Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 123 



seacoast, and the mountains rising highest to the 

 southward. It was difficult to cross the ranges from 

 east to west, but it was both easy and natural to fol- 

 low the valleys between. From Fort Pitt to the 

 high hill-homes of the Cherokees this great tract of 

 wooded and mountainous country possessed nearly 

 the same features and characteristics, differing ut- 

 terly in physical aspect from the alluvial plains bor- 

 dering the ocean. 



So, likewise, the backwoods mountaineers who 

 dwelt near the great watershed that separates the At- 

 lantic streams from the springs of the Watauga, the 

 Kanawha, and the Monongahela, were all cast in 

 the same mold, and resembled each other much more 

 than any of them did their immediate neighbors of 

 the plains. The backwoodsmen of Pennsylvania 

 had little in common with the peaceful population of 

 Quakers and Germans who lived between the Dela- 

 ware and the Susquehanna ; and their near kinsmen 

 of the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains 

 were separated by an equally wide gulf from the 

 aristocratic planter communities that flourished in 

 the tide-water regions of Virginia and the Carolinas. 

 Near the coast the lines of division between the 

 colonies corresponded fairly well with the differ- 

 ences between the populations; but after striking 

 the foothills, though the political boundaries con- 

 tinued to go east and west, those both of ethnic and 

 of physical significance began to run north and 

 south. 



The backwoodsmen were Americans by birth and 



