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The Deerslayer | Introduction

The Deerslayer, or The First War-Path, by American novelist James Fenimore Cooper, was first published in 1841. It was the last of Cooper’s series of five novels featuring the character of Nathaniel (Natty) Bumppo, also known as Deerslayer, Pathfinder, Hawkeye, Leatherstocking, and Trapper. Set in the wilderness area around Lake Otsego, New York, during one week in June between 1740 and 1745, The Deerslayer is an exciting story about the adventures of the woodsman known as Deerslayer and his Delaware Indian friend, Chingachgook. They meet at the lake to plot a rescue of Chingachgook’s betrothed, a Delaware girl who has been abducted by the hostile Huron Indians. Deerslayer has never been on the warpath before, and this is a test of his manhood. Deerslayer’s impetuous and lawless friend, Hurry March, the grizzled old trapper Thomas Hutter, and his two daughters—one beautiful and vain, the other pious and simple-minded—complete the main cast of characters. The novel presents the violence and unpredictability of life in a place where only a few white hunters and hunting parties of Indians have ever set foot. The interface between the wilderness and civilization, the pristine life of nature and the impact being made on it by human beings, makes this a fascinating story about a clash of values, a conflict which continued to shape the North American continent for the remainder of the century and beyond.

In the early 2000s, The Deerslayer may have far fewer readers than it did one hundred and fifty years before, but it has, together with the other four Leatherstocking Tales, become a classic of American nineteenth-century literature.

The Deerslayer Summary

Chapter 1
The Deerslayer begins around noon on a sunny day in June, sometime between 1740 and 1745. It takes place around Lake Otsego, New York, then known as Glimmerglass. Two woodsmen, twenty-six- or twenty-eight-year-old Henry March, often known as Hurry Harry, and his slightly younger companion, Nathaniel (Natty) Bumppo, known as Deerslayer, emerge from a small swamp and behold the lake. As they pause to eat their lunch and talk, they reveal differences in their characters. It soon emerges that Deerslayer has not yet killed a man in war or for any other reason; Hurry, who appears to be the more aggressive and ruthless of the two, says it is about time Deerslayer killed an Indian, since they are at war with them. Deerslayer has more respect for the Indians since he has lived among the Delawares and understands their culture. The two men then discuss three people they will soon be meeting, Tom Hutter, and his two daughters, Judith and Hetty. Tom, a widower, is a former pirate who for fifteen years has been living on the lake. Judith is beautiful but headstrong, and Hurry visits her often; Hetty is more humble, sweet-hearted, and dutiful, but does not possess great intelligence.

Chapter 2
Hurry and Deerslayer recover a canoe hidden in a hollow log. They paddle towards the first of Hutter’s two homes, which is facetiously known as Muskrat Castle. It stands a quarter mile offshore, a kind of fortress built on piles driven into a long, narrow shoal. It is relatively safe, since no one can attack it except by boat, and any attacker would be under merciless fire from Hutter’s well-stocked armory. When they arrive at the castle, they find it empty. Deerslayer has a good look round, examining every aspect of the interior.

Chapter 3
The two men now paddle in search of Hutter’s second home, which is a floating barge called the ark. At one point, Hurry goes ashore and shoots at and misses a deer. Deerslayer reproaches him for his lack of prudence, since the sound of the rifle may alert enemy Indians to their presence. They finally discover the ark concealed in bushes at the source of the Susquehanna River, at the southern end of the lake.

Chapter 4
Hurry leaps onto the ark and starts talking to Judith. Deerslayer climbs aboard more cautiously, and soon notes the presence of Hetty, who is sitting down doing needlework. Hutter realizes that his ark is in a vulnerable position and may be in imminent danger of attack by Indians. With the help of Hurry and Deerslayer, he pulls the ark upstream, using a rope attached to an anchor. As they reach the entrance to Glimmerglass, a band of six Indians in an overhanging tree prepares to leap onto the ark as it passes underneath them. More Indian warriors wait to follow them. But after the attackers make their leap, five fall into the water. Only the first manages to jump onto the ark, and he is immediately pushed overboard by Judith, who has rushed out of her cabin. The ark moves to safety on the open lake.

