Frontier Society.

In such a society, simple, strong, and rude, both the good features and the bad were nakedly prominent; and the views of observers in reference thereto varied accordingly as they were struck by one set of characteristics or another.  One traveller 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 especial 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 Carolina, 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 travelling clergyman spoke of them with particular disfavor; he was probably prejudiced by their indifference to his preaching, for he mentions with much dissatisfaction that the congregations he addressed “though small, behaved extremely bad.” [Footnote:  Durrett MSS.  Rev. James Smith, “Tour in Western Country,” 1785.] 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 travellers the wildest and rudest of all, as was but natural, for these fierce and stalwart settlers were still in the midst of a warfare as savage as any ever waged among the cave-dwellers of the Stone Age.

The opinion of any mere passer-through a country is always less valuable than that of an intelligent man who dwells and works among the people, and who possesses both insight and sympathy.  At this time one of the recently created Kentucky judges, an educated Virginian, in writing to his friend Madison, said:  “We are as harmonious amongst ourselves as can be expected of a mixture of people from various States and of various Sentiments and Manners not yet assimilated.  In point of Morals the bulk of the inhabitants are far superior to what I expected to find in any new settled country.  We have not had a single instance of Murder, and but one Criminal for Felony of any kind has yet been before the Supreme Court.  I wish I could say as much to vindicate the character of our Land-jobbers.  This Business has been attended with much villainy in other parts.  Here it is reduced to a system, and to take the advantage of the ignorance or of the poverty of a neighbor is almost grown into reputation.” [Footnote:  Wallace’s letter, above quoted.]

    The Gentry.