Never a "poverty of materials"

It is difficult for me to understand how there could have been a "poverty of materials" for writers in 1820s America. As far there being a lack of history, one of the most fascinating aspects of this young country is the history that the early groups brought with them, and the subsequent blending of diverse backgrounds and ancestries to make something new--the very diversity which began, and continues to this day, to define the American identity?

Some of the other things Cooper mentions--no follies, no manners, no obscure fictions--seem to be aspects that are present wherever HUMANITY is present, certainly not only where there are "veins as rich as in Europe."