Satanstoe (Large type / large print)

Yesterday I finished a first reading of SATANSTOE, James Fenimore Cooper's 1845 novel of New York in 1757-58. I then re-read for the first time in a year related commentary in Professor George Dekker's JAMES FENIMORE COOPER: THE AMERICAN SCOTT (1967). Having already decided to rate SATANSTOE one of my rare * * * * * (Five Stars), despite its being so little read these days, to my pleasant surprise I then read in Dekker:

"... SATANSTOE may well be Cooper's best, as it is certainly his most mature and finished, novel." (p. 227).

The novel begins not long after the events of Cooper's THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS and French General Montcalm's August 1757 capture of Fort William Henry. By July 1758 the British will have assembled a fighting force of 16,000 soldiers, the largest yet mounted in North America, to assault Montcalm with one third their number at Fort Ticonderoga. Once again the French are victorious.

Onto this stage in the world-historical French and Indian War (1754?1763) step the novel's most notable young characters:

Cornelius ("Corny") Littlepage (20) smitten by Anne ("Anneke") Mordaunt (17) along with his Albany Dutch friend Duerck Ten Eyck (24) who proposes over and over to Anneke's best friend Mary Wallace (19).

SATANSTOE is the name of the thriving Littlepage estate in southern New York. The novel is a family generational narrative genre: first in a trilogy that will carry into the 1840s. That dynasty takes shape with the October 1758 wedding of Corny and Anneke at novel's end. Corny himself narrates this tale. And from his point of view this happy ending was anything but a sure thing before General Abercrombie's defeat at Ticonderoga in July 1758. A subsequent Indian attack on the wilderness property of Anneke's father, only 40 miles away, allows young Cornelius Littlepage to perform the clinching "protection" of his sweetheart.

SATANSTOE is a courtship novel. And the coming together of the future Littlemores moves through four stages:

-- It is 1751. Corny Littlepage is 14 and en route through York City to enroll in the the future Princeton college in New Jersey. During the annual Pentecost (Pinkster) celebrations by the town's blacks, he and two slaves walk late one morning out a mile or so along the Bowery Road to witness the entry by carriage of the rich Patroon of Albany. There are some high class girls nearby. Littlepage heard one girl name her friend, a pretty eleven year old, " Anneke" and he offered her an apple. A passing butcher boy deliberately knocked that fruit from her hand and made her cry. Corny then poked the offender in the ribs. They fought with their fists despite Anneke's protests. Corny won. Anneke disappeared. Corny did not learn her family name.

-- Six years pass. It is 1757. Corny has graduated from college and is back in York City for another Pinkster. A friend introduces him to Anneke Mordaunt, who remembers the six year old "protection." A party of young people visits a showman's caged lion. The beast's paw catches in Anneke's red shawl and draws her to the bars. Young Littlepage wrests her free.

-- In the following winter during a long day's sleigh-ride on the Hudson, Cornelius Littlepage once again rescues Anne Mordaunt when the ice begins breaking up after a heavy rain. By all accounts, this ice adventure is one of Cooper's grandest episodes.

-- Finally, in July 1858 Corny and some friends are surveying property newly acquired by their elders in northern New York. As volunteers, Corny, Duerck Ten Eyck, friends and slaves, join the British army sailing against Fort TIconderoga and after defeat retreat to their own wilderness property near that of the Mordaunts. Forty or more Huron Indians then attack the rising forest village and Corny once again protects Anneke.

Anne Mordaunt attracts suitors, most notably a distantly related multi-talented Major Bulstrode, a baronet's oldest son. At home in England Bulstrode had assumed that only Duchesses could be as beautiful as Anneke. He must have this American girl! Other characters include a no better than he has to be English clergyman, a bumptious Puritan school teacher from nearby Connecticut and a perceptive, cross-culturally adept Onandago Indian named Susquesus or Crooked Turns. Susquesus takes Corny in tow and teaches him wilderness lore.

Bottom line: SATANSTOE is a simple love story that bears up gracefully under more weight than you might expect: Dutch-English relationships in colonial New York, colonials beginning to gain mental independence from English manners and prejudices, French versus British, Indians taking sides in Europe's quarrels and black slaves managing while taking affectionate care of indulgent white masters. Something is here for every reader. -OOO-