102 A HISTORY OF AMERICA IN 100 MAPS
Daniel Boone embodies the myth of the American
frontier. He became a folk hero in his own lifetime,
one of many trappers, hunters, and explorers who
traveled into the new “Kentucky Country” in the
1760s and 1770s. These men brought back tales of
an abundant land, bounded by the Blue Ridge
Mountains and the Ohio River, which was then home
to the Shawnee Indians. Given the limited knowledge
of this region, speculation ran rampant about its
potential for settlement. A trickle of migration at the
end of the Revolutionary War grew into a flood, as
thousands of Americans and Europeans, gripped by
Kentucky fever, followed Boone’s path west through
the Cumberland Gap.
This explosive growth—like the celebrity of Boone
himself—was no accident. The chief promoter of
Kentucky was John Filson, a schoolteacher who
acquired 12,000 acres in the territory in 1782.
Realizing that the value of his land depended
on the prospects of settlement in the region, he
befriended Boone and other frontiersmen to learn the
geography, geology, river systems, and native tribes
of his new home. The result was Filson’s enthusiastic
description of Kentucky, which included this map
as well as a dramatic account of “The Adventures of
Daniel Boon.” Published on Boone’s fiftieth birthday,
Filson’s account was a hit in the United States as well
as in Britain, France, and Germany.
Filson’s map and narrative stimulated the rush
to Kentucky. His map presented an inviting territory
easily accessed through roads and rivers. He
described a fine and well-watered land, confining the
presence of Native Americans to wigwams north of the
Ohio River. Filson also named forts, towns, and roads
for the early white settlers in the territory. By doing
this he established the territory’s recent past in order
to claim its future. For instance, in Fayette County
Filson identified the “bloody battle” of Blue Licks,
fought ten months after the “final” battle of Yorktown.
There, Boone squared off against a much larger
force of British and Indians to defend the emerging
settlements of the territory. In the lower right corner
of the map we see Boone’s more lasting legacy, the
Wilderness Road he established from Virginia through
the Cumberland Gap. In both examples, Filson took
care to name—and thereby claim—the land for
settlement and development.
AN INVITATION TO SETTLEMENT
John Filson, “Map of Kentucke,” 1784 Through his publication, Filson helped to establish
Boone as an American hero and Kentucky as a land
of opportunity. The map seamlessly integrates
information with promotion, and its wide circulation
shaped early perceptions of this region. Its pleasing
and balanced appearance focuses not on the entire
extent of Kentucky but on its central territory, one
hundred square miles of “the most extraordinary
country that the sun enlightens with his celestial
beams.” Navigable rivers stretch across abundant
and fertile land, draining into the (slightly
misplaced) Ohio River. Even the cartouche—
dedicated to Congress and to George Washington,
commander of the Continental Army—underscores
Filson’s confidence in Kentucky’s future. He closed
his narrative in the same manner, proposing a new
settlement on the Lower Mississippi River that would
siphon trade from Spanish-controlled New Orleans
and eventually make America the commercial rival
of Europe.
Filson’s map is a remarkable and influential
document of the early frontier. It captures the
optimism of the new nation just as Americans began
to turn their attention to the trans-Appalachian West.
His general predictions of growth were realized: by
1784, 30,000 migrants had arrived, a number that
had more than doubled by the end of the decade. In
1800 Kentucky was home to 221,000 settlers, nearly
twenty percent of whom were enslaved.
This rapid migration to Kentucky created
a degree of social fluidity and instability that
characterized several frontier settlements in this
era. Like Kentucky, many of these communities
were home to the earliest religious revivals of
the Second Great Awakening. Just northwest of
Lexington, where the map reads “Abundance of
Cane,” was the first of these camp meetings. In 1801
over 25,000 Protestants converged on the area that
Boone himself had named Cane Ridge, an enormous
number considering that Lexington was home to
just 2,000 people at the time. The revival that began
at Cane Ridge spread through the frontier and then
across the country, lasting for decades and bringing
mass conversions and new practices of worship
to Christianity. The Second Great Awakening
challenged established church authority and
transformed Protestant theology. In this respect,
the frontier was at the center, rather than the
periphery, of American life.