Chapter 5
Hutter outlines a plan to go on the offensive. He wants to scalp the Indian women and children that he knows are nearby in a hunting party so he can receive the bounty offered for scalps by the colony. Hurry agrees with the idea, but Deerslayer opposes it, saying it does not conform to his religion; Indians practice scalping, but white men do not. He offers to stay behind to protect the women. As Hetty talks to her father, it transpires that Judith does not like Hurry, in spite of his obvious interest in her. On the contrary, Judith shows by the attention she pays to Deerslayer that she is far more attracted to the younger man. She tells him that he is the first man she has met whom she did not regard as an enemy in disguise.

Chapter 6
Hutter, Hurry, and Deerslayer return to Muskrat Castle. Hutter suggests they will enhance their safety if they can collect two more canoes that are hidden in logs on the shore, thus depriving the Indians of the means to approach the castle. At midnight they go ashore in a canoe, locate the canoes and put them in the water so that they drift slowly up the lake, to be collected later. Then, as they paddle their canoe along the south shore of the lake, they locate an Indian encampment. They decide it is not a warriors’ encampment and that there will be plenty of women and children there. Hurry and Hutter go ashore in search of scalps, while Deerslayer waits in the canoe to collect them when the expedition is over. But their plans go awry. Hutter and Hurry are captured by Indians, and as Deerslayer, alerted by the sound of a shriek, approaches in the canoe, Hutter tells him to return to the castle to guard the girls.

Chapter 7
After having slept all night in his canoe, Deerslayer collects one canoe and then goes to collect the other, which has drifted ashore. As he approaches the shore, an Indian shoots at him. Deerslayer is unhurt, makes it to the shore, and goes into the bushes. He sees his enemy reloading his rifle and has a chance to shoot him, but he feels this would be unchivalrous, since the man is at a disadvantage. He waits until he can confront the Indian directly on the shore. They talk to each other and appear to have reached an amicable solution, in which the Indian seems to accept that the canoes belong to white men not Indians. The Indian walks away, and Deerslayer is beginning to push the canoe when he sees the Indian preparing to fire at him from behind a bush. Deerslayer readies his rifle and they both fire simultaneously. The Indian is mortally wounded. Deerslayer refuses to scalp the dying man and treats him with respect. The Indian gives Deerslayer a new name, Hawkeye. As Deerslayer paddles out to the drifting canoe, he finds an unarmed Indian in it who is trying to take it to the shore. Deerslayer lets him escape unharmed.

Chapter 8
Back in the castle the following morning, Deerslayer informs Judith and Hetty of what happened. Judith is not too alarmed, as she expects the Indians to release their prisoners unharmed in exchange for a ransom of animal skins or gunpowder. She also continues to show her high regard for Deerslayer. Later that day, Deerslayer and the two girls leave the castle in the ark. Deerslayer has an appointment to meet an Indian friend of his at a large rock near the shore at sunset. The Indian is Chingachgook, a young Delaware chief, whose betrothed, Wah-ta!-Wah, has been abducted by another tribe of Indians, the Hurons. Deerslayer steers the ark in a zigzag fashion so as to confuse the Hurons (often referred to as Mingoes), who are tracking their journey from the shore.

Chapter 9
They arrive at the rock, and Deerslayer hopes he has deceived the Hurons as to his destination. Chingachgook is waiting for them, but as soon as he jumps aboard the ark, twenty hostile Indians leap from the trees and wade into the water, intending to board the ark. Deerslayer and Chingachgook pull hard and take the ark several hundred yards from the shore, leaving the Indians behind. Chingachgook informs them that Hutter and Hurry have not been harmed by their captors, although he also tells Deerslayer that they will be scalped the next day. After Judith says she will offer her finest clothes as ransom, Chingachgook confirms that Wah-ta!-Wah is also being held in the same Indian camp. As the three talk together, Judith feels that she has known Deerslayer for a year rather than a day. She has a confidence in him that she has never felt for another man. All three are then surprised to see a canoe in the water. It is occupied by Hetty, who has set off on a mission of her own to rescue Hurry, with whom she is infatuated, and her father. Deerslayer and the others are deeply concerned, since they fear the canoe will fall into enemy hands and give them the means to attack the castle. They try but fail to stop Hetty.

Chapter 10
Hetty goes ashore and sets the canoe adrift. Deerslayer finds it and secures it to the ark. They locate Hetty on the shore. The simple-minded girl says she plans to go to the Indians and tell them that if they kill her father... » Complete The Deerslayer Summary