I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin is an interesting but unsettling read. The book uses the timeline of Daniel Boone’s life as the scaffold for the history of white settlers displacing Native Americans in the near-west frontier, the lands west of the Appalachians and east of the Mississippi.

The book is, in part, a biography of Daniel Boone. It gives some of his family history as background and follows him until his death. It also retells some of the more famous anecdotes of his life. But it’s not an in-depth biography of the man. It focuses more on the larger history of that “first frontier.” It incorporates the American Revolution, but only as it impacts the western theater. It is primarily a history of the continual, brutal warfare between the settlers and the original occupants of the land.

It is well-researched and reads quickly. Boone is an impressively brave character, but this is no psychological study and I can’t help but think his good points were played up and his bad points ignored. For example, I would have hated to be his wife.

The history is interesting and important, and it’s not something I ever learned in any detail, so I was glad to fill in some of those gaps. My knowledge of Daniel Boone was sketchy and I always envisioned him as more mythical than real. The narrative recounted here is all too real. While the authors attempted a balanced portrayal, there is no avoiding the ickiness of the subject matter.

It is difficult for the average person to fully understand the realities of war. As a student of the Second Continental Congress who has taken to reading more about the military exploits of the Revolutionary War and Colonial life in general, the disconnect between the Congressional journals and reality becomes more and more stark with each book. While Congress prosecuted the war and attempted to cobble together allies, everyone around them suffered. Scores of combatants, civilians, and at times entire towns were uprooted or destroyed.

One particularly gruesome tale that Bob Drury and Tom Clavin tell in their new book Blood and Treasure is that of Daniel Boone and the western expansion of Colonial settlers. Daniel Boone was a legendary frontiersman that spent much of his life exploring what is now West Virginia and Kentucky and fighting deadly battles with various Native American tribes he encountered along the way. Blood and Treasure follows his life as a young explorer, hunter, trapper, settler, and militaman during the Revolutionary War.

It is clear early in the book that Boone possessed those qualities that set many of the Founding Fathers apart in their time. He was not a scholar, but instead set about at a very young age teaching himself how to hunt and survive in the American wilderness. While sustained financial success seemed to elude Boone, he became famous in his own right for his incredible skill navigating and surviving the harsh frontier and battling Native American warriors. These skills would serve him well as he would spend much of his life pursuing his dream of pushing the western boundaries of the American colonies.

Despite his mythical status, Boone’s own life was filled with tragedy. He lost several children and family members to warring Native American parties. He was also taken captive by a Native American chief and spent several months living among his lifelong enemies. Boone also seemed to have a wild penchant for throwing himself headfirst into any fight that crossed his path, made poor business decisions, and was suspected by many of having been a Loyalist who worked with the British against the Patriots’ cause.

While Boone’s life story is the centerpiece of Blood and Treasure, it is almost on the periphery at times. The book also focuses heavily on the complexities associated with the Colonials tenuous relationship with the Native Americans. Drury and Calvin also highlight the complex entanglement between the British and various Native American tribes and how the Revolutionary War provided a backdrop for the Colonials ongoing efforts to push west despite Native American resistance. It brings a new dynamic to the understanding of the American Revolution as not just being about independence from Great Britain, but also freedom to continue growing beyond the boundaries prescribed by British treaties with Native American tribes and other European powers. This may be familiar ground to some historians, but to this reader the concept is a new revelation.

At a time when American culture is focused on historic wrongs committed against indigenous people and racial minorities, Blood and Treasure gives readers an opportunity to set those political debates aside and focus on the reality of what life was like in the Virginia territory in the 1700s. In summary, life was brutal and Drury and Clavin spare no detail in describing it. The guerilla warfare between the colonists and Native Americans that went on for generations killed thousands of men, women and children indiscriminately. Neither side was innocent and one is left to ponder how so many could have such disregard for human life. By the end of the book it is clear that the battles were not just about settling the grievance of the day, but deciding the broader question of who would ultimately rule the land. Spoiler alert - the colonists win.

Blood and Treasure was educational and entertaining. It is a great read for anyone interested in historical nonfiction, particularly about Colonial America and the American Revolution. Drury and Calvin provide a fair and balanced view of the violence perpetrated by the colonists and Native Americans during decades of war. If they do hold personal biases, it does not come across in their writing and there is no judgement of any particular side. Given the graphic nature of the topic, the book is not for the faint of heart.

