Marmaduke and Leatherstocking: Changing Moral Codes on the Frontier

                The relationship between Marmaduke Temple and Natty Bumppo in the Pioneers is a complex one indicative of the changing moral/legal codes of the American frontier. Cooper makes Bumppo, the illiterate woodsman the hero of his tale rather than the wealthy and refined country judge...and yet it is hard to say that Natty Bumppo comes out on top at the end of the novel.  Homeless and technically a fugitive, Bumppo is last seen heading out to the true wilderness of the unexplored forests.  Although he has certainly gone of his own volition (460), rejecting the encroaching settlement and civilization, he has also been driven out by the new legal system which clashes with his own code of morals. 

                Natty operates outside the law that Marmaduke (and by extension, the new American culture) sets, most notably when he kills the buck out of season (302) and when he refuses to let Doolittle in his hut despite the warrant (339).  However, he is far from lawless, acting instead according to his own rules of honor, courage, loyalty and respect for the wilderness.  His speeches about the desecration of nature resonate even more today. The passenger pigeons he talks about when he says “this comes of settling a country! Here have I known pigeons to fly for forty long years...if a body has a craving for pigeon’s flesh, why it’s made the same as all other creatures, for man’s eating, but not to kill twenty and eat one,” are now extinct. (248)  Leatherstocking also proves his dedication to chivalry, loyalty, and courage when he saves Elizabeth and Louisa from the ‘painters’ (312), when he saves Elizabeth from the fire on the mountain (421), and all the times he shuns the “wasty ways” of the settlers and proves his skill at hunting, despite being over seventy years old.  The most complex example of Natty’s moral code lies at the heart of the novels mystery: his dedication to Major Effingham.  At first the Leatherstockings aid in this quarter seem contradictory – why spend so much time and effort helping an old white man reclaim his land when Natty has made it clear he detests the settlements and actions of Marmaduke Temple? O course, Natty is far from being hypocritical.  In his eyes, the right of the land and his own personal loyalty belong to Effingham because of their days in the French and Indian war together when Effingham proved his bravery and honor not only to Natty but to the Native Americans who called him “Fire-eater” (405).

                As previously mentioned, Natty Bumppo’s code of morals clashes disastrously with the code of law that Temple upholds.  A complex man himself, Temple respects and even is fond of Bumppo, but often disagrees about how things should be done on his frontier land.  He, too, is concerned with conserving the wilderness: although he gets carried away shooting the pigeons he mourns his activity saying “like the Leatherstocking I see nothing but eyes in every direction, as the innocent sufferers turn their heads in terror” (250).  And yet unlike Bumppo, who wants everyone to live by the sparse rules of the traveling hunter or native, Marmaduke recognizes and even welcomes the demanding march of civilization, seeking to conserve the wealth of nature through laws.  Thus he creates the rule of shooting deer only within season, which gives Natty such trouble.  Although the reader sympathizes with the brave Leatherstocking, who champions the rights of nature and saves the damsels in distress, it is important to remember the pressure Marmaduke is under and the legitimacy of his responses.  Talking with Elizabeth he mentions a time of famine when first settling Templeton, “ I had hundreds, in that dreadful time, daily looking at me for bread” (235).  This famine ended with a mass fishing of the lake and the first example perhaps, of Templeton taking more than necessary from nature. And although Marmaduke often waives his rights as landowner in favor of the services Natty provides...such as when “the image of Natty gain crossed his recollection, not as a lawless and depredating squatter but as the preserver of his child” (328). Because of this, he allows Natty to hunt where he wishes, to remain living on the land, and   pays his fine for hunting a deer out of season.  And yet when Natty refuses entry to a lawman with a warrant, Marmaduke cannot let his personal feelings sully the law he is establishing.  Under the legal structure he heads he has no choice but to impartially charge and indeed find guilty the Leatherstocking. 

                The complex conflicts between these two characters, and more specifically the clash of their personal moral/legal codes, are thematic of the time.  The early American frontiers, populated by individuals long before governments were set in place, allowed men to live by the codes that suited them best. However, as the frontier became settled by many diverse immigrants it required a new set of laws, one that was impartial and egalitarian. Thus even patriarchal leaders had to bow to pressure while woodsmen like Natty were overruled.  The “fairness” or morality of these laws are left for the reader to question, although it is clear that the legal codes first set up by figures like Marmaduke Temple came to replace the frontiersman, hunter/soldier morality of Natty Bumppo.  The irreversible change of culture in the book is mirrored by the changing landscape Cooper intricately describes.  However, Americans still celebrate those early values of exploration, efficiency and bravery, making characters like the Leatherstocking American “mythic heroes” (Cavitch, vi).