1827

THE PRAIRIE

by James Fenimore Cooper

Author's Introduction

The geological formation of that portion of the American Union which lies between the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, has given rise to many ingenious theories. Virtually, the whole of this immense region is a plain. For a distance extending nearly 1500 miles east and west, and 600 north and south, there is scarcely an elevation worthy to be called a mountain. Even hills are not common; though a good deal of the face of the country has moreor less of that "rolling" character, which is described in the opening pagesof this work.

There is much reason to believe, that the territory which now composes Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and a large portion of the country west of the Mississippi, lay formerly under water. The soil of all the former states has the appearance of an alluvial deposit; and isolated rocks have been found, of a nature and in situations which render it difficult to refute the opinion that they have been transferred to their present beds by floating ice. This theory assumes that the Great Lakes were the deep pools of one immense body of fresh water, which lay too low to be drained by the irruption that laid bare the land.

It will be remembered that the French, when masters of the Canadas and Louisiana, claimed the whole of the territory in question. Their hunters andadvanced troops held the first communications with the savage occupants, andthe earliest written accounts we possess of these vast regions are from the pens of their missionaries. Many French words have, consequently, become of local use in this quarter of America, and not a few names given in that language have been perpetuated. When the adventurers, who first penetrated these wilds, met, in the centre of the forests, immense plains covered with rich verdure or rank grasses, they naturally gave them the appellation of meadows. As the English succeeded the French, and found a peculiarity of nature differing from all they had yet seen on the continent, already distinguished by a word that did not express anything in their own language,they left these natural meadows in possession of their title of convention. In this manner has the word "Prairie" been adopted into the English tongue.

The American prairies are of two kinds. Those which lie east of the Mississippi are comparatively small, are exceedingly fertile, and are alwayssurrounded by forests. They are susceptible of high cultivation, and are fast becoming settled. They abound in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana.They labor under the disadvantages of a scarcity of wood and water,- evils of a serious character, until art has had time to supply the deficiencies ofnature. As coal is said to abound in all that region, and wells are generally successful, the enterprise of the emigrants is gradually prevailing against these difficulties.

The second description of these natural meadows lies west of the Mississippi, at a distance of a few hundred miles from that river, and is called the Great Prairies. They resemble the steppes of Tartary more than any other known portion of the world; being, in fact, a vast country, incapable of sustaining a dense population, in the absence of the two great necessaries already named. Rivers abound, it is true; but this region is nearly destitute of brooks and the smaller water courses, which tend so muchto comfort and fertility.

The origin and date of the Great American Prairies form one of nature's most majestic mysteries. The general character of the United States, of the Canadas, and of Mexico, is that of luxuriant fertility. It would be difficult to find another portion of the world, of the same extent, which has so little useless land as the inhabited parts of the American Union. Most of the mountains are arable and even the prairies, in this section of the republic, are of deep alluvion. The same is true between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific. Between the two lies the broad belt of comparative desert, which is the scene of this tale, appearing to interpose a barrier to the progress of the American people westward. Since the original publication of this book, however, the boundaries of the republic have been carried to the Pacific, and the "settler," preceded by the "trapper," has already established himself on the shores of that vast sea.

The Great Prairies appear to be the final gathering-place of the red men. The remnants of the Mohicans and the Delawares, of the Creeks, Choctaws, andCherokees, are destined to fulfil their time on these vast plains. The entire number of the Indians within the Union is differently computed, at between one and five hundred thousand souls. Most of them inhabit the country west of the Mississippi. At the period of the tale, they dwelt in open hostility; national feuds passing from generation to generation. The power of the republic has done much to restore peace to these wild scenes, and it is now possible to travel in security, where civilized man did not dare to pass unprotected five-and-twenty years ago.

Recent events have brought the Grand Prairies into familiar notice, and wenow read of journeys across them as, half a century since, we perused the narratives of the emigrants to Ohio and Louisiana. It is a singular commentary on the times that places for railroads across these vast plains are in active discussion, and that men have ceased to regard the project as chimerical.

This book closes the career of Leather-stocking. Pressed upon by time, he has ceased to be the hunter and the warrior, and has become a trapper of thegreat West. The sound of the axe has driven him from his beloved forests to seek a refuge, by a species of desperate resignation, on the denuded plains that stretch to the Rocky Mountains. Here he passes the few closing years ofhis life, dying as he had lived, a philosopher of the wilderness, with a fewof the failings, none of the vices, and all the nature and truth of his position.

Chapter one

"I pray thee, shepherd, if that love, or gold,

Can in this desert place buy entertainment,

Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed."

AS YOU LIKE IT.