I received a free electronic copy of this historical biography from Netgalley, Tom Clavin and Bob Drury, and St. Martin's Press. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read Blood and Treasure, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. St. Martin's Press is bringing us more exacting, more exciting histories and biographies than I have seen previously. Thank you again for sharing. This is a must-read for history lovers.

This is a special, intimate look back in time that puts us right there, next to Daniel Boone as he works his way into the history of the United States. Whatever your historical interest, Blood and Treasure will catch your attention. This is not a story of coonskin hats and blunderbusses, but an intricate spotlight on life as it was in October 1773, beginning before our battles with England for independence, and carrying forward to the disastrous Battle of Blue Licks in August 1782. With Clavin and Drury, we go back to when the American West started at the peaks of the Alleghany Mountains and every inch of soil was paid for with blood and treasure.

Looking back on his life with his biographer, John Filson, Boone remarked on the “blood and treasure” spent to secure Kentucky for American settlement. He lost two sons to Indian attacks. His family had fled Boonesborough after his 1778 kidnapping by the Shawnee--and his wife’s family “did not bother to hide their loyalist feelings,” even as he languished in captivity.

But there was more blood and treasure lost than kith and kin for the Boone family, and Drury and Clavin really bring the frontier of the Revolutionary War Era to life in this vividly written history.

The land of "Kenta-ke," named by the Iroquois for its "many meadows" was an intertribal park, stretching from the Cumberland River in the south (along which Nashville, Tennessee, lies today) and the Ohio River in the north. It was a preserved land with no permanent settlements. And the bands of hunting Shawnee, Cherokee, and Chickasaw, met in peace on this land--despite many other armed conflicts throughout the years.

Boone entered the region first as a long hunter, taking his share of the abundant bison and beaver, along with many other colonists. But when Boone found the Cumberland Gap--a pass in the Appalachain Moutain Chain where the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia all meet--Kenta-ke was ripe for settlement, and the settlement of Boonesborough was the result.

As Boone, his family, and settlers from North Carolina, crossed the mountains to settle in the intertribal game park, the Revolutionary War burst to life in faraway Lexington, Massachusetts.

The most interesting parts of this book are found when Drury and Clavin show Boone's travails in Kentucky in the context of the greater war. Shawnee attacks were swift in response to settlement on their historic hunting lands, but the Shawnee and Boones also allowed themselves to become pawns in the greater fight between Britain (which armed and supported the Indians, promising to keep the Appalachians as the fixed border between Indian and colonial lands) and the Colonies, which were fighting, in part, to gain access to the riches of trans-Appalachia.

Growing up in the Ohio Valley, I have heard tales of Boone throughout my life--the kidnapping of his daughter, for example, and his time as an adopted son of the Shawnee chief, Blackfish.

But Kentucky was a part of a much larger conflict, even as Boone's "blood and treasure" would one day make it a part of a much greater nation.

I grew up in the Ohio Valley. I live in the Cumberland Valley. There is much history between them, and this book really captures it. Special thanks to NetGalley for the preview in exchange for an honest review.

I did not read enough of this book to give a review. It was very difficult to read. The beginning went well, but the writing style changed drastically. The new style kept circling backward in time and sideways to other authors' reports of events.

Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First Frontier by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin is a highly recommended account of the life of the legendary Daniel Boone.

Drury and Clavin present a detailed and well written narrative that is both a history of the times and a biography of Daniel Boone. This was a different time and place from the world we know today. It is the mid-eighteenth century in Colonial America. There are wars between the French, English, and Native tribes. All of this affected the lives of settlers, including the Boone family. This history focuses on the settlement of North America's first frontier and the Boone families migration from New England to settle the Carolinas and across the Appalachians to Kentucky.

It is clearly presented why Daniel Boone is such a legendary, larger-than-life, amazing historical figure. This is a well-written, accurate, well-researched, and unbiased account that is placed firmly in the context of the times, so it can be violent. It is told through the people who were there, experiencing the events depicted. Once the narrative starts, it is full of fast-paced, non-stop action. Drury and Clavin include footnotes to document the chronicle of events in Boone's life and times. The narrative covers a lot of territory, covering areas ranging from Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Florida, and Illinois.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of St. Martin's Publishing Group in exchange for my honest opinion.
The review will also be submitted for publication on Amazon, Edelweiss, Google Books, and Barnes & Noble.

