Timely Take-Aways for Life-Long Learning: The Boone Family

The Taking of Jemima Boone: Colonial Settlers, Tribal Nations, and the Kidnap That Shaped America

Matthew Pearl, October 2021, HarperCollins

Themes: history, United States, Revolutionary Period

Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier

Boby Drury and Tom Clavins, April 2021, Macmillan

Themes: history, United States, 18th and 19th Century

From tragedy and hardship to strength and independence, the Boone family represents the passion and resilience of 18th-century settlers. Both new titles skillfully explore the experiences of the Boone family within the larger context of the people, places, and events that shaped early westward expansion.

THE TAKING OF JEMIMA BOONE is an absorbing work of narrative nonfiction that seamlessly weaves key people and historical events with the personal story of a strong young woman with a legendary father. Divided into three sections, the book explores the taking, the retaliation, and the reckoning.

BLOOD AND TREASURE examines the epic struggle over the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. From Native American tribes trying to save their land from invaders to the settlers pushed west by an expanding nation, this carefully researched, engaging narrative shares the many perspectives of both legendary figures and ordinary people.

Let’s explore seven timely take-aways for life-long learners:

1) In popular art and literature of the 19th-century, Jemima Boone was portrayed as a passive victim of a Cherokee-Shawnee raiding party. In reality, she was a strong wilderness woman who used knowledge of her captors, delay tactics, and skills in trail marking to stay alive.

2) During the early days of America’s westward expansion, complex relationships, ever-shifting allegiances, and broken promises sparked violent clashes between and among Spanish, French, British, Colonial American, Indigenous, and Enslaved peoples. These conflicts and betrayals caused deep and lasting physical and emotional scars that impacted their future actions.

3) Cultural misunderstandings about property ownership, allegiance, and family structure were at the root of many clashes. Unlikely early biographies that often depicted Daniel Boone as a thrill-seeking Indian killer, he is increasingly respected for his patience and interest in studying cultural nuances.

4) Peaceful gatherings were held among people of different cultural backgrounds to avoid conflict when possible. For instance, Jemima Boone had met her captor Hanging Maw at such an event prior to the kidnapping. Daniel Boone was adopted into a Shawnee family and was viewed as both a captive and son.

5) During the 18th-century, hunters spent six months on expeditions known as “long hunts”. Daniel Boone was one of several well-known long hunters. In addition to gathering and processing animals, Boone collected valuable information from other explorers such as John Finley as well as his own pathfinding that was later used to establish Kentucky settlements.

6) Although most people associate Daniel Boone with Kentucky, he and his extended family including Jemima Boone Callaway moved to Missouri in 1799 where he spent the last twenty years of his life.

7) Despite inaccurate 19th-century biographies and works of fiction, Daniel Boone remains an iconic figure in American history. However, it continues to be difficult to separate the man from the myth.

Timely Take-Aways for Life-Long Learning

Whether helping educators keep up-to-date in their subject-areas, promoting student reading in the content-areas, or simply encouraging nonfiction leisure reading, teacher librarians need to be aware of the best new titles across the curriculum and how to activate life-long learning. - Annette Lamb, Teacher Librarian: The Journal for School Library Professionals