How did the American frontiersman survive the wilderness?

The frontiersmen are one of the images usually associated with early American exploration, with their fur hats and flintlock muskets, trekking through the wilderness looking for new lands to settle and mineral deposits to profit from. But how realistic is this impression and who were the people known as frontiersmen?

Jim Baker (1818–1898)

Who were the Frontiersmen?

The term generally refers to anyone venturing into, or living on land that is beyond the control of their own people, and not yet fully explored or mapped. They would typically move to these new areas for the promise of claiming large areas of land that could later become valuable, or for new land to farm or mine that they could claim before anyone else got there.

What did they actually do?

There were typically two main types of frontiersmen, which fell into the categories of prospector/explorer and settlers. The settlers were only looking for new land, either for profit or just to have a place of their own, but normally chose a location on the frontier due to financial or space issues.

(An artist’s impression of an early colonial settlement, such places would be the main supply point for a frontiersman before setting of into the wild)

The prospectors and explorers were all looking for something, whether it was a gold deposit or a new river they could use for transportation. Many were tasked with drawing maps of certain areas and finding good hunting grounds so future parties could re-supply, but whatever their objective was, life on the frontier was hard and dangerous.

How long were they on the frontier?

Life in any area that’s completely unsupported in a time before engines and radio communication existed is going to be very dangerous, and because of this, the longest of expeditions were normally only planned for a few months at the most. The people on these journeys had to carry all the food, clothing, tools, equipment, weapons, and ammo for a trip that could last for several months on foot. Horses were rarely taken for several reasons, mostly due to cost, availability, risk of them crossing certain terrain and them being ineffective unless everyone in the party is mounted.

(The native population was by far the main threat to anyone not safely within a settlement, as it didn’t take long for the settlers to get greedy and cause the natives to become hostile)

The exception would be pack horses that carried supplies, but these were rarely taken on long journeys as they would often end up dead. Most trips into the frontier would normally last less than a month and they would have a specific task, such as mapping an area or checking a mountain for minerals.

How did they survive unsupported for so long?

The length for which an individual could stay in the frontier would depend on their hunting and trapping skills or the skills of whoever was with them. The weight someone could carry would depend on how long they could stay out unless they were resupplied by hunting. Foraging was only effective in certain areas and often couldn’t provide the calories needed to walk many miles, so meat was the only real choice.

With a skilled and equipped enough hunter, the party could stay in the wild for as long as they wanted, but food wasn’t the only threat to their life. Many Native American tribes became hostile to Europeans for various reasons and actively sought to kill trespassers on their land. Then there was the threat of disease and accidents, with no real medicine available on the frontier, something like a broken leg could be a death sentence. A good example of this is the story of Hugh Glass who was attacked by a bear and left for dead in the woods, but somehow managed to crawl for miles with a rotting leg back to safety.

What did the frontiersmen eat?

There were only a few crops that were farmed in the earlier settlements, starting with Jamestown in 1607 and spreading along the coast and further inland over the years. The crops farmed were designed to be long-lasting, such as corn and beans which could be dried to last throughout the winter months. The frontiersmen would usually only take dried beans and hardtack, because anything else would only be good for a few days, or would be too heavy.

(A picture of a food supply/ kitchen wagon that would accompany travelers into the frontier, but these only became common from the early 1800s onwards after roads had been established)

Weapons of the frontiersmen

During the early days of exploration in the first part of the 1600s, the standard long-barreled weapon was the matchlock musket. This could throw a 50. cal lead ball up to about 75 meters reasonably accurately, but they weren’t known for precision and often struggled to land a critical hit in the right place. Early hunting of this method would involve a lot of running after the prey until it bled out. Flintlock muskets became widely available by the mid-18th century and had improved greatly in design and accuracy but were still slow to load. The average Flintlock musket would weigh between 4 and 6kg, and be up to 5 feet long, making it very difficult to carry for miles each day.

(A matchlock musket, with an average reload time of at least one minute)

By the time self-contained bullet-firing weapons arrived on the scene, hunting had become much easier. Not only had the rate of fire improved and gun weight decreased, but a single shot had also gone from around 30 grams in a musket ball, to below 10 for a rifle round. Carry capacity and the wilderness survival skills of whoever was on the frontier would determine the length of time they could survive on the frontier, but few people enjoyed being in such a dangerous place, and trips there were only done if it was going to be worth it.