In my youth Daniel Boone was a hot commodity, as were Lewis and Clark, Crockett, Custer, Carson, and a long list of other figures whose lives made America’s dream of manifest destiny a reality. At my young age, Boone’s adventures in opening the wilderness were a thrill, but that is all they were, adventures. The authors of the books I read back then did little to provide context to his deeds.

Over the years, America’s attitudes towards its interactions with native Americans underwent a quantum shift. The publication of books such as Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee changed our view from that of Indian wars to genocidal extermination. In the final decades of the twentieth century the heroic luster of early American explorers and pioneers tarnished in the face of unrelenting condemnation to the point where my daughters, both in their twenties, had never heard of Daniel Boone before today.

Fortunately, the new millennium has brought us a new generation of historians whose interests lie more in telling an accurate, unbiased story than in glorifying one side or the other. Authors such as Nathaniel Philbrick and Erik Larson have made careers out of taking all we think we know about famous people and events and turning it on its head by the simple expedient of telling the unvarnished truth. High on this list of authors are Bob Drury and Tom Clavin who have cowritten books spanning U.S. history from Valley Forge to Vietnam, including a biography of Oglala Sioux Chief Red Cloud. Their newest book, Blood and Treasure, relates the events surrounding Daniel Boone’s settlement of Kentucky and his role in the American Revolutionary War.

It has been fifty years since I last read a book about him. Back then, books told the story of Daniel Boone, the legend. Now, I finally get a chance to learn about Daniel Boone, the man. It is not a ‘warts and all’ exposé aimed at trashing his reputation, but a skillfully researched account of his life provided in the context of the times in which he lived.

Many of the more memorable stories of him are about Boone the Indian fighter, his close calls and escapes, but they leave out the fact that these events were part of a larger war. During the Revolution, the British actively recruited warriors from numerous tribes to make war on the American settlers. By opening up a western front, they hoped to pull men and resources away from George Washington’s army and thereby end the war. To this end, the British Army offered bounties for American scalps. When the Shawnee and several other tribes besieged Boonesborough in 1778 they were accompanied by forty to fifty British and and Canadians and fought under the Union Jack. Had the siege succeeded, they could have easily taken several smaller settlements and “flank the coastal revolutionaries from the rear, forcing Washington’s Continental Army to defend two fronts. Gen. Cornwallis was already planning to open a southern theater, and it is easy to imagine he and Hamilton crushing the southern rebels between them”. In the Shawnees’ defense, The British were offering them the one thing that their survival depended on, all the land west of the Alleghenies and laws prohibiting white settlements in Indian lands. Stamp Acts and ‘taxation without representation’ be damned. This vast expanse of unsettled land is what the war was all about.

Bottom line: Drury and Clavin penned an amazing book that revisits a history that has been all but forgotten. As a genealogist, I appreciate the tremendous amount of research that went into it. I highly recommend this book.

*Quotations are cited from an advanced reading copy and may not be the same as appears in the final published edition. The review was based on an advanced reading copy obtained at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review. While this does take any ‘not worth what I paid for it’ statements out of my review, it otherwise has no impact on the content of my review.

FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:
*5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
*4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is.
*3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable.
*2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending.
*1 Star – The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire.

I have no other book to compare this one too, having only read about him, ever so briefly, in school history books of days gone by. However, I thoroughly enjoyed this microscopic look at the life of Daniel Boone as he blazed a trail (literally) across an unknown frontier. His bravery and determination are something we don't often enough see in the twenty-first century. Thank God for the frontiersman of that era who blazed a path across our land. We owe them a debt of gratitude for all they endured to make a path for us.

Free ARC from NET GALLEY

There is still a chance to learn history in this country!

Marvelous book that paints a portrait of Boone, including the brutal beginning but while always leaving Boone in the center brings in the events and characters of the 1700's to a brillant life. I enjoyed it a lot, and I learned a lot. GREAT BOOK!

This was an extensively research book centering around the life and times of Daniel Boone but in the same sense it also involved those other prominent and lesser known figures that were part of this historic time period. This included many Native Americans who fought to preserve their land and way of life.

When learning about this time period, we were only afforded a glimpse into the past. However, with each chapter the authors provided in-depth accounts surrounding important events. It almost felt like watching a historical mini series-with each chapter bringing these events to life. Some of these detailed events were very heartbreakingly sad. The title, Blood and Treasure, was aptly named.

An ARC was given for an honest review.

