Like some of you also stuck indoors against you’re choosing, I’ve enjoyed the extra reading time I’ve had on my hands. One thing I find nice is the chance to pull books from the shelves that I’ve normally ignored. This one actually comes from my mom’s shelf, and it may thus be a book I’ve ignored since birth.

Daniel Boone is not a man I’d been very familiar with. Frontiersman. Friend of Lewis and Clark? Killed a bear with his bear hands?? No idea. So in picking up this Boy Scouts book tagged with “Junior Deluxe Edition,” I figured I was in for a child-friendly overview of the man’s life. In fact, I even began by reading this book to my kids (ages 7 and 9), but they pretty quickly lost interest. The 254-page book went deeper than I expected and the themes it discussed were geared towards kids a few years older than mine, and I’m glad for it, because It was a history lesson I’d never heard.

I recently wrote a paper on “trigger warnings in universities” and, while I don’t agree with their general premise, I do recognize the kindness of giving fair warning to readers who might be easily offended by politically incorrect language. Anyone expecting a 1920s book about Native Americans to be politically correct, however, is just looking for something to complain about. This book calls Indians “Savages” and describes their character in many negative ways. Such things are to be expected, though, not because that’s the reality of the world but because that’s the reality of how white authors thought a century ago. Either we can respond today by burning books like these in order expunge these ideas from history or we can read them, enjoy them, and learn from them in a discerning way. I prefer the latter.

Stewart Edward White doesn’t outright condemn the native peoples as ignorant savages, but instead describes Native American tribes and several individuals in honorable ways, often with a sense of deep respect. In several passages, the author emphasizes their expert abilities in woodcraft, their skillful oratory, their spirituality, their loyalty and their friendship. He also names, however, four terrible traits of the early peoples which he says caused all the trouble: “cruelty, love of liquor, [and] a capacity for hatred and revenge that equaled their capacity for friendship and loyalty.” He also named three “minor faults” that weakened their ability to band together against the invaders: “an inability to do long-continued teamwork, a tough pride, [and] ungovernable rages” (82). The question isn’t whether readers in 2020 agree with this assessment, but how this helps us understand the mindset of someone like Daniel Boone.

Born in 1734 (and thus a contemporary of George Washington), Boone like most boys of that era learned his woodcraft skills early on. With a thirst for adventure and for going where no man had gone before, he pursued opportunities that would allow him to explore the as-of-yet-unexplored region of Kentucky and all that lay west of the mountains. I enjoyed reading about his earliest ventures into that land, where he and some fellow trappers set up a home-base and would then spend days or weeks exploring the region beyond, in order to bring their trappings back for sale in the East. Attack from the wandering bands of Indians was an ever-present danger, though, and not everyone survived.

Eventually, Boone’s experiences drew the attention of Lord Dunmore, the wealthy Governor of Virginia who represented a number of other financiers who desired to expand their influence into this untouched territory. Boone led a group of men in Kentucky, cutting a small trail and eventually building a settlement named Boonesborough. The author’s description of this wooden structure set my imagination reeling. I adore watching survival shows, learning about shelters and methods of finding food. This section was especially enjoyable.

The book continues through Boone’s experiences, leading that rough band of men through to the period of bringing his family to settle with him. There’s a whole chapter about how he got kidnapped by a tribe and proved himself so courageous that he was actually adopted into the family for four months, until he escaped in a wily fashion, an act which ultimately brought a nine-day siege against his settlement. His Indian family apparently reserved their respect for Boone, despite the deceit and the war, simply because of the loyalty he showed in taking care of his own.

Boone eventually reunited with his family but lost certain members to attack. He continued his leadership but, on a number of occasions, lost all title to the land which he had settled. He grew to strongly dislike the Suits in Washington that could destroy a man’s dreams with a flick of a pen, so Boone had quite a lot more in common with the Early Nations than we might first assume!

Boone lived to 86, all the while seeking new areas for trapping and new frontiers to explore. He was a man of few written words but of a million stories. People would visit from miles around just to hear his tales, and thankfully, some of them wrote his stories down. One of my favorite lines from the book recalls one of these writers’ conversation with him. “I asked him,” writes Chester Harding, “if he never got lost in his long wanderings after game. He said, ‘No, I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days‘” (252).

The author opens and closes this book with a question about why we remember Daniel Boone so fondly. Other frontiersmen had similar stories and accomplished similar feats. “But Daniel Boone was reverent in the belief that he was ordained by God to open the wilderness,” and he was a man characterized by “calmness and serenity” (6). What set him apart from all the rest was character (254), a trademark goal for Boy Scouts since their founding.

“f the Boy Scouts would know a man who in his attitude toward the life to which he was called most nearly embodied the precepts of their laws let them look on Daniel Boone. Gentle, kindly, modest, peace-loving, absolutely fearless, a master of Indian warfare, a mighty hunter, strong as a bear and active as a panther, his life was lived in daily danger, almost perpetual hardship and exposure; yet he died in his bed at nearly ninety years of age (7).

I enjoyed this foray into the early 19th century. If you’re looking for a nice fire-side book during this quarantine, here’s a satisfying one.

©2020 E.T.

Read More on Wilderness Exploration:

• The Scalp Hunters by Captain Thomas Mayne Reid (1860)
• Away in the Wilderness by R.M. Ballantyne (1863)
• Love of Life and Other Stories by Jack London (1907)
• Daniel Boone: Wilderness Scout by Stewart Edward White (1921)
• Journal of a Trapper by Osborne Russell (1921)
• Trails Plowed Under by Charles M. Russell (1927)
• The Man in the Wilderness by Jack DeWitt (1971)
• Centennial by James Michener (1974)
• Blood and Treasure by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin (2021)