Indian Phillips, a Shawnee, was a favorite companion of Boones. The Draper file indicates that Boone “… could speak and understand the Shawnee language sufficiently for the purposes of ordinary conversation: The squaws appeared shy, & wouldn’t talk; they are generally less talkative with the whites than the men. Boone visited them at their settlement in Missouri, & these friendly visits were interchanged several times”.

Other passages indicate that Phillips could speak English at least equal to that of Boone’s capacity for Shawnee.

But by 1813 Boone, son-in-law Flanders Callaway and his black slaves of La Charrette left the village in pirogues to escape the Shawnee who were threatening. “…several of these pirogues were leashed together; & several ran on a Sawyer descending the Missouri, & all the goods were lost. The whites & blacks on board were saved, clinging to the wreck till they were rescued. Thus Col. Boone lost all his books & papers, which were on board.”

Continuing:  ” The most of the white people went down by land - Col. Boone, Callaway’s, Lemme’s [Lammes], the families of David Bryan & his brother, and the two Ramsey famalies, were among the number. James Boone (son of Nathan B.) & sister Delinda were at the time at Charrette going to school.”  

The two Ramsey families represented one of those that were massacred by Indians in 1815. American frontier life at La Charrette… and the complexities of the Boone-Phillips relationship.