This is a well-researched history of Daniel Boone and westward expansion. Drawing from tons of documentation, the authors bring to life the various men and women who traveled into the unknown of western America and faced the perils, often not surviving.
Daniel Boone is an amazing person, he seems bigger than life. But the research and documentation the authors refer to throughout the book make this man’s life believable. He had an extremely strong and independent family behind him, that aspect was most interesting to me.
It’s somber reading this when we know all along what happened to the Indian culture. Their lands were invaded, their homes and tribes annihilated, and history was written by the victor. But I write this review comfortably sitting on a patch of land where that exact history occurred (Missouri). That’s the downside of historical writing; we know how it ends.
I thoroughly enjoyed the descriptions, the detail, and the life these authors breathed into their characters. I regret what happened to the Indian culture in the occupation of western America, but sadly, so goes the evolution of Man.
Sincere thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. The publishing date is April 20, 2021.

This book about Daniel Boone starts off with the graphic killing of Boone’s son by the Indians. This nonfiction continued to keep my interest throughout. It does a masterful job of combining historic facts (battles, politics) with details about not only Boone’s life but several other well known figures (George Washington).
This is one of those nonfiction books that reads almost like fiction. The authors give us both big and small pictures of the times and places. I loved seeing how decisions by the British made in England played out in the Yadkin Valley of what became North Carolina. I hadn’t a clue that a royal proclamation made in 1763 designed to stop a war with the Indians played into the start of the colonists’ unhappiness with England.
This book doesn’t spare the reader from a lot of gruesome details. Indians and settlers alike killed, tortured and mutilated anyone they caught.
I was unaware of the role the Indians played during the Revolutionary War and how they used the “civil war” among the whites, as they saw it, to attempt to take back their lands. And, of course,in the end, both English and Americans hung them out to dry.
Drury and Calvin have a wealth of information, which allows for copious amounts of detail.
My thanks to netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance copy of this book.

I received this from Netgalley.com.

An interesting telling of Daniel Boone and his escapades, but it was rather dry reading.

2.75☆

Blood and Treasure is a good introduction to the life of Daniel Boone and the intersection of white encroachment west of the Appalachian Mountains. Readers are given an informative backdrop of Native American perspective and actions while whites continuously tread upon their land. Boone is a legendary figure in frontier history and this book is a nice contribution to the introductory level. I love frontier history and while the book didn’t add anything new to what I already knew, I always like to read about Boone’s life.

Blood and Treasure provides a detailed look at the life of Daniel Boone, an icon of early United States history. The events of Boone's life have been thoroughly researched by Drury and Clavin and provide readers with a better understanding of his life and life in the US during the late 1700s and early 1800s. Perspectives of local Native American tribes that Boone encountered are also detailed as are events that led to the American Revolutionary War and the forming of the new country. This book is a must read for fans of US history and those who want to learn more about the life of Daniel Boone.

This book is a billed as a biography of Daniel Boone and the opening of the original American northwest. The book is intended for a wide audience and is written in that manner. The chapters are short with some going into great detail and others not so much. It is an enjoyable read as I have read many books by both authors and found them engaging and entertaining. This book presents a good overview treatment of both the life of Daniel Boone and opening up the country west of the Appalachians. There are several others books that treat both subjects in greater detail for those that desire more than what the book presents.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my nonfiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook page.

<i>Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First Frontier</i> weaves a biography of legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone with the larger history of the expansion of American settlers beyond the Appalachians. The folk hero's life, adventures, and personality are placed within the larger historical events. Boone comes through as a man of skills, patience, a preference for peace, and the backbone to fight when necessary. His role in blazing a trail through the Cumberland Gap into the rich fields of Kentucky was pivotal in American history, and his ability to survive, improvise, and lead under adversity served him well on the frontier. The text also admirably separates man from mythology.

The savagery of fighting on the frontier is shocking, with torture, scalping, and wholesale murder occurring with regularity between both settlers and Indians. The way the Indians were regarded and bargained with, only to have treaty after treaty broken when they became inconvenient, is heartbreaking, and <i>Blood and Treasure</i> does not shy away from this. I felt one of the best-told parts of the book was the shifting interplay of politics, alliance, and enmity between settlers, colonial governments, Indian tribes and leaders, and the New World imperial aspirations of Great Britain and France.

Authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin's skillfully narrates the events in an extremely readable presentation. This book was both a pleasure to read and an excellent insight into this chapter of American history.

ARC kindly provided by NetGalley.

