n fact. The nature of the frontier experience itself was
conducive to its development. Its appearance among the Fair Play
settlers is implied in various contexts. Politically, it is suggested in
the creation of the Fair Play men, the annual governing tribunal, an
extra-legal political agency in this extra-Provincial territory.
Economically, it is intimated in the image of the frontier farmer
tackling the wilderness with rifle and plow and the unbounded
determination to make a better life for himself and his family.
Socially, the self-reliance of these doughty pioneers is indicated in
the continuation of their religious practices and worship, despite the
absence of any organized church. Their self reliance is indicated, as
well, in the flexibility of a social structure whose main criterion was
achievement, a society in which "what" you were was more important than
"who" you were. These examples are, of course, only brief glimpses of
the elusive trait of self-reliance which Turner considered typical of
the frontier.

Independence, or the ability to act independently, was a characteristic
frontier trait, according to Turner. The Fair Play settlers presented
some contradictions. It is true that they organized their own system of
government and the code under which it operated. However, their key
leaders lived on the periphery; and the settlers petitioned the
Commonwealth government for assistance in the vital questions of defense
and pre-emption rights.[8] The Fair Play settlers were generally
independent, a condition promoted by the necessities of frontier life;
but, obviously, they were not isolated.

It is difficult to assess the nationalizing influence of this particular
frontier. In the first place, aside from the Second Continental
Congress, there was no national government during most of the Fair Play
period. The Articles of Confederation were not ratified until 1781, and
Fair Play territory was opened to settlement after the Treaty of Fort
Stanwix in 1784. Furthermore, the patriotism of the Fair Play settlers
seems to reflect an ethnocentric pride in their own territory and an
exaggerated interpretation of its significance to the developing
nation.[9] Their patriotism was apparently for an ideal, liberty, to
which they were devoted, having already enjoyed it in a nation only
recently declared, but yet to be recognized. And, for its support, there
had been a rush to the colors by these settlers "beyond the purchase