The Indian Wars, 1784-1787 103 



the good features and the bad were nakedly promi 

 nent ; and the views of observers in reference thereto 

 varied accordingly as they were struck by one set of 

 characteristics or another. One traveler would paint 

 the frontiersmen as little better than the Indians 

 against whom they warred, and their life as wild, 

 squalid, and lawless ; while the next would lay espe 

 cial and admiring stress on their enterprise, audacity, 

 and hospitable openhandedness. Though much 

 alike, different portions of the frontier stock were 

 beginning to develop 'along different lines. The 

 Holston people, both in Virginia and North Caro 

 lina, were by this time comparatively little affected 

 by immigration from without those States, and were 

 on the whole homogeneous ; but the Virginians and 

 Carolinians of the seaboard considered them rough, 

 unlettered, and not of very good character. One 

 traveling clergyman spoke of them with particular 

 disfavor; he was probably prejudiced by their in 

 difference to his preaching, for he mentions with 

 much dissatisfaction that the congregations he ad 

 dressed "though small, behaved extremely bad." 21 

 The Kentuckians showed a mental breadth that was 

 due largely to the many different sources from 

 which even the predominating American elements 

 in the population sprang. The Cumberland people 

 seemed to travelers the wildest and rudest of all, 

 as was but natural, for these fierce and stalwart set 

 tlers were still in the midst of a warfare as savage 



SI Durrett MSS. Rev. James Smith, "Tour in Western 

 Country," 1785. 



