The story takes place on the rapidly advancing frontier of New York State and features an elderly Leatherstocking (Natty Bumppo), Judge Marmaduke Temple of Templeton (whose life parallels that of the author's father Judge William Cooper), and Elizabeth Temple (based on the author's sister, Hannah Cooper), daughter of the fictional Templeton.

The Pioneers was the first novel of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales series, featuring the character Natty Bumppo, a resourceful white American living in the woods.

The story takes place in the fictional town of Тempleton, which is said to be modeled after Cooperstown, New York, founded by Cooper's father after the Revolutionary War.

Based on a reading of The Pioneers, The British Magazine dubbed Cooper the best and most original of all US authors, but nevertheless charged him with copying the style of Sir Walter Scott.

John Neal in American Writers (1824–25) critiqued the novel's character traits as repetitive but nevertheless praised Bumppo as true to life.