In the early days of the 13 colonies a hundred or so miles inland from the eastern coast of North America the Appalachian Mountains form a natural barrier to all east-west travel. In March of 1775 Daniel Boone, along with 35 axmen, had been hired to cut what came to be known as The Wilderness Trail from Kingsport, Tennessee through the forests, mountains and the Cumberland Gap into to the new colony of Kentucky.

Back then 'Kain-Tuck' (The Dark & Bloody Land) was the hunting grounds of three warring Native tribes; the Cherokee, Mingo and the Shawnee— none of whom were overly happy to see the hated white men encroaching on their land!

Daniel Boone was a well known 'longhunter' from Pennsylvania who hunted and trapped among the Amerindians along the wild, western frontiers of Virginia. These tough, solitary men were called 'longhunters' because of the long time they spent away from home on their hunts in the wilderness. Boone would sometimes be gone for months and even years before returning to his farm, wife and children.

Boone often joked that a longhunter needed a number of essentials things: 'A good gun, a good horse, a good dog and a very good wife at home.' He'd then add: a 'strong body, a sharp ax and more than a fair amount of good luck wouldn't hurt neither!'

Another essential that all pioneers needed was salt.

Before 1776, salt had to be shipped into the Thirteen Colonies from the West Indies at great expense. It was the only meat preservative available at the time and Kentucky had an abundance of large salt brine lakes near what is today the community of Boonesborough, Kentucky. Animals, especially deer and buffalo, travelled in herds from one of these 'salt licks' to another, making trails or 'traces' that the natives and later explorers like Boone could easily follow on horseback. Salt gathered from these natural 'licks' would not only be used for their own preservation of meat, but could be traded or sold at other settlements and trading posts.

On March 24, 1775 Boone and his work party of axmen were only 15 miles (24 km) from their final destination of the Kentucky River when they camped for the night. Just before daybreak a group of following Shawnee attacked the sleeping men.

Several of Boone's party were killed outright and a few others wounded, but Boone and most of the others were able to escape into the woods. In the early light of dawn Boone quickly regrouped his men. Of the thirty five in his party he gathered over half. The others were either dead, captured or hiding in the woods. His younger brother Squire was with him, as was Abraham Sweeny, his best friend and business partner.

"The bloody bastards are Shawnee, Dan'l!" Sweeny growled. "I saw one bugger in the firelight just before he bashed in Ned Cutter's brains!"

"Who else did they get?!" Daniel asked as he checked the priming on his rifle. After a quick roll-call was taken the men, ranging in age from a few beardless boys to tough old greybeards, Daniel formed them into two groups. Most men had either a rifle or a pistol with them. The few that didn't had either a knife or a tomahawk or both.

Daniel looked hard-eyed at his small band of survivors. "Abe, you n' your boys hit 'em from the right. My brother Squire n' me'll come at them from the left. Don't shoot till I do, then everyone empty their guns and rush in! No time for reloading! Use a knife or 'hawk 'n don't stop till the bastards are either dead or running!"

As the two groups moved off into the still shadow filled forest, Daniel took his younger brother by the arm. "I want you n' old Tome to hold back. Don't fire when the rest of us do. Hold back n' watch. You see one of us in trouble, that's your target!"

Squire, though he'd been in several short, fierce exchanges with the natives before, they'd always been simply shooting at distant targets, and he'd never really sure if he hit or missed. This fight however was going to be up close and nasty and Daniel wasn't sure Squire was up to it. Not that the younger Boone wasn't brave, but he was rail-thin and the least aggressive of Daniel's other two older brothers. Squire also was nursing a sore foot from when a horse stepped on it the day before, and running in for hand to hand combat was dangerous enough for an experienced fighter with two good feet—and no place for a limping lightweight.

"But I want to go with you, Dan'l! Not hand back with Ol' Tom Greybeard!" Squire was clearly insulted by his big brother—who he idolized and tried to be like—yet he always seemed to fail at miserably!

"I know you do, lad," Daniel said. "But with your stomped foot you can't move fast, but you're a damn fine shot! So is Ol' Tom. I need the two of you to guard our backs. I'm counting on you, Squire."

After a deep breath a reluctant nod followed.

