The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 57, July 1953 - April, 1954 Page: 252

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

substantiate those of Charles S. Sydnor in his recent book, Gentle-
men Freeholders, on the practical politics of eighteenth-century
Virginia in relation to the statesmen who emerged. Mr. Briden-
baugh concludes that the Chesapeake society produced "men of
intellect, not intellectuals"; but on most counts the South Caro-
linians suffer by comparison: their intellectual life was passive,
their culture dilettante, with an absence of discipline. Evidently
there was little traffic between these societies, a point worthy of
some comment with reference to intercolonial relations.
The chapter on the back settlements opens with a concise survey
of the migrations of diverse population from Pennsylvania south-
ward, the rapid growth of the back country after 176o, the great
disparity in property and wealth on the frontier, and the relative
numerical strength of various nationalities and sects. The author
refutes the "melting-pot" concept of nineteenth-century America
as misapplied to the eighteenth-century frontier, which suggests
rather a Tower of Babel. He also points out how class conscious-
ness was transplanted to these remote settlements. In the extension
of the political and social institutions of Tidewater the leveling
influence of the back country was far less effectual than the
perpetuation of class lines so typical of the colonial period. There
was little East-West sectionalism as yet in well-governed Virginia,
while in both North and South Carolina the "back parts" seethed
with unrest and expressed their grievances through the Regulator
movement. In comparing the Regulators' grievances and course of
action in the two colonies, Bridenbaugh concludes that the back
countrymen of South Carolina, deprived of local government,
were far more justified in their uprising than the North Caro-
linians who had local government but objected to supporting it
by taxation and found ways of defaming their opponents. Al-
though the rough and ready ways of the pioneer farmer were
supplemented by the aggressive activities of the trader and land
speculator, the soldier and adventurer, the lawyer and the jack-
of-all-trades, the author finds that this strident tone of the back
country was modified here and there by little islands of culture
(most notable, the Moravian communities in North Carolina)
which strengthened the ties with the seaboard and in some re-
spects compared favorably with cultural attainments in the older
societies.

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