Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I managed to finish a number of books, including the massive and comprehensive biography, Boone, by Robert Morgan. Though Morgan is best known as a poet, he certainly knows his stuff when it comes to Daniel Boone. I learned a great deal about this national figure, including the following:
Daniel Boone wasn't really a "big man", as the Disney theme song suggests (version with Fess Parker). Boone was a rather rail thin and scrawny five ten, one hundred-seventy-pound dude.
Boone didn't make much war on the Native Americans. Oh, sure he killed a few people when he had to, but by and large he tried to live peaceably with all of the Indian tribes, and this during a time (mid 1700s) when many of the tribes were being slaughtered.
Boone was a trapper, and spent whole months at a time by himself in the Kentucky wilderness. Brave dude, and smart--killed a lot of beaver!
It's also not true that Boone was "born on a mountain top in Tennessee" (again, the Disney theme song--shame on you Disney!) nor is it true that when Boone was born, the "land of the free" was already free. The colonies had not yet been liberated from England (Disney has no shame!). And here's the biggie: Daniel Boone absolutely, positively never wore a coon-skin cap! Wow! My entire childhood was a sham! My sense of history has been shattered. What Mrs. Gore taught me about America in the second grade was all a big fib!
Thank you, Mr. Morgan, for putting my life back in balance. I can sleep soundly now.
1 comment:
You didn't mention where he died... ;-)
Kendra S.
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