Daniel nodded back then added. "Keep Billy Crookshank with you as well. He's only thirteen n' not a hundred pounds soaking wet! He can load for you if needs be."

Yet another nod from Squire; he then gripped his big brother's thick shoulder and then went off to gather Ol' Tom and Billy.

Sam Henley came up to Daniel. "The men are all in place, Dan'l—just waitin' on ya."

The tall longhunter smiled and strode past Sam. "Then Samuel, let's get it done!"

Patwata had been appointed the Shawnee war-chief of this 'three-hand' group of warriors. Fifteen Shawnee braves had come across the narrow buffalo 'trace' (path) that had been cleared and widened by the sweat and axes of the invading Yang-Gees who call themselves 'Americans'. They had easily followed the new 'road' and, finding the hated Yang-Gees's camp, had waited till just before dawn to strike.

'It was a good fight,' Patwata thought to himself as he looked around at the bodies of the invaders. His braves were finishing off the wounded and taking scalps. 'The elders of the tribe will be pleased that we drove the Yang-Gees away like frightened rabbits!' Patwata's only regret was that so many of them had escaped into the lingering shadows of the forest, but he consoled himself with the thought that 'It will be good sport hunting them down!'

Though a part of him knew that the Yang-Gees were still armed and dangerous—and cunning enough to set up an ambush if he and his braves raced after them like noisy children. 'Perhaps it would be wiser,' he reasoned' "to take the few scalps and prisoners we have back to our people and let the rabbits run back to their holes?'The decision however was suddenly taken out of his hands when the remaining 'rabbits' opened fire on him and his startled war-band.

From the shadows of the forest Daniel and his group watched as the Shawnees looted both the bodies and the camp itself. Several braves had four captives hands tied behind their back and strung together with ropes around their necks. Others were gathering the horses. Daniel glanced around at the dozen men close by. Sam Henley nodded that all was ready. On the far side of the clearing Abraham Sweeny's group would also be anxiously waiting. Daniel glanced behind him and saw his brother Squire standing rigid and ready in the shadows; Ol' Tom and young Billy beside him.

"Make ready!" Daniel hissed as he cocked his flintlock and aimed at a native holding the 'leash' of one of the captives. "Fire!"

Patwata looked on stunned as the early dawn shadows exploded first on one side of the clearing and then the other. The Shawnee knew what guns were and actually had been using themselves in a limited way for some years now—but only for hunting and the odd two or three shot skirmish with either their traditional enemies from another tribe or to ambush a lone Yang-Gee foolishly working alone in his field. Bow and arrow, knife and warclub were still the most prevalent weapons, though many braves coveted the much sought after steel headed tomahawks the Yang-Gee traders had—though the price in furs for one always seemed to go up! Patwata was please with the price he had paid for his— nothing, since he got it for free when he killed a foolish Yang-Gee who came to their camp to trade.

He was holding his prized and highly decorated weapon when Daniel's group opened fire and the lead bullets began to fly. He was still clutching it tightly after Samuel Henley's group had opened fire . Now many of his war-band were either dead or rolling around wounded on the ground.

Patwata tore his gaze from his wounded brethren and saw a number of hated Yang-Gees running towards him from both sides! Yelling and screaming, their bearded faces were twisted with a mixture of fear, hate and battle lust!

One came at him using his rifle as a club. Without thinking Patwata ducked under the man's swing, stepped in closer, with his left hand trapped the man's rifle against his side—and with his right buried the tomahawk's blade in his attacker's forehead.

It was while attempting to pull his blade clear of its grizzly sheath that Daniel slammed into him from the side. Both men went down in a tangle of arms and legs, Daniel with his long rifleman's knife and Patwata with his gore dripping tomahawk. Both men instantly gained their feet, both looking for an opening or better yet, a weakness.

Neither one found either!

Each man cautiously eyed the other, the hurly-burly of the fighting all around them was pushed aside—their gaze, their mind and their entire being was focused on the movements of the 'other'.

Slowly they circled, one cautious foot placed carefully before lifting the other. Weapon held high and ready—waiting for their opponent to move first. Hearts pounding, blood racing, eyes seeing all and nothing at the same time!

