An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States Ortiz

106 An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

of freedom and dominion, gives America its sovereign place

in history-its Manifest Destiny, as its advocates so aptly

called it. 24

Reconciling empire and liberty-based on the violent taking of

Indigenous lands-into a usable myth allowed for the emergence

of an enduring populist imperialism. Wars of conquest and ethnic

cleansing could be sold to "the people"-indeed could be fought for

by the young men of those very people-by promising to expand

economic opportunity, democracy, and freedom for all.

The publication arc of the Leatherstocking Tales parallels the

Jackson presidency. For those who consumed the books in that pe­

riod and throughout the nineteenth century-generations of young

white men-the novels became perceived fact, not fiction, and the

basis for the coalescence of US American nationalism. Behind the

legend was a looming real-life figure, the archetype that inspired

the stories, namely, Daniel Boone, an icon of US settler colonialism.

Boone's life spanned from 1734 to 1820, precisely the period cov­

ered in the Leatherstocking series. Boone was born in Berks County,

Pennsylvania, on the edge of British settlement. He is an avatar of

the moving colonial-Indigenous frontier. To the west lay "Indian

Country," claimed through the Doctrine of Discovery by both Brit­

ain and France but free of European settlers save for a few traders,

trappers, and soldiers manning colonial outposts.

Daniel Boone died in 1820 in Missouri, a part of the vast ter­

ritory acquired in the 180 3 Louisiana Purchase. When Missouri

opened for settlement, the Boone family led the initial settlers there.

His body was taken for burial in Frankfort, Kentucky, the covenant

heart of the Ohio Country, Indian Country, for which the revolution

had been fought and in which he had been the trekker superhero,

almost a deity. Daniel Boone became a celebrity at age fifty in 1784,

a year after the end of the war of independence. Real estate entre­

preneur John Filson, seeking settlers to buy property in the Ohio

Country, wrote and self-published The Discovery, Settlement and

Present State of Kentucke, along with a map to guide illegal squat­

ters. The book contained an appendix about Daniel Boone, purport­

edly written by Boone himself. That part of the book on Boone's