British Borderlands Migration to the American Backcountry

Large numbers of people from Ulster, northern England, the Scottish Lowlands and related border regions entered the colonies through Philadelphia and moved south and west along the Great Wagon Road. They established farms and settlements through the Shenandoah Valley and Appalachian backcountry.

Presbyterian religion, strong kinship networks, herding practices and a tradition of local self-defence adapted to frontier conditions. Settlement also intensified conflict over Indigenous land and produced recurring violence along colonial boundaries.

Albion’s Seed argues that this borderlands migration formed a durable backcountry folkway that influenced later southern and western politics, speech, music and ideas of natural liberty.