University of Kentucky UKnowledge United States History History 1999 The Buzzel About Kentuck: Settling the Promised Land Craig Thompson Friend North Carolina State University Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Friend, Craig Thompson, "The Buzzel About Kentuck: Settling the Promised Land" (1999). United States History. 23. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/23 The Buzzel About Kentuck This page intentionally left blank The Buzzel About Kentuck Settling the Promised Land Edited by CRAIG THOMPSON FRIEND THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Publication of this volume was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Copyright © 1999 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: The buzzel about Kentuck : settling the Promised Land I Craig Thompson Friend, editor. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-10: 0-8131-2085-3 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Kentucky-History-To 1792. 2. Kentucky-History-1792-1865. 3. Frontier and pioneer life-Kentucky. I. Friend, Craig Thompson. F454.B89 1998 976.9-dc21 98-27466 ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-2085-3 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-9211-6 (pbk.: alk. paper) This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. Manufactured in the United States of America. ~•••, 1 ~ Member of the Association of 'I~ • American University Presses Contents List of Illustrations vn Foreword ix Acknowledgments XI Chronology xiii Introduction The Buzzel About Ken tuck CRAIG THOMPSON FRIEND 1 PART ONE: DEPENDENCE AND AUTONOMY The Lower Shawnee Town on Ohio Sustaining Native Autonomy in an Indian "Republic" A. GWYNN HENDERSON 25 Frontier Defenses and Pioneer Strategies in the Historic Settlement Era NANCY O'MALLEY 57 "This Idea in Heaven" Image and Reality on the Kentucky Frontier DANIEL BLAKE SMITH 77 PART lWO: ENACTING EXPECTATIONS Kentucky in the New Republic A Study of Distance and Connection MARION NELSON WINSHIP 101 "Work & Be Rich" Economy and Culture on the Bluegrass Farm CRAIG THOMPSON FRIEND 125 Opportunity on the Frontier South of the Green CHRISTOPHER WALDREP 153 "The Poor Men to Starve" The Lives and Times of Workingmen in Early Lexington STEPHEN A. ARON 175 PART THREE: A REVISED PROMISED LAND The Beginnings of Afro-American Christianity Among Kentucky Baptists ELLEN ESLINGER 197 "I Cannot Believe the Gospel That Is So Much Preached" Gender, Belief, and Discipline in Baptist Religious Culture BLAIR A. POGUE 217 "There We Were in Darkness,-Here We Are in Light" Kentucky Slaves and the Promised Land KAROLYN E. SMARDZ 243 About the Contributors 259 Index 261 List of Illustrations Lower Shawnee Town in Winter 24 Fort and Blockade Station at Lexington 56 Meeting of the Transylvania Company, 1775 76 John Breckinridge 100 Cartouche from John Filson's "Map ofKentucke" 124 A Kentucky Farmstead 152 John Robert Shaw's Last Well-Dig, 1806 174 A Slave Procession 196 Revival! 216 Advertisement for a Runaway Slave, 1831 242 This page intentionally left blank foreword The images of frontier Kentucky have remained etched in the national con­ sciousness. Those enduring views of the First West featured a land not popu­ lated by American Indians, an Eden waiting to be claimed, a place of milk and honey. To this Heaven on Earth, first came small bands of Long Hunt­ ers who then told of the wealth waiting to be won, and settlers from beyond the mountains soon followed. Daniel Boone, wilderness scout, Daniel Boone, Indian fighter, and Daniel Boone, frontier leader, all became part of the pic­ ture. Families braved the dangers, fought hostile forces, built their cabins, and found their dreams. Small yeoman farmers, with their brave and hearty fami­ lies at their side (if not always visible), lived a good life in the promised land. A few grew wealthy in the rural world and, with the labor of their mostly happy slaves, soon prospered. Out of all that burst forth a new state. So went the image. But it was a false picture in so many aspects. Many of the parts of that society were covered over with fresh historical paints, hiding the reality of the original oils of memory. Yes, there was much of what the early rhetoric promised. It was a land rich in game, with fertile soils and the rest. But the rhetoric and the vision and, later, the writings of those who chronicled the era also obscured much. The Native American presence and viewpoint, the physical hardships and danger, the mental challenges, the roles of women, children, and blacks, the unfulfilled promises, the lawsuits, the frustrations­ all that and more might still be a part of the early picture but would be bur­ ied away in some dark, unlit corner of the frontier tapestry spread before Americans. When I wrote an article surveying the status of writing on Kentucky history, over a decade and a half ago, few of the new waves of historical in­ quiry had swept across the study of the frontier. Yet, it seemed to me at the time, the sources cried out for just such a study. Some well-used materials could easily yield new insights if given a fresh look; some utilized items sim­ ply awaited an eager historical explorer; some accepted and older outlooks needed questioning and challenging. History too abhors a vacuum, and new historians have moved into the field. More recent studies have shown that the earlier interpretations no X Foreword longer can serve as faithful guides to frontier and early antebellum Kentucky. A whole series of recent books and articles demonstrate that while there is much very sound in those previous accounts, there is much more to know and to understand. Despite two centuries of writing, the images and the re­ alities of early Kentucky remain as far distant from each other as the seacoast was to those on the frontier, beyond the mountains. This collection represents an important new study in that evolving re­ examination of the early frontier. The result is a nuanced portrayal of a per­ plexing and complex world, one evolving and changing, one that brings the reality closer and into clearer focus. These essays sometimes support, often refute, and usually redefine ideas about this society and those who lived in it. They demonstrate which parts of the older story still ring true and which ones are hollow echoes of the frontier as it existed. The Buzzel About Ken tuck presents a view of the frontier based on a wider concept of what affected those early European-Americans and African Americans-the American Indian context, the ties to the East, the national markets, the world situation. This book emphasizes the lives of those often ignored on the frontier-settlers south of Green River, workmen, free blacks, African American churchgoers, and women generally. These essays also stress that the western frontier was not specifically of one historical moment. In Kentucky, different frontier societies developed in different ways at differ­ ent times, according to a whole series of economic, financial, migratory, and governmental factors. There was a frontier not of time but of actions for a century after 1750, and beyond. These scholars and their essays represent a large part of the core of ex­ citing work being done on the trans-Appalachian west. When you combine their fresh insights with good scholarship and an important subject, the re­ sult is what this work is-a significant new look at Kentucky and the early American frontier. James C. Klotter Acknowledgments Part of the joy of researching and writing history is when one realizes that others are engaged in similar pursuits and share interest in the same ques­ tions. The Buzzel About Ken tuck: Settling the Promised Land is testimony to such moments. Some of the contributors are scholars with whom I have shared panels at meetings of the Southern Historical Association and the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. Others have become cherished colleagues whose interest in my work pales when compared with my respect for their own. Still others are people I have never met, recom­ mended for their dedication to serious scholarship. Without their hard work, flexibility, attention to details, and, most important, common interest in the history of early Kentucky, this collection would never have come together. To them I am most grateful. The task of compiling and editing such diverse essays was more demand­ ing than I expected. Without the encouragement and assistance of several people, I would have become disheartened by the magnitude of the project. A friend, Thomas Appleton, has always recharged my ebbing enthusiasm and is the best proofreader I know. In the spring of 1996, Sue Miller and Mark Roy studied historical editing with me and found needed corrections and improvements in several of the articles.