Native Americans in Kentucky and Their Encounter with Daniel Boone - Research Paper Example

Native Americans in Kentucky and their encounter with Daniel Boone Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Thesis Statement 2 1.Background 2 2. Literature Review 3 2.1 The Boone of the Wilderness 3 2.2 Boone’s Character 4 2.2 The Political Approach and the Natives 6 2.3 Communication with Congress 6 2.4 Interactions with Natives 7 2.5 Use of Weapons against the Natives 8 2.6 The Cowboy Mythology 8 2.7 Moving Further West 9 2.8 The Interaction with External Allies 10 3. Conclusion 12 Thesis Statement Being among the most renowned American frontiersmen, Daniel Boone is legendary for his discoveries in the present day Kentucky state since the beginning of his explorations in 1767. Based on accounts of several authors outline in the paper, Boone influenced western expansion of America and lifestyle of Native Americans in Kentucky through his discoveries of waterways, expansive farmlands, attractive sites, mineral deposits, favorable climate which attracted the first settlers to the land from parts such as Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Maryland, and Virginia. 1. Background Daniel Boone was born on November 2, 1734 and died on September 26, 1820. Boone was an American explorer, adventurer, and frontiersman. Boone interior exploration led to the discovery of states and cities. A close attribute is Kentucky. To get to Kentucky, Boone took the road to Virginia a dense mountainous wilderness. His road trail was through Cumberland Gap, Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina, and Tennessee into Kentucky. In Kentucky, Boone founded a village Boonseborough. Like any other revolutionary, Boone participated in the American war for independence. After the war, Boone worked as a surveyor and merchant where he became bankrupt after a failed land speculation deal. Boone’s reputation rested in parts, on his contests with Indians in Kentucky and his participation in the Indian campaign Known as Lord Dunmore’s War 1774, as the American Revolution. Boone surveyed frontier lands, operated a country store and tried his hand at planting tobacco. Men who had lost their land because of his faulty surveying sued Boone making him bankrupt. Boone escaped his creditors by immigrating to Spanish-held Missouri in 1799. 2. Literature Review The periods between the 18th Century and 20th Century have been crucial to the America social, economic and political development. Boone inspired a look west-move-west approach, where he opened the wilderness of America to development. Ried believes that Boone mirrored a very Central American concern, where civilizing the wilderness was an essential initiative1. Through the epic exploration of the American West, Boone managed to build confidence in Americans. In fact, Boone historians rank Boone with people like Capt. John Smith who has a more central to the frontier experience than the former. 2.1 The Boone of the Wilderness The man Boone lived a wilderness life, one that worked out after a graduate providential plan that culminated in the triumph of a civilized life. For instance, Boone’s roles as an expert hunter and pioneer encouraged an irresistible advance of civilization. Hurt argues that Boone life continued a malleable public property2. His exclusive interests in surveying and create settlement were instrumental in building the state of Kentucky. Boone heroic exemplar of the virtues of the Southern aristocracy oversaw his contribution in trade and settling more European in the mainland. As well, Boone led a complicated private life distancing his adventures from active politics. Convincingly, Boone was more interested in serving his end as a merchant and not the sake of history. However, Boone mirrored a futuristic spirit of America as an intangible that separated man and his endeavors. Hawks as well believes that Boone reflected the present American3. Hawks further investigates the relationships between Boone’s private and Indians natives. His varied career does not differ to the current American citizen. Nonetheless, his quest for a civilized land distribution system heavily antagonist the Indians who intern put up a frontier against him. He was an explorer, adventurer, husband, father, surveyor, speculator and farmer. As well, Boone was a conservationist, hunter, spy, scout, sheriff, coroner, elected representative, tavern proprietor and Spanish magistrate4. There have also been records that Boone was equally romantic to the development and pragmatic to decisions that he made. 2.2 Boone’s Character Likewise, Boone’s character instills functions as both an ideal person and representative man. In fact, Boone still worked as a contemporary political leader. For example, there has been evidence that Boone pioneered the formation of boys scout. However, Boone could have created the scouts as a small private army, which defended the course from Indian attacks. Nonetheless, Boone saw the bright side of a civilized America where natives and foreigners shared resources. Boone Compatriots crossed what the still fluid frontier like Boone himself was. Competitions straddled the cultural border between Indian country and backcountry. However, conquests of Indian country eroded the middle ground that occupied Boone occupation. As a culture gap between Indian and backcountry widened the contrast between what American changed with time. Hence, for Boone, the dream of settling a good poor man country spurred the colonization of Kentucky. Boone surveying tactics were instrumental in developing changing the Paroma of Kentucky. Prior from being an explorer, Boone was a full-time hunter. Supportively, Cutlip contends that his accustomed hunting range was not the only annoyances, which encouraged the simple habits and patriarchal views of Boone that led to Boone inspired civilization did.5. Civilization