliver obviously hates the judge who hires him as secretary. Later Natty and Indian John kill a deer out of season. The law puts Natty in the stocks and then in jail. But he escapes with the help of his two friends. And through thick and thin affection grows between Oliver and Elizabeth. The novel raises questions about who owns America: God, the Indians, the Dutch, the English, friends of the Indians like Natty? Civilization arrives in the form of Templeton (today's Coopertown where author James Fenimore grew up). Civilization brings law and order but also personal power, so much that it can be abused. In the end injustice forces Natty to leave and head for the western prairies. He has seen too many changes, too much loss of space to stores and churches. He says to Reverend Mr Grant:

"...the noble bay horses that drew the sleigh were covered, in many parts, with a coat of hoar frost. The vapor from their nostrils was seen to issue like smoke, and every object in the view, as well as every arrangement of the travelers, denoted the depth of a winter in the mountains. The harness, which was of a deep dull black, differing from the glossy varnishing of the present day..." Great movies can come from great books but I doubt that a movie could be made that captures the images and sounds, not to mention the intellectual stimuation, that Cooper evokes in The Pioneers. One can smell the leather harness and the horse sweat and stale air underneath the fur robes in the sleigh. One can see the girl's dancing eyes and feel the numbness of the sleigh driver's hands. One can hear the booming reports of the fowling piece and the long rifle.Read the book and see the movie in your mind about the interaction between native Americans and pioneers on the eastern frontier; about their conservation concerns; about hunting rights and animal rights; about wilderness ethics.New York State is arguably the most beautiful place in the world - winter or summer - and Cooper's book preserves what it was like before the canal system, the agriculture, the telephone lines, the thruway, the golf courses, the airports and the POSTED NO TRESPASSING signs.A great American literary classic.