Paradigmi di stewardship: da The Pioneers di James Fenimore Cooper a Black Hawk

The essay contends that there are aspects to the clash between nature and the European expansion that can be better highlighted by placing Pioneers more firmly in the frame of ecocriticism. In order to do so the essay resorts to the notion of environmental “stewardship,” or responsibility showing that The Pioneers represents three options: Natty Bumppo’s, the inhabitants’ and Temple’s. By positing a triangular relationship, Pioneers stages Temple as the representative of the capitalist exploitation of natural resources. Temple’s position becomes clear when Pioneers is compared to the memoir of Black Hawk. In his narrative, stewardship emerges as the link that connects the chief to rootedness in place through society and history