Natty Bumppo

Natty Bumppo
Leatherstocking Tales character
First appearance The Pioneers
Last appearance The Deerslayer
Created by James Fenimore Cooper
Information
Aliases Nathaniel Bumppo among many others
Gender Male
Occupation Scout, huntsman, explorer
Nationality Delaware (by upbringing), British Colonial American (in white society until US independence), American (from US independence to 1804)

Nathaniel "Natty" Bumppo is the protagonist of James Fenimore Cooper's pentalogy of novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales.

Fictional biography

Natty Bumppo, the child of white parents, grew up among Delaware Indians and was educated by Moravian Christians.[1][2] In adulthood, he is a near-fearless warrior skilled in many weapons; chiefly the long rifle. He is most often shown alongside his Mohican foster-brother Chingachgook.[3]

Novels

Bumppo is featured in a series of novels by James Fenimore Cooper collectively called the Leatherstocking Tales. The novels in the collection are as follows:

Publication
Date
Story
Dates
TitleSubtitle
1841
1744
The Deerslayer The First War Path
1826
1757
The Last of the Mohicans A Narrative of 1757
1840
1750s The Pathfinder The Inland Sea
1823
1793
The Pioneers The Sources of the Susquehanna; A Descriptive Tale
1827
1804
The Prairie A Tale

The tales recount significant events in Natty Bumppo's life from 1740 to 1806.[4]

Aliases

Before his appearance in The Deerslayer, Bumppo went by the aliases of "Straight-Tongue," "The Pigeon," and the "Lap-Ear." After buying his first rifle, he gained the name of "Deerslayer." He is subsequently known as "Hawkeye" and "La Longue Carabine" in The Last of the Mohicans, "Pathfinder" in The Pathfinder, "Leatherstocking" in The Pioneers, from which the collective title for all the novels is drawn, and "the trapper" in The Prairie.

Portrayal

Bumppo has been portrayed most often in adaptions of The Last of the Mohicans. He was portrayed by Harry Lorraine in the 1920 film version, by Harry Carey in the 1932 film serial version, by Randolph Scott in the 1936 film version, by Kenneth Ives in the 1971 BBC serial, by Steve Forrest in the 1977 TV movie and by Daniel Day-Lewis in the 1992 film version. Day-Lewis received a BAFTA Film Award nomination for Best Actor in 1993, won an Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actor in 1993, and won an ALFS Award for British Actor of the Year in 1993 for his interepretation of the character. In the 1992 film however the character's name is changed from Natty Bumppo to Nathaniel Poe.

Adaptions of The Deerslayer have seen Bumppo played by Emil Mamelok in the 1920 film The Deerslayer and Chingachgook, by Bruce Kellogg in the 1943 film, by Lex Barker in the 1957 film, and by Steve Forrest in the 1978 TV movie.

Adaptions of The Pathfinder have seen Bumppo played by Paul Massie in the 1973 5-part BBC mini-series and Kevin Dillon in the 1996 TV movie.

Additionally he was portrayed by George Montgomery in the 1950 movie The Iroquois Trail, by John Hart in the 1957 TV series Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans, by Hellmut Lange in the 1969 German TV series Die Lederstrumpferzählungen, by Cliff DeYoung in the 1984 PBS mini-series The Leatherstocking Tales (which compressed The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans and The Pathfinder into four episodes), and by Lee Horsley in the 1994 TV series Hawkeye.

1989 Soviet postage stamp series on The Leatherstocking Tales

Notes

  1. The Deerslayer: Critical Essays: Cooper's Indians, The Deerslayer Cliffsnotes.com
  2. Natty Bumppo (fictional character), Encyclopædia Britannica online
  3. http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/hsh/Whitec/LITR/4232/research/critics/mohicansassgn.htm
  4. James Fenimore Cooper Society's online plot summaries of the chronologically first (The Deerslayer) and last (The Prairie) novels, indicating the initial and final years of the Leatherstocking saga.
  5. "University of Iowa Official Athletic Site Traditions". Hawkeyesports.com. Retrieved 2012-09-07.

Further reading

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