PHYSIOGRAPHIC INFLUENCES IN TENNESSEE. 49 



Slavery did not obtain the same hold on this region that it did in Middle 

 Tennessee. Sentiment on the subject of slavery was greatly divided and 

 abolition societies were founded years before the Civil War. During 

 the war East Tennessee furnished soldiers to both the Union and the 

 Confederate armies, though Union sentiment was predominant. The 

 political beliefs of the region are also a consequence of the same condi- 

 tions. Most parts of the region are today strongly Republican. Had the 

 surface of East Tennessee been such as to make slavery universally profit- 

 able, its history before, during and since the Civil War would have been 

 far different from what it has been. 



Types of civilization. Agriculturally, the valley portions are much 

 more desirable as a rule than the hill portions, and through the principle 

 of the survival of the fittest there has come about a slow differentiation 

 among the people as a result of which the more thrifty and progressive 

 occupy the fertile limestone valleys, and the less energetic have been 

 pushed into the poorer lands of the shale hills and chert ridges. This 

 differentiation once established tends to perpetuate itself, and we find in 

 some places the contrast between the peoples in the valleys and back in 

 the hills very sharply drawn and strongly marked. Needless to say this 

 condition of affairs brings with it certain problems of a social and eco- 

 nomic nature. 



The wealth and variety of the mineral resources that have been made 

 accessible by the upturning of the rocks of the region, together with other 

 natural advantages, such as the proximity of coal, forest materials and 

 water power, make possible the development of a greatly diversified .urban 

 industrial life. 



This valley region, cut off from free communication both east and 

 west, has its natural outlet northeastward into Virginia and southward 

 and southwestward into Georgia and Alabama, and commercial and social 

 ties and interchange of people and ideas must always be chiefly in these 

 directions. 



CUMBERLAND PLATEAU. 



Features. This division forms a belt 30 to 50 miles wide that extends 

 entirely across the State from Kentucky to Alabama. Its surface has an 

 average elevation for most of the area of about 2,000 feet above sea level, 

 though its culminating points rise to more than 3,500 feet. Its eastern 

 edge is well defined, but its western edge has been made very irregular 

 by the headwater erosion of the streams that rise on its western margin. 

 The general surface of about five-sixths of the plateau is a gently rolling 



