Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky
little drop of your milk to let our warriors see that it came from your
own breast. We were born and raised in the woods. We could never learn
to make rum. God has made the white men masters of the world."
Having finished his speech, Piankashaw presented Mr. Dalton with three
strings of blue and white wampum as the seal of peace. All must observe
the strain of despondency which pervades this address, and it is
melancholy to notice the imploring tones with which the chief asks for
rum, the greatest curse which ever afflicted his people.
The incessant petty warfare waged between vagrant bands of the whites
and the Indians, with the outrages perpetrated on either side, created
great exasperation. In the year 1784 there were many indications that
the Indians were again about to combine in an attack upon the
settlements. These stations were widely scattered, greatly exposed, and
there were many of them. It was impossible for the pioneers to rally in
sufficient strength to protect every position. The savages, emerging
unexpectedly from the wilderness, could select their own point of
attack, and could thus cause a vast amount of loss and misery. For a
long time it had been unsafe for any individual, or even small parties,
unless very thoroughly armed, to wander beyond the protection of the
forts. Under these circumstances, a convention was held of the leading
men of Kentucky at the Danville Station, to decide what measures to
adopt in view of the threatened invasion. It was quite certain that the
movement of the savages would be so sudden and impetuous that the
settlers would be compelled to rely mainly upon their own resources.
The great State of Virginia, of which Kentucky was but a frontier
portion, had become rich and powerful. But many weary leagues
intervened, leading through forests and over craggy mountains, between
the plains of these distant counties and Richmond, the capital of
Virginia. The convention at Danville discussed the question whether it
were not safer for them to anticipate the Indians, and immediately to
send an army for the destruction of their towns and crops north of the
Ohio. But here they were embarrassed by the consideration that they had
no legal power to make this movement, and that the whole question,
momentous as it was and demanding immediate action, must be referred to
the State Government, far away beyond the mountains. This involved long
delay, and it could hardly be expected that the members of the General
Court in their peaceful homes would fully sympathize with the
unprotected settlers in their exposure to the tomahawk and the scalping
knife.
Several conventions were held, and the question was earnestly discussed
whether the interests of Kentucky did not require her separation from
the Government of Virginia, and her organization as a self-governing
State. The men who had boldly ventured to seek new homes so far beyond
the limits of civilization were generally men of great force of
character and of political foresight. They had just emerged from the war
of the Revolution, during which all the most important questions of
civil polity had been thoroughly canvassed. Their meetings were
conducted with great dignity and calm deliberation.
On the twenty-third of May, 1785, the convention at Danville passed the
resolve with great unanimity that Kentucky ought to be separated from
Virginia, and received into the American Union, upon the same basis as
the other States. Still that they might not act upon a question of so
much importance without due deliberation, they referred the subject to
another convention to be assembled at Danville in August. This
convention reiterated the resolution of its predecessor; issued a
proclamation urging the people everywhere to organise for defence
against the Indians, and appointed a delegation of two members to
proceed to Richmond, and present their request for a separation to the
authorities there.
"The Legislature of Virginia was composed of men too wise not to see
that separation was inevitable. Separated from the parent State by
distance and by difficulties of communication, in those days most
formidable, they saw that Kentuckians would not long submit to be ruled
by those whose power was so far removed as to surround every approach to
it with the greatest embarrassment. It was, without its wrongs, and
tyranny and misgovernment, the repetition of the circumstances of the
Crown and Colonies; and with good judgment, and as the beautiful
language of the Danville convention expressed it, with sole intent to
bless its people, they agreed to a dismemberment of its part, to secure
the happiness of the whole."[F]
[Footnote F: Daniel Boone, by W. H. Bogart.]
It is not important here to enter into a detail of the various
discussions which ensued, and of the measures which were adopted. It is
sufficient to say that the communication from Kentucky to the
Legislature of Virginia was referred to the illustrious John Marshall,
then at the commencement of his distinguished career. He gave to the
request of the petitioners his own strong advocacy. The result was, that
a decree was passed after tedious delays, authorising the formal
separation of Kentucky from Virginia. On the fourth of February, 1791,
the new State, by earnest recommendation of George Washington, was
admitted into the American Union.
It does not appear that Colonel Boone was a member of any of these
conventions. He had no taste for the struggles in political assemblies.
He dreaded indeed the speculator, the land jobber, and the intricate
decisions of courts, more than the tomahawk of the Indian. And he knew
full well that should the hour of action come, he would be one of the
first to be summoned to the field. While therefore others of the early
pioneers were engaged in these important deliberations, he was quietly
pursuing those occupations, congenial to his tastes, of cultivating the
farm, or in hunting game in the solitude of the forests. His humble
cabin stood upon the banks of the Kentucky River, not far from the
station at Boonesborough. And thoroughly acquainted as he was with the
habits of the Indians, he felt quite able, in his bullet-proof citadel,
to protect himself from any marauding bands which might venture to show
themselves so near the fort.