brought along with it all the forms of law and a brilliant organization of the society and civil government where progress kept increasing population. In fact, as early as 1783, Congress divided Kentucky into different counties. Kentucky’s civilization created new systems. For instance, the authorities organized regular courts of justices, with a log courthouse and log jail. The judiciary system had acting judges, lawyer, juries and sheriffs. With time, the monetary system took center stage. Cattle and flocks multiplied, reading and writing became standard for children. Wealthier individuals began settling Kentucky. By 1785, Danville’s convention prompted Kentucky’s political development. The conference addressed the legislature of Virginia and another to the people of Kentucky suggesting the propriety and reasons for erecting the new country into an independent state. Meanwhile, Boone’s advancement on property worsened his relationship with the natives. Parties arose, and the warmth of a new political development encouraged interior settlements. By 1786, the Legislature of Virginia enacted the preliminary provision to separate from Kentucky. The Congress admitted the Union. 2.2 The Political Approach and the Natives According to protocol, malcontents of western Pennsylvania informed the inhabitants. American secretary of state was making propositions to the Spanish minister to cede to Spain the exclusive right of navigation of Mississippi for the next twenty-five years. This was in accordance with Boone plans to allow more merchants to come from Europe and experience his property boom business. As expected, the information created a great sensation. Abbot further supports that the information created a great feeling, which was beginning to bring influence to western settlements6. The right to the free navigation of the Mississippi was vital importance to the entirely western country. 2.3 Communication with Congress Boone as well encouraged this communication, where he spread circulars addressed to the principal settlers to men of influence in the nation. However, Virginia interrupted Boone contribution after the state instructed her representatives in Congress to make representations against the ruinous policy of the measure. Aaron argues that nothing could have been wider from the anticipations perhaps from the wishes of Boone than the progress of things7. However, the transition of unlettered backwoods emigrants to a people with police, and all the engines of civilization were uncommonly rapid. Nonetheless, given Boone contribution, the Congress admitted Kentucky into the Union as an independent state. Improvements were steady, although Indian populations were still hostile to the pace of development. Having achieved a tranquil political environment, Boone turned his attention into the land redistribution. The Virginia conflict was nonetheless not the main issue since it was based on diplomacy; the quest with the natives was the main concern. During the war, the natives captured and imprisoned Boone for forcefully alienating land. Boone was interested in Kentucky was richer in terms of agriculture more than his neighbors were. Boone looked forward with is consoling thought that he had enough to provide for his ever expanding family. As his children became of age, he secured he secured them with large tracts of land. However, with his vortex of litigation, which ensured that he does not escape, the speculators spread their greedy claims over the areas paid for by Boone. 2.4 Interactions with Natives The natives and other Americans became familiar with Boone exploits. With time, Boone’s popularity grew with each subsequent decade and peaked. Based on the output of art and literature on Boone, in the antebellum year, Boone had managed to settle more Europeans on American lands. In particular, Bone worked closely with handmade artisans, Americans farmers, and frontiersman. These were Fancier versions of the Kentucky managed who were more expensive and appealed to a growing Cadre of elite sports hunters in the early national era and identified themselves with both English aristocrats and Americans frontiersmen. Arguably, if Boone’s love for guns and hunting helped popularize sports fishing, the skill also helped him to popularize and manifest destiny. Convincingly, though earlier generations of Americans had claimed land through farming. Boone transformed expansion in a jousting match, where through his battles with bear and buffalo, Boone became a noble in the wilderness. In fact, in Jacksonian and antebellum decades, Boone became a new hero for a new era. 2.5 Use of Weapons against the Natives Given that Boone literature had taught Americans how to become an icon of the self-made man, Boone went ahead to teach Americans how to use guns and made a great lesson for painters, politicians and writers. In the Colonial era, Americans equated frontier hunters with savagery, the market revolution, an act that gave rise to the celebration of frontier individualists who optimized desirable traits, like self-possession, promptness in execution and self-control. In fact, the most striking feature is that Boone as a pupil had shot a panther while other boys had fled. Boone love for the gun and love for hunting habit grew with time. In particular, Boone wandered in Kentucky with a long rifle a small-bore, lightweight and long-barreled. Through dealers, Germany continued supplying these guns. 2.6 The Cowboy Mythology Convincingly, if Boone love for guns and hunting popularized sports fishing, it also helped popularize his destiny. The mythical cowboy is not always a working cowboy in the sense of herding cattle. In most cases, the cowboy is a gambler, and he may be a rancher, sheriff, outlaw, sheriff and scout. Americans define the Cowboy hero by his strength, honor and independence of wilderness identity and not his job. He has no privileged lineage