James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the first half of the 19th century. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a unique form of American literature. The Deerslayer was the last of Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales to be written, however, it is considered to be the prequel to the rest of the series. This novel introduces Natty Bumppo as "Deerslayer": a young frontiersman in early 18th-century New York, who objects to the practice of taking scalps, on grounds that every living thing should follow "the gifts" of its nature.