ere,
And nought but Jesus know.

CHAPTER II. The Cradle of Westward Expansion

In the year 1746 I was up in the country that is now Anson,
Orange and Rowan Counties, there was not then above one hundred
fighting men there is now at least three thousand for the most
part Irish Protestants and Germans and dailey increasing.--Matthew
Rowan, President of the North Carolina Council, to the
Board of Trade, June 28, 1753.

The conquest of the West is usually attributed to the ready
initiative, the stern self-reliance, and the libertarian instinct
of the expert backwoodsmen. These bold, nomadic spirits were
animated by an unquenchable desire to plunge into the wilderness
in search of an El Dorado at the outer verge of civilization,
free of taxation, quit-rents, and the law's restraint. They
longed to build homes for themselves and their descendants in a
limitless, free domain; or else to fare deeper and deeper into
the trackless forests in search of adventure. Yet one must not
overlook the fact that behind Boone and pioneers of his stamp
were men of conspicuous civil and military genius, constructive
in purpose and creative in imagination, who devoted their best
gifts to actual conquest and colonization. These men of large
intellectual mold-themselves surveyors, hunters, and
pioneers--were inspired with the larger vision of the
expansionist. Whether colonizers, soldiers, or speculators on the
grand scale, they sought to open at one great stroke the vast
trans-Alleghany regions as a peaceful abode for mankind.

Two distinct classes of society were gradually drawing apart from
each other in North Carolina and later in Virginia--the pioneer
democracy of the back country and the upland, and the planter
aristocracy of the lowland and the tide-water region. From the
frontier came the pioneer explorers whose individual enterprise
and initiative were such potent factors in the exploitation of
the wilderness. From the border counties still in contact with
the East came a number of leaders. Thus in the heart of the Old
Southwest the two determinative principles already referred to,
the inquisitive and the acquisitive instincts, found a fortunate
conjunction. The exploratory passion of the pioneer, directed in
the interest of commercial enterprise, prepared the way for the
great westward migration. The warlike disposition of the hardy
backwoodsman, controlled by the exercise of military strategy,
accomplished the conquest