James Fenimore Cooper, born in 1789, was an American writer, critic and historian. Born in Burlington, New Jersey, he spent his childhood on the borders of Cooperstown, founded by his father. He studied at Yale University and served in the Navy. He got married in 1811 and was fully devoted to his family and the agricultural and socio-political interests of Cooperstown. In 1820, he wrote his first novel for his daughters, and it was a traditional novel of manners “Precaution”. After discovering his writing gift, he wrote “The Spy” in 1821, which was based on local traditions. The novel received international recognition, and Cooper decided to move to New York with his family, where he soon became a prominent literary figure and a leader of writers who argued for national identity in American literature. His next novel “The Pioneers” opened the topic of the American frontier and first introduced Natty Bumppo, a unique American hero.

The most popular novels by Cooper “The Last of the Mohicans” (1826), “The Prairie” (1827), “The Pathfinder” (1840) and “Deerslayer” (1841) tell about irresistible escape of the hunter and tracker Natty Bumppo from impending colonization.

For the first time, he appears in the first volume of the Leatherstocking Tales as a seventy-year old man. He was raised by Delaware Indians and received his education from the members of Moravian sect. Natty is an honorable and brave hero, who is good at hunting, wood carving and interpreting. A Mohican chief, Chingachgook and his son Uncas are his lifelong friends. Throughout the series, he becomes an ally of his Indian brothers as well as of a number of European pioneers and military factions. Although he appears in five major works of Fenimore Cooper, some facts from his biography and details of his origin are partly unknown. It is known, however, that he is a white man and has no Indian blood in him, but as he was raised by the Indians, he became caught up between two different worlds.

He is both a Native American and a frontier in conflict with the law and civilization, living in Delaware Indian Country. Both his physical appearance and his character represent his dual identity. In different books, he appears under a new nick-name and is mostly known as Hawkeye, Deerslayer, Leather-Stocking and Pathfinder.

The prototype of Natty Bumppo lived a long life. Once he found his master, Major Effingham, who soon died, he went to the South and became a trapper, although his life there did not become calmer. Once he decided to help a guy, who wanted to save his bride from captivity and got into a serious fight with the Sioux and the white settlers. Nathaniel died in the autumn of 1805, shortly after the death of his faithful dog, Hector, in the Pawnee tribe, where he was honored for the greatest wisdom.