At the same time, he established the genre of the Western, initiated the formula of repackaging the same mythic hero in a series of adventure tales, and invented phrases that still define regions of the country. “Hawkeye,” which became the moniker of the state of Iowa after a Cooper descendant settled there, comes from the sobriquet for Natty Bumppo, who was called Hawkeye in The Last of the Mohicans because he could hunt like an Indian and see like a hawk. In each Leatherstocking Tale, Cooper grappled with democratic ideals by developing the bond between Natty and his Indian friends, especially Chingachgook (pronounced Chingach-gook).

When Cooper wrote The Pathfinder, he assumed that his readers were already familiar with the characters of Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook. It is thus helpful to summarize some of the central themes that link The Pathfinder to the first three published novels in the series. Most important, Cooper wanted Leatherstocking and Chingachgook to be read as personifications of American ideals. In his preface to the 1850 edition of the collected Leatherstocking Tales, he acknowledged that Natty is “removed from the every-day inducements to err, which abound in civilized life.” But the ideal of equality, which defined Natty and Chingachgook’s friendship, could only occur on a frontier: “equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state,” Cooper stated. “In practice, it can only mean a common misery.” In the frontier wilderness of a distant past, equality was possible. Such a setting stood apart from American civilization and was part of God’s home, as Cooper summarized:

[Natty] sees God in the forest; hears him in the winds; bows to him in the firmament that o’ercanopies all; submits to his sway in a humble belief of his justice and mercy; in a word, [Natty is] a being who finds the impress of the Deity in all the works of nature.

Cooper called Natty and Chingachgook the “beau-ideal” of their respective races, much as the Declaration of Independence was the beau ideal of the new nation. Both ideals affirmed “the laws of nature and of nature’s God”—the very basis for declaring independence and the code by which Natty and Chingachgook live.

By setting his Indian-white friendships in a distant past, Cooper explained to his fellow white citizens how a diverse, multiracial society became a white man’s nation. This transformation from a primitive past into a white present was God’s doing. Like most of his white countrymen, Cooper believed in a providential and cyclical view of history: a savage state inexorably gave way to white civilization, which would eventually get corrupted, resulting in the dissolution of civilization and an eventual return to savagery. And since God was the architect of history, no one was to blame for the transition from a red to white America.

Natty’s name suggests an archetypal white American man. Cooper called it an “uncouth appellation” because it conveyed his plebian origins; but it also evolved over time, as his character and the nation changed. Both Natty and Cooper declared that a name should signify a person’s character; and significantly, the new, uncouth “nation” is virtually contained in “Nathaniel,” Natty’s Christian name. But Natty never embodies the new nation, much as “nation” is not entirely contained in his name. He remains on the frontier with his Indian friends, and abandons Nathaniel for names that more aptly fit his character. As a young boy, he is by turns Straight-Tongue for honesty, Pigeon for swiftness of foot, and Lap-ear for his houndlike sagacity at finding game. On reaching manhood, he is Deerslayer for his skills as a hunter, then Hawkeye. He is called Pathfinder for his ability to lead whites to safety, which facilitates the creation of a white republic. And finally, as an old man, he is the Trapper—a trapper of furs, trapped within an old body, and entrapped by the expansion of civilization.

Throughout all five Leatherstocking Tales, Natty is antibourgeois, disdaining social ambition and material wealth. Balzac aptly captured Natty’s character when he said that he is “a magnificent moral hermaphrodite, born of the savage state and of civilization, who will live as long as literatures last.” Natty feels out of place in white civilization, which all too often spawns vanity, pride, and ignorance of God: “That towns and settlements lead to sin, I will allow, but our lakes are bordered by the forests, and one is every day called upon to worship God, in such a temple,” he tells Charles Cap in The Pathfinder . In the wilderness, “we know our callings, and they are what I consider nat’ral callings, and are not parvarted [perverted] by vanity and wantonness.” He fears material progress because it threatens God’s temple of nature: “the things they call improvements and betterments are undermining and defacing the land! The glorious works of God are daily cut down and destroyed, and the hand of man seems to be upraised in contempt of his mighty will.” Such progress is sinful because “God is unchanged—his works are unchanged—his holy word is unchanged—and all that ought to bless and honor his name should be unchanged too!”

Chingachgook’s name also signifies his character. It means “Big Sarpent,” owing to his wisdom and “cunning that becomes a warrior.” It is a name “fit for a chief,” as Natty says in The Pathfinder, and Chingachgook is the chief and sole survivor of the noble tribe of Mohicans, also known as the Delawares. But his name also suggests the serpent in Genesis, and in this sense, he is the embodiment of sin, since Americans frequently characterized the serpent as black or Indian. Natty acknowledges this association: “I am naturally averse to sarpents, and I hate even the word, which the missionaries tell me comes from human natur’, on account of a sartain sarpent at the creation of the ’arth, that outwitted the first woman,” he says in The Pioneers. But since Chingachgook abides by the God of nature and nature’s God, he keeps his depravity in check. “Chingachgook” suggests to Natty the sound of God in nature, not sin: “ever since Chingachgook has ’arned the title he bears, why the sound is as pleasant to my ears as the whistle of the whip-poor-will, of a calm evening.”

Natty and Chingachgook become friends while young boys. This crucial moment of racial reconciliation is only briefly mentioned; it occurs as part of the prehistory of the Leatherstocking Tales, before the story proper begins in 1740. An orphan, Natty leaves civilization at age twelve or thirteen, begins living with the Delawares and hunting with Chingachgook (who is his age), and becomes an “honorary member” of the tribe. He follows the Delaware custom of treating the Iroquois, or “Mingos,” and their allies—the Tuscarora, Huron, and French during the Seven Years War (when The Pathfinder is set)—as separate races who cannot be trusted.