'The Frontiersmen: A Narrative' by Allan W. Eckert follows the westward expansion of the United States into the middle northern states like Ohio. It presents a narrative that blends historical facts with creative storytelling, focusing on pioneers and Native Americans during a key period of American history. The author, Eckert, uses a novel-like approach to recount the struggles and conflicts faced by individuals such as Simon Kenton and Tecumseh, offering a detailed and immersive look into the American frontier during the 17th and 18th centuries.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
The book includes graphic depictions of violence and conflict, which may be unsettling to some readers.
From The Publisher:
The frontiersmen were a remarkable breed of men. They were often rough and illiterate, sometimes brutal and vicious, often seeking an escape in the wilderness of mid-America from crimes committed back east. In the beautiful but deadly country which would one day come to be known as West Virginia, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, more often than not they left their bones to bleach beside forest paths or on the banks of the Ohio River, victims of Indians who claimed the vast virgin territory and strove to turn back the growing tide of whites. These frontiersmen are the subjects of Allan Eckert's dramatic history.
Against the background of such names as George Rogers Clark, Daniel Boone, Arthur St. Clair, Anthony Wayne, Simon Girty and William Henry Harrison, Eckert has recreated the life of one of America's most outstanding heroes, Simon Kenton. Kenton's role in opening the Northwest Territory to settlement more than rivaled that of his friend Daniel Boone. By his eighteenth birthday, Kenton had already won frontier renown as woodsman, fighter and scout. His incredible physical strength and endurance, his great dignity and innate kindness made him the ideal prototype of the frontier hero.
Yet there is another story to The Frontiersmen. It is equally the story of one of history's greatest leaders, whose misfortune was to be born to a doomed cause and a dying race. Tecumseh, the brilliant Shawnee chief, welded together by the sheer force of his intellect and charisma an incredible Indian confederacy that came desperately close to breaking the thrust of the white man's westward expansion. Like Kenton, Tecumseh was the paragon of his people's virtues, and the story of his life, in Allan Eckert's hands, reveals most profoundly the grandeur and the tragedy of the American Indian.
No less importantly, The Frontiersmen is the story of wilderness America itself, its penetration and settlement, and it is Eckert's particular grace to be able to evoke life and meaning from the raw facts of this story. In The Frontiersmen not only do we care about our long-forgotten fathers, we live again with them.
Researched for seven years, The Frontiersmen is the first in Mr. Eckert's "The Winning of America" series.
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About the Author:
Allan W. Eckert (January 30, 1931 - July 07, 2011) was an American historian, historical novelist, and naturalist. As a young man, he hitch-hiked around the United States, living off the land and learning about wildlife.
He began writing about nature and American history at the age of thirteen, eventually becoming an author of numerous books for children and adults. His children's novel, Incident at Hawk's Hill, was a runner-up for the Newbery Medal in 1972.
One of his novels tells how the great auk went extinct. In addition to his novels, he also wrote several unproduced screenplays and more than 225ÊMutual of Omaha's Wild KingdomÊtelevision shows for which he received an Emmy Award.
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