The Indian Wars, 1784-1787 243 



ers of the community, in legislation as in warfare. 

 Moreover, North Carolina was a much weaker and 

 more turbulent State than Virginia, so that a sepa 

 ratist movement ran less risk of interference. Chains 

 of forest-clad mountains severed the State proper 

 from its Western outposts. 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 herself was at first quite as anx 

 ious 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 coun 

 ties had been erected for them ; one, Davidson, tak 

 ing 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 dis 

 posed to consider the needs of the remote Western 

 colonists. 



The State was very poor, and regarded the West 

 ern settlements as mere burdensome sources of ex 

 pense. In the innumerable Indian wars debts were 



