THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT The flow of population into the distant interior followed the lines of least resistance and greatest opportunity.

In the earlier decades these lay chiefly in the Virginia latitudes.

The Indians there were yielding, the mountains afforded passes thither, and the climate permitted the familiar tobacco industry.

The Shenandoah Valley had been occupied mainly by Scotch-Irish and German small farmers from Pennsylvania; but the glowing reports, which the long hunters brought and the land speculators spread from beyond the further mountains, made Virginians to the manner born resolve to compete with the men of the backwoods for a share of the Kentucky lands.

During and after the war for independence they threaded the gorges, some with slaves but most without.