Then Patwata sprang. His tomahawk swung down and across, but Daniel stepped back, then lunged forward, his knife blade catching the rising sun. The sharp edge sliced across the back of Patwata's right shoulder. The war-chief however ignored the pain and, continuing to swing himself completely around, he aimed another killing blow at Daniel's head. Just in time the rifleman's knife blocked the descending blow and the two men stood face to face in a growling, snarling, shoving dance of death.

Then a wounded brave came up behind Daniel, his left hand hanging limp due to a bullet having shattered his shoulder. His right hand however still clutched a vicious ball headed warclub—which he swung at Daniel's back.

Luckily for the longhunter, the effort sent shards of pain into the brave's shattered shoulder, throwing his aim off, so that the heavy, antler tipped ball of the club missed the back of Daniel's head and merely glanced off the side of his neck. No serious damage done—other than knocking him to his knees.

Now, kneeling helpless before Patwata, his right arm numb from the blow, Daniel could only glare up at the Shawnee war-chief that was about to take his life.

Suddenly a shot rang out and the wounded native behind Daniel was hit in the chest and punched backwards into the smouldering fire. Daniel glanced over to where the shot had come from and saw Old Tom handing his now empty rifle to young Billy and quickly taking the lad's so he could make a second shot.

Patwata growled something in Shawnee and raised his fancy stolen tomahawk for the killing blow. With his left hand Daniel snatched his knife out of his numb right fist and attempted to fend on the blow—but another shot rang out and Patwata was struck in the back of the head—killing him instantly as blood, brains and bits of bone exploded out of his forehead. Pitching forward, Daniel, now covered in dripping gore, caught the dead war-chief like one might an overlarge puppet whose stings had suddenly been cut.

Still holding Patwata's limp body, Daniel glance over at the second shooter—and saw his younger brother Squire grinning back at him, smoke still coming out of the long barrel of his rifle.

Despite the native 'hostility' from three different tribes, the next year Daniel and his brother Squire led nearly a dozen families westward into Kain-Tuck and built Fort Boone, later named Boonesborough. The Shawnee to the north were especially unhappy about American expansion into Kentucky. They wanted revenge for the killing of Patwata and his war-band and they repeatedly attacked the small frontier settlement. Rather than an all out frontal attack—which the few times they had tried it had proven very costly, small groups would watch and wait in the nearby woods to ambush any settlers that came out of the fort.

Despite the constant danger of attack, Boone and the other settlers continued to clear the land, plant crops, hunt for food and build a new life for themselves in the savage western wilderness.

Meanwhile in 1777 the American Revolutionary War had begun back in the east. While war between England and her Thirteen Colonies rage up and down the east coast, the wily British opened a new inland front in the war with the American colonists by recruiting and arming Native war parties to raid the Kentucky settlements. Henry Hamilton, the British Lieutenant Governor of Canada at Fort Detroit, found willing allies in leaders such as Chief Blackfish of the Shawnees, who hoped to drive the Americans out of Kentucky and reclaim their ancestral hunting grounds.

As the raids intensified, Boone and any other Americans who strayed from fortified settlements like Boonesborough were in danger of being either killed or captured. In 1777, Natives brought 129 scalps and 77 prisoners to Governor Hamilton in Fort Detroit to trade for guns and other British made supplies.

Unable to dislodge the Kentuckians from their stockade settlements, Chief Cornstalk and other Native leaders had their war bands destroy crops, steal horses and kill the settler's cattle and other livestock, hoping that food shortages would force the Kentucky settlers to leave. With the food supply at Boonesborough running low, the settlers needed salt to preserve what little meat they had.

In late January 1778, Daniel Boone led a party of thirty men to the salt springs on the Licking River. On February 7, 1778, when Boone was out hunting meat for the expedition, he was surprised and captured by warriors led by Chief Blackfish. Because Boone's party was greatly outnumbered, he convinced his men to surrender rather than fight to the death.

Boone and his men were taken as prisoners to Blackfish's town of Chillicothe. By Shawnee custom, some of the prisoners were 'adopted' into the tribe to replace fallen warriors. The remainder were taken to Detroit, where Indians received a bounty from Governor Hamilton for each prisoner or scalp taken. Boone himself was adopted into a Shawnee family at Chillicothe, perhaps even into the family of Chief Blackfish himself. He was given the name Sheltowee, meaning 'Big Turtle'. Like most of the other adoptees, Boone was watched closely, but he eventually escaped on June 16, 1778 when he learned that Blackfish was preparing to attack Boonesborough with a large force. Boone managed to elude his captors and raced home, covering the 160 miles (260 km) to Boonesborough in just five days!

