These men of large intellectual mold-themselves surveyors, hunters, and pioneers--were inspired with the larger vision of the expansionist.

Whether colonizers, soldiers, or speculators on the grand scale, they sought to open at one great stroke the vast trans-Alleghany regions as a peaceful abode for mankind.
Two distinct classes of society were gradually drawing apart from each other in North Carolina and later in Virginia--the pioneer democracy of the back country and the upland, and the planter aristocracy of the lowland and the tide-water region.

From the frontier came the pioneer explorers whose individual enterprise and initiative were such potent factors in the exploitation of the wilderness.

From the border counties still in contact with the East came a number of leaders.

Thus in the heart of the Old Southwest the two determinative principles already referred to, the inquisitive and the acquisitive instincts, found a fortunate conjunction.