Pioneers of the Old Southwest: a chronicle of the dark and bloody ground

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Contents. Pioneers of the Old Southwest Chapter Chapter Title Page Preface vii I. The Tread Of Pioneers 1 II. Folkways 31 III. The Trader 52 IV. The Passing Of The French Peril 75 V. Boone, The Wanderer 90 VI. The Fight For Kentucky 104 VII. The Dark And Bloody Ground 129 VIII. Tennessee 157 IX. King's Mountain 195 X. Sevier, The Statemaker 226 XI. Boone's Last Days 272 Bibliographical Note 287 Index 293

The Ulster Presbyterians, or "Scotch-Irish," to whom history has ascribed the dominant rôle among the pioneer folk of the Old Southwest, began their migrations to America in the latter years of the seventeenth century. It is not known with certainty precisely when or where the first immigrants of their race arrived in this country, but soon after 1680 they were to be found in several of the colonies. It was not long, indeed, before they were entering in numbers at the port of Philadelphia and were making Pennsylvania the chief center of their activities in the New World. By 1726 they had established settlements in several counties behind Philadelphia. Ten years later they had begun their great trek southward through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and on to the Yadkin Valley of North Carolina. There they met others of their own race--bold men like themselves, hungry after land--who were coming in through Charleston and pushing their way up the rivers from the seacoast to the "Back Country," in search of homes.

These Ulstermen did not come to the New World as novices in the shaping of society; they had already made history. Their ostensible object in America was to obtain land, but, like most external aims, it was secondary to a deeper purpose. What had sent the Ulstermen to America was a passion for a whole freedom.

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