and no aristocratic status, in fact, he emerges from the wilderness a free and equal individual. The American culture of the dominant frontier hero demonstrated a fundamental period of western settlement of 1860 and 1890, where most Westerns set this period as the time of the mythical Wild West. Westerns appealed to people in the urban East, where factories and cities had replaced the wilderment8. Through earlier generations, Americans had claimed land through farming. However, Boone presented a futuristic claim to land by transforming expansion into a sort of jousting match. He, therefore, affected American natives’ lives by alienating their hunting land and turning it into ranches. His constant for a proper land distribution system proved a reliable to share the land resource. The progress that commenced with Boone, the conqueror of Indians and colonizer of trans-Appalachian lands, reflected an innate personal initiative. As a result, a wider personal and political economy consolidated the highest level of civilization. Reflectively, Kentucky political development reflected what would happen to other states. Boone’s transformation of Kentucky oversaw the colonization, which consolidated and unfold orderly parade. Hence, from Kentucky and across the Great West, the processes of conquest, colonization, and the consolidation overlapped an orderly parade of the French and the Spanish. 2.7 Moving Further West Boone was restless once Kentucky was established. At least he secured his children from landlessness. Boone proceeded to St. Louis where he settled in the St. Charles County. The country was still in the possession of the French and Spanish with ancient laws governing these territories. Nothing could have been simpler with their whole system of administration. However, Boone looked forward in liberating the state St. Louis and, in fact; he even established a permanent base in St. Charles County. Top of the agenda was to take the land from the Spanish and French who were not eager to establish any former system of administration, for example, constitutions, no king, no legislative assemblies, no sheriffs, or judges. He therefore affected the natives, where he looked forward in establishing formal and stronger systems. The officer who was legally recognized performed all functions of civil magistrates and decided that the few controversies that arose among these primitive inhabitants. Authorities led a brutal regime, which confiscated native’s their ponies, their cattle, their flocks, and swine. For that reason, enterprise ambitions were largely not present given that the area suffered significant backwardness. The simple laws of neighborly were suited the peculiar habits and temper of Boone. His character for honesty, courage and fidelity followed him. The Spanish appointed him as a commandant of the district of St. Charles. Boone retained his command and continued to exercise his official duties until the United States took formal responsibility of the state. 2.8 The Interaction with External Allies Reflectively, Boone was a frontier with a passion for American experience. Boone’s courage, zest for life, optimism, savagery of the wildness increased his sharp abilities to open up the wilderness. Hence, one would agree that Boone’s spirit lives along even after his death. Young Americans can now directly model what worthy them is. After Spain transferred the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803, Boone lost his Missouri lands because he had failed to cultivate them. Boone finishes his adventure by returning to civilization where their wilder methods and loyalties muted for the sake so-called civilized values9. Through his inhibition of the middle ground between culture and the wild, Boone moves ahead of civilization. Justifiably, the image of a frontier hero took shape in America late in the eighteenth century through the favorite of Daniel Boone. In Boone’s time, the idea of a frontier hero became even more famous through the different stories. As American developed to the East, the myth of the frontier moved west reaching the open prairies became the myth of the Wild West. The first western heroes were mountain men and scouts as well as cowboys who appeared in the Boone’s time. 3. Conclusion It is clear that the likes of Bone built America individualism, where the promise of freedom and equality assumed an open frontier. The cowboy, in his cultural myth, remembered the origin frontier vision of individualism. From the research on Boone, it is clear that America grew given that it relapsed from ages of backwardness. The gun and force were instruments helped individuals such Boone to concur the more hostile interior frontiers. Bibliography Aaron, Stephen. How the West Was Lost: The Transformation of Kentucky From Daniel Boone to Henry Clay. Baltimore: JHU Press, 1999. Abbott, John, S, C. Daniel Boone, the pioneer of Kentucky. New York: DUDD, MEAD & COMPANY, Publishers, 1872. Cutlip, Scott, M. Public Relations History: From the 17th to the 20th Century: The Antecedents. Mahwak: Routledge, 2013. Flint, Timothy. Biographical Memoir of Daniel Boone, the First Settler of Kentucky: Interspersed with Incidents in the Early Annals of the Country. New York: G. Conclin, 1845. Hawks, Francis, Lister. The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1863. Hurt, R, Douglas. "The Kentucky Frontier: From Daniel Boone to Henry Clay." Reviews in American History 25, no. 2 (1997): 232-236. Kentucky historical Society. Proceedings of the meeting of the Kentucky State Historical Society, Boone Day, June seventh, 1912, in the Hall of Fame, new capitol. New York: Frankfort, 1912. Lofrao, Michael. Daniel Boone: An American Life. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010. Reid, Darren, R, ed. Daniel Boone and Others on the Kentucky Frontier: Autobiographies and Narratives, 1769-1795. Jefferson: McFarland, 2009. Read More