Many of the pioneer leaders were from Virginia--backwoodsmen
who had drifted south along the trough-like valleys. These of course
felt little loyalty to North Carolina. The others, who were North
Carolinians by birth, had cast in their lot, for good or for evil, with
the frontier communities, and were inclined to side with them in any
contest with the parent State.
North Carolina Indifferent to Her Western Settlements.
North Carolina herself was at first quite as anxious to get rid of the
frontiersmen as they were to go. Not only was the central authority much
weaker than in Virginia, but the people were less proud of their State
and less jealously anxious to see it grow in power and influence. The
over-mountain settlers had increased in numbers so rapidly that four
counties had been erected for them; one, Davidson, taking in the
Cumberland district, and the other three, Washington, Sullivan, and
Greene, including what is now eastern Tennessee. All these counties sent
representatives to the North Carolina legislature, at Hillsborough; but
they found that body little disposed to consider the needs of the remote
western colonists.
The State was very poor, and regarded the western settlements as mere
burdensome sources of expense.
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