I received an advance reading copy (arc) of this book from NetGalley.com in return for a fair review. This book details the life of the legendary Daniel Boone. As a boomer, when I think of Daniel Boone, Fess Parker and his coonskin cap immediately come to mind, along with a sense of great adventure. In reality, Boone stood about 5 foot 8 and he didn't wear a coonskin cap, but the great adventure part certainly rings true. Boone was, at heart, a long hunter, which meant he left home and lived for months at a time in the wild scouting new areas and fur trapping when he wasn't shooting big game. But this book isn't just about Boone although the story centers on him. This book brings to life what it was like during the 1700s when settlers headed west at the same time George Washington was fighting the British. Back then, 'west' was Kentucky where Boone eventually settled. In between wrangling with Indians, (the term used in the book), defending his territory, and keeping his family together and safe, Boone was a man of his word. At times, he seemed fearless, and he had a knack for sensing trouble, but he always made shrewd decisions in the face of adversity. You could almost hear the drums and war cries as the Indians and the white men fought over the land. Both sides committed horrific atrocities that were hard to read about. Authors Drury and Clavin did an excellent job researching these Indian wars and explaining what happened from both viewpoints. My only complaint about this book was the very end. Instead of telling us about Boone's death and burial, the authors penned a commentary about how the war between the Indians and the white men continue. It seemed they used the book to make a political point instead of wrapping up Boone's amazing storyline. That was the difference between four and five stars for me.

Blood and Treasure – Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin is an extremely well written history and biography book. While it covers Daniel Boone’s life, it also covers the history and events of the times and shows where they intersect.

The author brought a strong sense of time and place to the people and events in the book. It is not just a recitation of facts, but a story of the people and events. It draws the reader into Daniel Boone’s world. It also doesn’t shy away from the grimmer aspects of life in the 1700’s and early 1800’s as well as some less than amazing aspects of Boone’s life. He was definitely an extraordinary pioneer that was a capable leader, hunter, and fighter with a work ethic he got from observing his parents. However, he was much more than this. He was fascinated by Native American culture, weapons, clothing, jewelry, and medicines from an early age. But he also struggled throughout his life with financial debt. His marriage to Rebecca Bryan was also fascinating. They both had to have a lot of patience and be slow to anger.

The authors don’t shy away from the various wars that followed European immigrants coming to the New World. These had a severe detrimental effect on Native Americans resulting in loss of homelands, loss of hunting grounds, starvation, disease, loss of life through war, and other adverse effects on their culture. This is not the sanitized history and biography books that one often reads in school. It also debunks some of the legends about Daniel Boone.

Men, women, and children were killed by the colonists, the British, the French, and the Native Americans; not just one or two of these. This book doesn’t gloss over the negative aspects of life or human activities and the atrocities that occurred. We need to learn what really occurred.

It was interesting to read about the intertribal dynamics and how they changed over time. Additionally, communication and semantic misunderstandings often had grave consequences. The book’s timeline includes the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War so the actions of several other famous people of the times are included.

The prose was very readable and did not feel like so many dry nonfiction books. The writing style kept me engaged throughout. Overall, this book was well-written and well-researched. I learned a lot and want to read more by these authors. My only quibble is that there were no maps of the times included in the book. However, I was able to find some applicable maps online. Readers that like history and adventure may enjoy this book as much as I did.

St. Martin’s Press, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. This is my honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way. Publication date is currently set for April 20, 2021.

Blood and Treasure by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin is an awesome book that delves into the history of Daniel Boone, the expansion into the lands of the western frontier, the beginnings of the Revolutionary War, and so much more. It was gripping from beginning to end.

I know this is a nonfiction book, however the smooth way that the prose was written and how well the narrative unfolded at times made it all seem so exciting and flawless as if I was reading a fictional account.

I learned so much more about Daniel, different viewpoints from the colonists, the Native Americans, British citizens, and events that are a part of our American history that I truly could not appreciate when it was first presented to me in middle school. Now as an adult, I see and understand things differently.

Is our past as a nation unblemished and perfect? Nope. We were flawed in many ways, and definitely were in the wrong in several ways on our quest for our own independence and should have done many things differently, but that isn’t what happened. We need to learn what really occurred, why, what was right and wrong despite the century differences, and how we can modify things for the future (if applicable).

I really enjoyed learning so much more about Daniel Boone then I could have ever imagined. He is a fascinating and complex figure that is an integral part of our nation’s history.

5/5 stars

Thank you NG and St. Martin’s Press for this arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication on 4/20/21.