Upon his return, some of the men were unsure about Boone's loyalty, since after surrendering the salt making party he had apparently lived 'quite happily' among the Shawnees for months. Boone responded by leading a raid against the Shawnee village of Paint Lick Town on the other side of the Ohio River. This accomplished little however because all the braves were gone to meet with Blackfish. Boone and the raiding party hurried back to Boonesborough and prepared for a full scale attack.

Blackfish's force arrived outside Boonesborough on September 7, 1778. Boone counted well over four hundred Natives and twelve white men. They were mostly Shawnees, with a number of Cherokees, Wyandots, Miamis, Delawares, and Mingos. The dozen whites were French-Canadian militiamen from Detroit, former French subjects now fighting on behalf of the British Crown. Although this was the largest force yet sent against the Kentucky settlements, taking a well fortified position like Boonesborough without artillery to reduce the log stronghold would be very difficult and costly in human lives.

Blackfish called Boone out of the fort for a parley and presented letters from the British Governor Hamilton stating that if the settlers surrendered they would be well treated and taken north to Detroit. If they did not surrender, however, there were no guarantees of how many lives would be lost.

Boone told Blackfish that he would present the offer to the others and let him know their answer in the morning. Back in the fort, Boone outlined the situation but the consensus was to fight rather than surrender. The decision was made to 'prolong the negotiations' with Blackfish as long as possible, since reinforcements from Virginia were expected any day now.

Based on faulty intelligence received from Hamilton in Detroit, Blackfish believed that there were at least two hundred militiamen in the fort, when in fact there were far fewer than a hundred effective gunmen inside. The Kentuckians reinforced the illusion of a greater number of men by having some of the women in the fort carry weapons while dressed in men's clothing. On the evening of September 8, Blackfish and Boone met again. Boone told a surprised Blackfish that the fort would not surrender. Blackfish proposed that a 'formal treaty conference' with all of the leaders be held on the next day.

The treaty session began on September 9, with leaders from the two sides sharing a meal outside the fort. Afterwards, the council began. In case of trouble, both sides had gunmen covering the meeting from a distance. Unfortunately a scuffle broke out, and marksmen from both sides opened fire. Despite a few injuries, the Americans managed to scramble back into the fort. The Indians rushed the gate but were driven back by heavy gunfire. Negotiations were over and the formal siege had begun!

Gunfire was exchanged over the next several days. After the initial flurry of shooting, Boone— who re-emerged as the natural leader even though as a captain he was outranked by Major Smith and Colonel Richard Callaway—urged the Kentuckians to conserve their gunpowder. At night, Natives ran up to the walls and attempted to throw burning torches over the stockade onto the roofs of the houses within. This proved very costly because the warriors made easy targets for the Kentucky marksmen.

The Frenchmen from the Detroit militia then convinced the Indians to begin digging a tunnel from the bank of the river towards the fort. The goal was to place barrels of gunpowder in the tunnel under a section of the fort's walls and blow them up, collapsing part of the wall. Luckily for the defenders, heavy rains caused the Indians' tunnel to collapse before it reached the fort. Boone's brother, Squire, fashioned a makeshift wooden cannon, reinforced with iron bands, which was fired several times at groups of Indians before it cracked. The Shawnees launched their final assault on September 17, again trying to set fire to the fort. They were beaten back, and a heavy rain once again helped the Americans to put out the fires.

The Shawnees lost more men killed in this attack than on all other previous days. The next morning they gradually broke off the siege. The various tribes separated into scattered war parties and went off to raid other settlements, inflicting far more damage by this traditional method of warfare than they had done during the costly and prolonged siege. Incredibly, though there were a fair number wounded, there were only two fatalities among the defenders of Boonesborough.

Once again the American Dream to advance westward at all costs proved to be alive, well, and showing no signs of diminishing. If anything, more and more people were falling under its spell—but at what terrible cost to the continent's original inhabitants?