Frontiersman Daniel Boone and the making of America

Meredith Mason Brown, 1940-

Book - 2008

Supported with copious maps, illustrations, endnotes, and a detailed chronology of Boone's life, Frontiersman provides a fresh and accurate rendering of a man most people know only as a folk hero-- and of the nation that has mythologized him for over two centuries.

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BIOGRAPHY/Boone, Daniel
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Subjects
Published
Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press c2008.
Language
English
Main Author
Meredith Mason Brown, 1940- (-)
Physical Description
xxii, 375 p., [22] p. of plates : ill., maps, ports. ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780807133569
  • Preface
  • Chronology
  • 1. Old Boone
  • 2. Quakers in Pennsylvania, Settlers in Backcountry North Carolina
  • 3. Braddock's Defeat: How Not to Fight Indians
  • 4. A Good Wife
  • 5. Long Hunts
  • 6. Boone's First Hunts in Kentucky
  • 7. Boone Begins to Open the Wilderness: The First Attempt to Settle Kentucky
  • 8. Transylvania, the Wilderness Road, and the Building of Boonesborough
  • 9. Dark and Bloody Ground: An Introduction to Kentucky during the Revolutionary War
  • 10. The Capture and Rescue of the Girls
  • 11. The Shawnees Capture Boone
  • 12. Boone among the Shawnees
  • 13. The Siege of Boonesborough
  • 14. Indian Raids and the Battle of the Blue Licks
  • 15. Whites and Indians
  • 16. Trading and Land Speculation: Master of All He Surveyed?
  • 17. Living Legend, Shrinking Fortune
  • 18. Out to Missouri
  • 19. Boone in Missouri
  • 20. Last Days
  • 21. Life after Death
  • 22. Coda
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Bibliographical Note
  • Index
Review by Choice Review

It is no doubt Daniel Boone's iconic status that brings yet another biography of him, the third in the last 16 years. Brown's work joins John Faragher (Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer, CH, May'93, 30-5205) and Michael Lofaro's editions (e.g., Daniel Boone: An American Life, CH, Apr'04, 41-4861) in essaying the impact of Boone as nation builder and classic American protohero. None, unfortunately, can resist the seduction of Lyman Draper's vast collections, falling prey time and again to tales dependent on the fragile memories of aged frontier folk who claimed to have known the legendary frontiersman or to have known someone who knew him. Consequently, there are some stories that stretch one's credulity. Attorney Brown seems particularly tempted in that direction, especially if there is some gory scene to relate. The result is more often a Kentucky tall tale of Boone's exploits than the straightforward biography one would want. If authors could steer past the Scylla and Charybdis of Draper's The Life of Boone (1998) and the mountain of reminiscences in his various frontier incunabula, choosing instead the documented episodes of Boone's life in North Carolina, Kentucky, and Missouri, there would still be adventure aplenty within the parameters of his life. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers. J. H. O'Donnell III Marietta College

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review

Long before his death in 1820 at the age of 85, the exploits, both real and exaggerated, of Daniel Boone were embedded in our national lore. As this well-researched biography reveals, the reality of Boone's achievements and the strength of his character still make him an important and admirable historical figure. Brown dispenses with much of the popular mythology surrounding Boone: he was no illiterate bumpkin, as his letters prove. Although several family members had been killed in Indian attacks, Boone himself usually interacted peacefully with Indians. Extolled as an American patriot and hero, Boone was rather comfortable as a British national prior to the Revolution. Boone was born into a Pennsylvania Quaker family. From an early age, he was an enthusiastic and skilled hunter. His wanderlust consistently placed him a step ahead of the mass of trans-Appalachian settlers, leading him from Kentucky to Missouri. Yet Boone was a devoted family man, rarely skirting family or communal responsibilities. This is an easily digestible account.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2008 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

This is the fourth biography of Boone since 1992--it's the most readable and balanced, and, because it benefits from those earlier studies, also the most complete and satisfying. Every biographer of Boone has to contend with the idolatry that grew up around the man when he was alive. But Brown, in his first book, steers clear of hero worship. He sees Boone whole, praising him where praise is warranted while scrupulously recording his failings--risking his family's lives, losing sons in battles with Indians, never succeeding as a land speculator. Yet Boone emerges again as a truly remarkable figure. Caught up in the Revolutionary War, the unending Indian warfare that followed and westward expansion, he managed to remain a loyal American while moving among the tribes whose ways he knew and, unlike so many others, respected. His legendary marksmanship and daring protected him and his followers for decades. Brown's Boone remains a larger-than-life figure: heroic without posturing, steadfast without foolishness, patriotic without Indian hatred. This is a book for those who seek an accurate, not pietistic, history of a way of life long past. 25 illus., 8 maps. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Good biographies of Daniel Boone abound, the recent ones being Michael Lofaro's Daniel Boone: An American Life and Robert Morgan's Boone: A Biography, so Brown, a lawyer whose ancestors knew Boone quite well, sees no need to tread familiar biographical territory. Instead, he explores Boone's role in transforming the United States from a collection of English Colonies on the Atlantic seaboard to a young republic that stretched to the Rocky Mountains and how Boone illustrates the fluidity and conflicting loyalties of the frontier. As part of this exploration, Brown examines Boone's complex relationships with American Indians and looks at Boone's work as a surveyor, pronouncing him competent, and showing how conflicting land claims and surveys made it almost impossible for Boone to realize anything but trouble from the land he acquired in Kentucky. By taking a different approach to Boone and carefully basing his judgments on primary sources, Brown has produced a well-written book that nicely complements the earlier biographies. Thus it belongs in most academic and public libraries.--Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.