Free The Dangerous Book of Heroes by Conn Iggulden Page A

was elected for a third time to the Virginia assembly in 1791. Still he couldn’t settle, and he moved his large family back to son Daniel’s land in Kentucke.
    By then, his small wealth had disappeared, for he’d lost the colonial lands he’d cleared and claimed from lack of title in the new United States. In 1798 a warrant was issued for his arrest when he forgot, or ignored, a summons in a court case. Yet his fame had not died. The newly created state of Kentucky named Boone County for him the same year. Fittingly, the county contained a very large salt lake.

    Copyright © 2009 by Matt Haley
    However, it seems the new nation was not for him. Perhaps the continuing war against Native Americans, increasing federal interference in the states, new taxes, and escalating violence and riots persuaded him to move on. He was also in debt. In 1799 he left the United States.
    The silver-haired Daniel Boone led his family on an amazing journey, downriver along more than a thousand miles of the Ohio and the broad Mississippi all the way to Saint Louis—by canoe. He hunted and trapped along the riverbank while the family paddledslowly downstream. In the afternoon they’d choose a site for their camp, light a fire, and prepare for the evening meal. It was idyllic. Legend says that on the wooden landing stage at Cincinnati somebody asked him why he was leaving. “I want more elbow room,” Boone replied laconically.
    Louisiana was then a large Spanish colony, its borders spreading indeterminately north toward Canada. Within a year of his arrival in the Femme Osage district (Saint Charles County) of what is now Missouri, Boone was appointed syndic, a Spanish type of magistrate. He received land for his services and later was made military commandant of the district by the Spanish governor. He continued to hunt and trap for food—a lot of families in the world did in those days—and had one brief skirmish with the Osage tribe in the spring hunt of 1802. He discovered some Shawnee who had also escaped from Kentucky to Saint Louis, and they became friends.
    In 1803 the U.S. government purchased Louisiana—although purchasing foreign territory contravened the new Constitution. However, under military threat from Napoléon Bonaparte in Europe, Spain had transferred her Louisiana colony to France and the transfer immediately rang loud alarm bells in Washington. The last thing English-speaking North America wanted was a return of French militarism.
    President Jefferson wrote: “The day that France takes possession of New Orleans, we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.” Bonaparte, despite his looting of various European nations, was short of currency with which to pay for his wars. For fifteen million dollars cash down he sold Louisiana—and Daniel Boone once again lived in the United States.
    Almost immediately the new Louisiana Territory confiscated Boone’s land, and he and Rebecca were forced to move to son Nathan’s farm. After he petitioned Congress, his land was finally returned in 1814. He sold most of it to clear his outstanding Kentucky debts.
    Rebecca, his wife of fifty-seven years, died in March 1813. She was buried near daughter Jemima’s home on Tuque Creek. Thatsame year, the third account of Daniel Boone was published, a long poem by Rebecca’s nephew Daniel Bryan. It was called The Mountain Muse, and Boone considered it embarrassingly inaccurate. He said: “Many heroic actions and chivalrous adventures are related of me which exist only in the regions of fancy.” It sold well, nevertheless.
    Boone remained on his son’s land and continued to hunt and trap into old age. It’s probable he made one last, long hunt up the Missouri to the Yellowstone River around 1815, a remarkable journey for a man aged eighty-one. He died on September 26, 1820, and was buried beside Rebecca. Although the man was dead, the legend continued,