Cooper

Cooper By: Abbie Tignor and Annie Pfeifer

      James Fenimore Cooper grew up in Cooperstown on Ostego Lake. Growing up in this frontier town, there were few backwoods settlers and Indians. His experiences Cooperstown gave him the insight to write his books about Native Americans and pioneers. He used these books to express his ideas on the "American Problem." He asked the question of how the rights of life, liberty, and property could not apply the societies in which Native American had been denied their own land.

  One of Cooper's most famous books was The Last of the Mohicans, part of five book series called the Leather-Stocking Tales. In this book, a white man named Natty Bumppo is working peacefully with Native Americans. Cooper expresses his sympathy for the dispossession of the Native Americans. He believed that pushing them off their own land was wrong. He hoped to express through his books the idea that the Indians and Americans could live in harmony. The series in whole was meant to capture the history of the United State's people and land before American civilization started.



In 1833, Cooper came back to the U.S. from Europe. when he arrived, he was appalled at the excess of Jacksonian democracy, especially the role of elites in society. From then on Cooper used his writings to argue with his country. He used his following books, including the last two installments of the Leather-Stocking Tales, to paint a serene, peaceful version of the U.S. before American settlement. He used his works to defend all landowners and protest against American society. His final work was a satire about the social life of Americans and legal practices called The Ways of the Hour. Cooper was one of the most popular authors of the 19th century, and his work was praised throughout the world.
                                                                                                                                                                Other writers of the same time period as Cooper set out to portray the United States in a way that celebrated people, history, and natural beauty. For instance, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow   wrote "Song of Hiawatha" about an Iroquois chief in a supportive way like Cooper.