Editing Daniel Boone (section)

==Into Missouri==
[[File:Daniel Boone (1916) (14784705735).jpg|thumb|left|''Boone's cabin in Missouri'']]

Having endured legal and financial setbacks, Boone sought to make a fresh start by leaving the United States.{{sfn|Faragher|1992|p=274}} In 1799, he moved his extended family to what is now [[St. Charles County, Missouri|St. Charles County]], Missouri, then part of [[Louisiana (New Spain)|Spanish Louisiana]].{{sfn|Faragher|1992|pp=274–278}} The Spanish, eager to promote settlement in the sparsely populated region, did not enforce the official requirement that all immigrants be [[Catholic]]. The Spanish governor <!--[[Zénon Trudeau]]--> appointed Boone "[[syndic]]" (judge and jury) and commandant (military leader) of the Femme Osage district.{{sfn|Faragher|1992|p=279}} Anecdotes of Boone's tenure as syndic suggest he sought to render fair judgments rather than strictly observe the letter of the law.{{sfn|Faragher|1992|pp=285–286}}{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=238}}

Boone served as syndic and commandant until 1804, when Missouri became part of the United States following the [[Louisiana Purchase]]. He was appointed captain of the local militia.{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=239}} Because Boone's land grants from the Spanish government had been largely based on oral agreements, he again lost his land claims. In 1809, he petitioned [[United States Congress|Congress]] to restore his Spanish land claims, which was finally done in 1814. Boone sold most of this land to repay old Kentucky debts. When the [[War of 1812]] came to Missouri, Boone's sons Daniel Morgan Boone and Nathan Boone took part, but by that time Boone was much too old for militia duty.{{sfn|Faragher|1992|pp=304–305}}

Although Boone reportedly vowed never to return to Kentucky after moving to Missouri, stories (possibly folk tales) were told of him making one last visit to Kentucky to pay off his creditors.{{sfn|Faragher|1992|pp=307–309}} American painter [[John James Audubon]] claimed to have gone hunting with Boone in Kentucky around 1810. Years later, Audubon painted a portrait of Boone, supposedly from memory, although skeptics noted the similarity of his painting to the well-known portraits by [[Chester Harding (painter)|Chester Harding]].{{sfn|Jones|2005|p=222}}{{sfn|Faragher|1992|p=308}} Some historians believe Boone visited his brother Squire near Kentucky in 1810 and have accepted the veracity of Audubon's account.{{sfn|Lofaro|2012|pp=161–166}}{{sfn|Bakeless|1939|pp=398–399}}{{#tag:ref|Morgan surmises that Audubon probably met Boone in Missouri but claimed the encounter had been in Kentucky because of Boone's famed connection to that state.{{sfn|Morgan|2007|pp=420–421}}|group=note}}[[File:Boone by Chappel.jpg|thumb|upright|This engraving by Alonzo Chappel ({{Circa|1861}}) depicts an elderly Boone hunting in Missouri.]]Boone spent his final years in Missouri, often in the company of children and grandchildren. He continued to hunt and trap as much as his health and energy levels permitted, intruding upon the territory of the [[Osage Nation|Osage tribe]], who once captured him and confiscated his furs.{{sfn|Brown|2008|pp=240–242}} In 1810, at the age of 76, he went with a group on a six-month hunt up the [[Missouri River]], reportedly as far as the [[Yellowstone River]], a round trip of more than 2,000 miles.{{sfn|Faragher|1992|p=295}}{{sfn|Morgan|2007|pp=418–419}} He began one of his final trapping expeditions in 1815, in the company of a Shawnee and Derry Coburn, a slave who was frequently with Boone in his final years.{{sfn|Faragher|1992|pp=283, 314}} They reached [[Fort Osage]] in 1816, where an officer wrote, "We have been honored by a visit from Col. Boone... He has taken part in all the wars of America, from Braddock's war to the present hour," but "he prefers the woods, where you see him in the dress of the roughest, poorest hunter."{{sfn|Faragher|1992|p=314}}