Daniel Boone

Daniel Boone (2 November {22 October O.S. 1734 - 26 September 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone became famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies. Despite resistance from American Indians, for whom Kentucky was a traditional hunting ground, in 1775 Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky. There he founded Boonesborough, one of the first English-speaking settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains. By the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 people had entered Kentucky by following the route marked by Boone.

Quotes

 * Curiosity is natural to the soul of man and interesting objects have a powerful influence on our affections. Let these influencing powers actuate, by the permission or disposal of Providence, from selfish or social views, yet in time the mysterious will of Heaven is unfolded, and we behold our conduct, from whatever motives excited, operating to answer the important designs of heaven.
 * As quoted in the opening lines of "The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon; containing a Narrative of the Wars of Kentucke" in The Discovery, Settlement And present State of Kentucke (1784) by John Filson


 * Situated, many hundred miles from our families in the howling wilderness, I believe few would have equally enjoyed the happiness we experienced. I often observed to my brother, You see now how little nature requires to be satisfied. Felicity, the companion of content, is rather found in our own breasts than in the enjoyment of external things; And I firmly believe it requires but a little philosophy to make a man happy in whatsoever state he is. This consists in a full resignation to the will of Providence; and a resigned soul finds pleasure in a path strewed with briars and thorns.
 * As quoted in "The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon; containing a Narrative of the Wars of Kentucke" in The Discovery, Settlement And present State of Kentucke (1784) by John Filson


 * I can't say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.
 * As quoted in Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer (1993) by John Mack Faragher p. 65


 * I've opened the way for others to make fortunes, but a fortune for myself was not what I was after.
 * As quoted in Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer (1993) by John Mack Faragher p. 301


 * Nothing embitters my old age [like] the circulation of absurd stories that I retire as civilization advances, that I shun the white men and seek the Indians, and that now even when old, I seek to retire beyond the second Alleganies.
 * As quoted in Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer (1993) by John Mack Faragher p. 302




 * Many heroic actions and chivalrous adventures are related of me which exist only in the regions of fancy. With me the world has taken great liberties, and yet I have been but a common man.
 * As quoted in Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer (1993) by John Mack Faragher p. 302

Quotes about Boone

 * Ain't nobody ever cut 5 centers, lessen' it were Dan'l Boone.
 * A character in the film Sergeant York, commenting on the prospects of Alvin York achieving his goals in a contest of marksmanship.


 * Of all men, saving Sylla, the man-slayer, Who passes for in life and death most lucky Of the great names which in our faces stare, The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky, Was happiest amongst mortals any where; For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he Enjoyed the lonely vigorous, harmless days Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze.
 * Lord Byron in Don Juan, Canto the Eighth (1823)


 * Westward lay the march of American Empire. Within thirty years of the establishment of the Union nine new states had been formed in the Mississippi valley, and two in the borders of New England. As early as 1769 men like Daniel Boone had pushed their way into the Kentucky country, skirmishing with the Indians. But the main movement over the mountains began during the War of Independence. The migration of the eighteenth century took two directions: the advance westward towards the Ohio, with its settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee, and the occupation of the north-west forest regions, the fur-traders’ domain, beyond Lake Erie. The colonisation of New England and the eastern coastline of America had been mainly the work of powerful companies, aided by the English Crown or by feudal proprietors with chartered rights. But here in the new lands of the West any man with an axe and a rifle could carve for himself a rude frontier home. By 1790 there were thirty-five thousand settlers in the Tennessee country, and double that number in Kentucky. By 1800 there were a million Americans west of the mountain ranges of the Alleghenies. From these new lands a strong, self-reliant Western breed took its place in American life.
 * Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Volume IV: The Great Democracies (1958), pp. 102-103


 * The Indian-fighting frontiersmen and the "valiant" settlers in their circled covered wagons are the iconic images of that identity. The continued popularity of, and respect for, the genocidal sociopath Andrew Jackson is another indicator. Actual men such as Robert Rogers, Daniel Boone, John Sevier, and David Crockett, as well as fictitious ones created by James Fenimore Cooper and other best-selling writers, call to mind D. H. Lawrence's "myth of the essential white American"-that the "essential American soul" is a killer.
 * Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (2014)


 * Daniel Boone was a man, Yes, a big man! With an eye like an eagle And as tall as a mountain was he! Daniel Boone was a man, Yes, a big man! He was brave, he was fearless And as tough as a mighty oak tree!
 * Lyrics by Vera Matson to the theme for the television series Daniel Boone (1964-1970).