Editing Daniel Boone (section)

===Symbol and stereotype===
[[File:Daniel Boone protects his family.jpg|thumb|"Daniel Boone Protects His Family", based on ''[[The Rescue (statue)|The Rescue]]'', a controversial statue that once stood outside the [[United States Capitol]] building]]

Thanks to Filson's book, Boone became a symbol of the "natural man" who lives a virtuous, uncomplicated existence in the wilderness. This was famously expressed in [[Lord Byron]]'s epic poem ''[[Don Juan (poem)|Don Juan]]'' (1822), which devoted a number of stanzas to Boone, including this one:
{{poemquote
|Of the great names which in our faces stare,
:The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky,
Was happiest amongst mortals anywhere;
:For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he
Enjoyed the lonely vigorous, harmless days
Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze.{{sfn|Faragher|1992|p=328}}}}

Byron's poem celebrates Boone as someone who found happiness by turning his back on civilization. In a similar vein, many folk tales depicted Boone as a man who migrated to more remote areas whenever civilization crowded in on him. In a typical anecdote, when asked why he was moving to Missouri, Boone supposedly replied, "I want more elbow room!" Boone rejected this interpretation. "Nothing embitters my old age," he said late in life, like "the circulation of absurd stories that I retire as civilization advances."{{sfn|Faragher|1992|pp=302, 325–326}}

Existing simultaneously with the image of Boone as a refugee from society was, paradoxically, the popular portrayal of him as civilization's trailblazer. Boone was celebrated as an agent of [[Manifest Destiny]], a pathfinder who tamed the wilderness, paving the way for the extension of American civilization. In 1852, critic [[Henry Tuckerman]] dubbed Boone "the Columbus of the woods", comparing Boone's passage through the Cumberland Gap to [[Christopher Columbus]]'s voyage to the New World. In popular mythology, Boone became the first to explore and settle Kentucky, opening the way for countless others to follow.{{sfn|Faragher|1992|pp=321–322, 350–352}} In fact, other Americans had explored Kentucky before Boone, as debunkers in the 20th century often pointed out, but Boone came to symbolize them all, making him what historian Michael Lofaro called "the [[Founding Fathers of the United States|founding father]] of westward expansion."{{sfn|Lofaro|2012|pp=181–182}}

In the 19th century, when Native Americans were being [[Indian removal|displaced from their lands]] and confined on [[Indian reservation|reservations]], Boone's image was often reshaped into the stereotype of the belligerent, Indian-hating frontiersman which was then popular. In John A. McClung's ''Sketches of Western Adventure'' (1832), for example, Boone was portrayed as longing for the "thrilling excitement of savage warfare." Boone was transformed in the popular imagination into someone who regarded Indians with contempt and had killed scores of the "savages". The real Boone disliked bloodshed. According to historian John Bakeless, there is no record that Boone ever [[Scalping|scalped]] Indians, unlike other frontiersmen of the era.{{sfn|Bakeless|1939|p=162}} Boone once told his son Nathan that he was certain of having killed only one Indian, during the battle at Blue Licks,{{sfn|Faragher|1992|p=219}} although on another occasion he said, "I never killed but three."{{sfn|Faragher|1992|p=39}} He expressed regret over the killings, saying the Indians "have always been kinder to me than the whites."{{sfn|Morgan|2007|p=2}} Even though Boone had lost two sons and a brother in wars with Indians, he respected Indians and was respected by them. In Missouri, Boone went hunting with the Shawnees who had captured and adopted him decades earlier.{{sfn|Morgan|2007|p=245}}{{sfn|Faragher|1992|pp=313–314}} Some 19th-century writers regarded Boone's sympathy for Indians as a character flaw and altered his words to conform to contemporary attitudes.{{sfn|Faragher|1992|pp=320, 333}}