Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky

by John S. C. Abbott

Mr. Rowan ordered all on board to keep perfect silence, to conceal themselves as much as possible, and ordered not a gun to be fired till the Indians were so near that the powder of the gun would burn them, thus rendering every shot absolutely certain. The Indians, with their hideous yells, pursued in their canoes until within a hundred yards of the boats. They then seemed simultaneously to have adopted the conviction that the better part of valor was discretion. In the darkness, they could not see the boatmen, who they had no doubt were concealed behind bullet-proof bulwarks. Their birch canoes presented not the slightest obstruction to the passage of a rifle ball. Knowing that the flash of a gun from the boat would be certain death to some one of their number, and that thus the boatmen, with the rapidity with which they could load and fire, would destroy a large part of their company before they could hope to capture the flat boats, they hesitated to approach any nearer, but followed in the pursuit for nearly three miles down the river, assailing the white men only with harmless yells.

The heroic Mrs. Rowan, as she saw the canoes approaching, supposing that the savages would attempt to board the boats, crept quietly around in the darkness, collected all the axes, and placed one by the side of each man, leaning the handle against his knee. While performing this significant act she uttered not a word, but returned to her own seat in silence, retaining a sharp hatchet for herself.

With such determined spirits to assail, it was well for the savages that they did not approach within arms-length of those whom they were pursuing. They would certainly have met with a bloody reception.

The savages at length, despairing of success, relinquished the pursuit and returned to their demoniac orgies around their camp-fires. It was supposed that they had captured a boat which was descending the river the day before, and that their extraordinary revelry was accompanied by the roasting of their captives. A son of Mr. Rowan, but ten years of age, who subsequently became one of the most distinguished men in Kentucky, was present on this occasion. He frequently, in after-years, alluded to the indescribable sensations of sublimity and terror which the scene inspired. The gloom of the night; the solemn flow of the majestic river; the dim view of the forests on either side; the gleam of the camp-fires of the Indians, around which the half-clad savages were dancing in hideous contortions; the unearthly yells in which every demoniac passion seemed contending for the mastery; the shout which was given when they discovered the boats beneath the shadows of the opposite cliffs; the pursuit of the canoes with redoubled vehemence of hooting; the rapidity with which, with brawny arms, they paddled their boats to and fro; the breathless silence which pervaded the flat boat while for more than an hour the occupants awaited, momentarily expecting the terrible onset; and above all, the fortitude and heroism displayed by his mother,—all these combined to leave an impression upon the mind of the boy which could never be obliterated. Few will be able to read the record of this adventure without emotion. What then must it have been to have experienced it in bodily presence, and to have shared in all its terrible dangers?

As we have before said, there was no distinctly proclaimed war, at this time, between the pioneers and the Indians. While lawless men on both sides were committing the most atrocious outrages, the chiefs and the legitimate authorities were nominally at peace. The red men, whether engaged in what they deemed lawful warfare, or moving in plundering bands, were in the habit of inflicting upon their captives the most dreadful tortures which their ingenuity could devise. The white men could not retaliate by the perpetration of such revolting cruelty.

It probably was a suggestion of Colonel Boone that a council might be held with the Indian chiefs, and a treaty formed by which prisoners should be exempted from torture and exchanged, as in civilized warfare. The Indians were by no means reckless of the lives of their warriors, and would probably be very ready to give up a white captive if by so doing they could receive one of their own braves in return. A council was held at a station where Maysville now stands. Colonel Boone was at once selected as the man of all others most fit to take part in these deliberations. He was not only thoroughly acquainted with the Indians, their habits, their modes of thought, and the motives most likely to influence their minds; but his own peculiar character seemed just the one calculated to inspire them with admiration.

The principle was here adopted of an exchange of prisoners, which notwithstanding the continued violence of the lawless, saved the lives of many captives. It is an interesting fact, illustrative of the sagacity and extraordinary power of Colonel Boone over the Indian mind, that the chiefs with one consent agreed in grateful commemoration of this treaty, that if any captive should hereafter be taken by them from Maysville, that captive should be treated with every possible degree of lenity. And it is worthy of record that such a captive was subsequently taken, and that the Indians with the most scrupulous fidelity fulfilled their pledge. Indeed, it is difficult for an impartial historian to deny, that these poor savages, ignorant and cruel as they were, often displayed a sense of honor which we do not so often find in their opponents. It is to be feared that were Indian historians to write the record of these wars, we should not find that they were always in the wrong.

Colonel Boone, ejected from his lands and thus left penniless, felt keenly the wrongs which were inflicted upon him. He knew full well that he had done a thousand times more for Kentucky than any other man living or dead. He had conferred upon the State services which no money could purchase. Though to his intimate friends he confided his sufferings, he was too proud to utter loud complaints. In silence he endured. But Kentucky had ceased to be a happy home for him. Over all its broad and beautiful expanse which he had opened to the world, there was not a single acre which he could call his own. And he had no money with which to purchase a farm of those speculators, into whose hands most of the lands had fallen. Could the good old man now rise from his grave, a Kentucky Legislature would not long leave him landless. There is scarcely a cabin or a mansion in the whole State, where Daniel Boone would not meet with as hospitable a reception as grateful hearts could give.

As a grief-stricken child rushes to its mother's arms for solace, so it is natural for man, when world-weary and struggling with adversity, to look back with longing eyes to the home of his childhood. The remembrance of its sunny days animates him, and its trivial sadnesses are forgotten. Thus with Daniel Boone; houseless and stung by ingratitude, he turned his eyes to the far distant home of his childhood, on the banks of the Schuykill. More than forty years of a wonderfully adventurous life had passed, since he a boy of fourteen had accompanied his father in his removal from Reading, in Berk's County, to North Carolina. Still the remarkable boy had left traces behind him which were not yet obliterated.