Heritage History Month Day Eighteen: Daniel Boone

Happy Daniel Boone Day!

Day Eighteen of Heritage History month has us back on the American frontier and in celebration of America’s folk heroes. Daniel Boone embodies the spirit of America’s original impulse for discovery, adventure, and taming the frontier. Being that he embodies the spirit of the frontiersman in early American history, Boone often functions as a folklore figure who absorbs so many tales and stories of the heroic nature of early American expansion.

Boone had a spirit more for escapades and experiences than he did for book learning. This is an under appreciated aspect of pre-twentieth century masculinity. While we often stress the importance of literacy and formal education, we forget the dangers of a culture full only of head knowledge, and no spirit of conquest. According to folklore tradition, when a schoolteacher confronted Boone’s father about his disinterest in the classroom, he was told: “Let the girls do the spelling and Dan will do the shooting.” Based.

This isn’t to say that Boone had no role for reading; his biographer John Faragher relates that Boone often did take reading material with him on expeditions; his favorites being Gulliver’s Travels and the Bible.

Boone’s primary area of exploration and trail-blazing was Kentucky, then the very edge of the civilized American continent. He was a skilled hunter and a man of keen sense of the wild; he was also someone able to interact productively with the Indians he met along the way. Boone had a sense of respect for the Indians; not in a dreamy Leftist sense, but rather in the sense that clashing civilizations can look at the enemy with honor and opportunity. As such he was able to make peace with some, become an ambassador to others, and deal with the realities of their often irrational savagery when in one experience his own son was captured, tortured, and killed.

Boone did lend his services to the American Revolution, participating as a fighter in key battles against the British. After the war however, he was characteristically uninterested in the creation and development of America’s political institutions, preferring instead to do what he was born to do: explore, hunt, discover, and settle the West.

Boone did try, from time to time, to participate in the land-deals managed by the government. Many of his land claims proved to be unproductive and his debts were unable to be met. In a spirit of detachment over the banalities of legal problems, Boone simply ignored the bankruptcy process that developed over his lands. Finally, a warrant was issued for his arrest as he simply didn’t show up to a court case. The sheriff never found him; as he was the master of the wilderness.

It’s hard to summarize Boone’s other accomplishments as trailblazer, captain of militias, friend and foe of Indians, father of 10, and conquerer of lands. Boone is an American hero and we should remember him in an era of mass boredom, emasculation, and technological passivity.