It seems to be the lot of humanity that life should be composed of a
series of storms, rising one after another. In the palace and in the
cottage, in ancient days and at the present time, we find the sweep of
the inexorable law, that man is born to mourn.
"Sorrow is for the sons of men,
And weeping for earth's daughters."
The cloud of menaced Indian invasion had passed away, when suddenly the
sheriff appears in Boone's little cabin, and informs him that his title
to his land is disputed, and that legal proceedings were commenced
against him. Boone could not comprehend this. Kentucky he regarded
almost his own by the right of his discovery. He had led the way there.
He had established himself and family in the land, and had defended it
from the incursions of the Indians. And now, in his advancing years, to
be driven from the few acres he had selected and to which he supposed he
had a perfect title, seemed to him very unjust indeed. He could not
recognise any right in what seemed to him but the quibbles of the
lawyers. In his autobiography he wrote in reference to his many painful
adventures:
"My footsteps have often been marked with blood. Two darling sons and a
brother have I lost by savage hands, which have also taken from me forty
valuable horses and abundance of cattle. Many dark and sleepless nights
have I been a companion for owls, separated from the cheerful society of
men, scorched by the summer's sun, and pinched by the winter's cold, an
instrument ordained to settle the wilderness."
Agitated by the thought of the loss of his farm and deeply wounded in
his feelings, as though a great wrong had been inflicted upon him, Boone
addressed an earnest memorial to the Legislature of Kentucky. In this he
stated that immediately after the troubles with the Indians had ceased,
he located himself upon lands to which he supposed he had a perfect
title; that he reared his house and commenced cultivating his fields.
And after briefly enumerating the sacrifices he had made in exploring,
settling and defending Kentucky, he said he could not understand the
justice of making a set of complicated forms of law, superior to his
actual occupancy of the land selected, as he believed when and where it
was, it was his unquestioned right to do so.
But the lawyers and the land speculators were too shrewd for the
pioneer. Colonel Boone was sued; the question went to the courts which
he detested, and Boone lost his farm. It was indeed a very hard case. He
had penetrated the country when no other white man trod its soil. He
discovered its wonderful resources, and proclaimed them to the world. He
had guided settlers into the region, and by his sagacity and courage,
had provided for their wants and protected them from the savage. And now
in his declining years he found himself driven from his farm, robbed of
every acre, a houseless, homeless, impoverished man. The deed was so
cruel that thousands since, in reading the recital, have been agitated
by the strongest emotions of indignation and grief.
CHAPTER XII.
_Adventures Romantic and Perilous._
The Search for the Horse.--Navigating the Ohio.--Heroism of Mrs.
Rowan.--Lawless Gangs.--Exchange of Prisoners.--Boone Revisits the
Home of his Childhood.--The Realms beyond the Mississippi.--Habits
of the Hunters.--Corn.--Boone's Journey to the West.
The Indians still continued hostile. The following incident gives one an
idea of the nature of the conflict which continued, and of the perils
which were encountered.
There was a striving station where a few settlers were collected, at a
spot now called State Creek Iron Works. One or two farm-houses were
scattered around, but at such a short distance from the fort that their
inmates could at once take refuge behind its log walls, in case of
alarm. In the month of August, 1786, a young man residing in the fort,
by the name of Yates, called at one of these farm-houses and requested a
lad, Francis Downing, to accompany him in search of a horse, which had
strayed away. The two friends set out together, and after searching the
forest in vain, found themselves, the latter part of the afternoon, in a
lonely uninhabited valley, nearly seven miles from the fort. Here young
Downing became quite alarmed by some indications that Indians were
dogging their steps. He communicated his fears to his companion. But
Yates, who was several years older than Downing, was an experienced
hunter and inured to life in the woods, had become to a certain degree
indifferent to danger. He made himself quite merry over his young
companion's fears, asking him at what price he was willing to sell his
scalp, and offering to insure it for sixpence.
Still Downing was not satisfied, and his alarm increased as he insisted
that he occasionally heard the crack of dry twigs behind them, as if
broken by some one pursueing. But Yates deriding his fears, pressed on,
making the woods resound with a song, to which he gave utterance from
unusually full and strong lungs. Downing gradually slackened his pace,
and when Yates was some thirty yards in advance of him, sprang into a
dense cluster of tall whortleberry bushes, where he was effectually
concealed. Scarcely had he done this, when to his great terror he saw
two Indians peeping cautiously out of a thick canebrake. Deceived by the
song of Yates, who with stentorian lungs was still giving forth his
woodland ditty, they supposed both had passed. Young Downing thought it