Chapter 5 Exercises: Who Came to the Mountains? Migration into Appalachia

Individual Exercises

Exercise 5.1 — Mapping the Great Wagon Road (†) Using digital map resources (the Library of Congress Map Division, the David Rumsey Map Collection, or Google Earth), trace the approximate route of the Great Wagon Road from Philadelphia to the Carolina Piedmont. Identify at least five modern cities or towns that the road passed through. For each, note whether the town has a name that reflects its settlement history (ethnic origins, geographical features, or historical events). Write 400 words describing what the road's geography reveals about why settlers ended up where they did — how did terrain features (rivers, gaps, valleys) channel the flow of migration?

Exercise 5.2 — Interrogating the Celtic Thesis Read the summary of David Hackett Fischer's "Borderers" thesis in Albion's Seed (Chapter 13 of the book, or a scholarly review). In 500 words, evaluate the argument. What evidence does Fischer use to connect backcountry culture to the Anglo-Scottish Borderlands? What does the argument explain well? What does it fail to explain? Specifically, how does Fischer account for (or fail to account for) the presence and influence of German settlers, English settlers, and African Americans in the same region?

Exercise 5.3 — Census Analysis: Who Was Actually There? (†) Access the 1790 census data for one Appalachian county (available through the National Archives, Ancestry.com, or the University of Virginia's Historical Census Browser). Record: (a) total free white population, (b) total enslaved population, (c) total free nonwhite population. Calculate the percentage of the population that was enslaved. Then compare your county's data to a plantation county in the Tidewater or Deep South. Write 300 words discussing what the comparison reveals about mountain slavery — was it absent, or was it present in different proportions?

Exercise 5.4 — Push-Pull Factor Analysis Create a table with four rows (Scotch-Irish, German, English, Enslaved African Americans) and two columns (Push Factors, Pull Factors). For each group, list at least three push factors and three pull factors based on the chapter's discussion. Then write 300 words addressing this question: for which group does the push-pull framework work best, and for which group does it break down? Why?

Exercise 5.5 — Daniel Boone: Myth vs. History Read John Filson's 1784 account of Daniel Boone (available in multiple online archives) and compare it to the chapter's discussion of Boone as a commercial agent of the Transylvania Company. In 500 words, analyze how Filson transforms Boone from a hunter working for a land speculation firm into a romantic wilderness hero. What details does Filson emphasize? What does he omit? What purpose did the Boone mythology serve for Filson's audience — and for the Transylvania Company's business interests?

Exercise 5.6 — German Heritage in the Shenandoah Valley Research the German-origin place names, architectural features, or church records in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Identify at least five specific examples of German cultural influence that persist in the landscape (buildings, town names, church records, cemeteries, food traditions). Write 400 words arguing for or against this claim: "The German influence on Appalachian culture has been as significant as the Scotch-Irish influence, but it has been systematically underestimated."

Group Exercises

Exercise 5.7 — The Migration Simulation In groups of four to six, each group member adopts the identity of a migrating family from a different background: (a) a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian family from Ulster, arriving in Philadelphia in 1740, (b) a German Palatinate family, arriving in Philadelphia in 1735, (c) an English family from the Virginia Piedmont, moving west in 1760, (d) an enslaved African American family being moved to the backcountry by their owner in 1770, and optionally (e) a free Black family seeking land in the mountains, (f) a Moravian family seeking a community site. Each participant writes a one-page first-person account of their journey and their reasons for migrating (or being forcibly moved). Then present to the group and discuss: how does the migration experience differ depending on who you are? What do the free settlers have in common? What separates the experience of enslaved people from everyone else?

Exercise 5.8 — Squatter's Court Stage a mock legal proceeding. One student plays a squatter who has cleared land, built a cabin, and planted crops on a tract in the Appalachian backcountry. Another student plays the holder of a legal land grant to the same tract, issued by the colonial government in Williamsburg. A third student plays the colonial magistrate. Each side presents their argument for who rightfully owns the land. The class then discusses: whose claim is stronger — the person who has the paper, or the person who did the work? How does this conflict prefigure the broad form deed disputes of the coal era (Chapter 15)?

Exercise 5.9 — Ethnic Heritage Detective Work Working in groups, select a county in the Appalachian region and use available genealogical and census resources to estimate the ethnic composition of the county's early population. Examine surnames (are they English, Scotch-Irish, German, or other?), church records (Presbyterian suggests Scotch-Irish; Lutheran or Reformed suggests German; Anglican/Episcopal suggests English), and any surviving county histories. Present your findings to the class. How diverse was the county's early population? Does it match the Scotch-Irish monoculture narrative, or does it complicate it?

Writing Prompts

Short Response (300–400 words): The chapter argues that the "myth of isolation" — the idea that early Appalachian settlers were cut off from the outside world and wanted to be — is a later construction, not a historical reality. What evidence does the chapter present for this argument? Why might outsiders have found it useful to imagine Appalachia as isolated? And what are the consequences of the isolation myth for how the region has been treated?

Essay (700–1,000 words): Compare the settlement of Appalachia with the settlement of another American frontier region (the Old Northwest/Ohio Valley, the Great Plains, or the Far West). What similarities and differences do you observe in terms of the ethnic composition of settlers, the migration routes used, the land acquisition systems, and the treatment of Indigenous populations? What does the comparison reveal about whether the Appalachian experience was unique or part of a broader American pattern?

Reflection (200–300 words): Consider your own family history. If you have any knowledge of when and how your ancestors came to the place where you grew up, write about the push and pull factors that shaped their migration. If you do not have this information, reflect on what it means that some families can trace their migration histories in detail while others cannot — and what the silence says about whose stories get preserved.

Whose Story Is Missing? Prompt

Exercise 5.10 — The Unnamed Enslaved People in Early Census Records The 1790 census recorded enslaved people by number but not by name. Select an Appalachian county and find the 1790 census data. Identify the slaveholders listed and the number of enslaved people they held. Then write 400 words reflecting on what the census can and cannot tell us. What do we know about these enslaved people? What can we never know from this source? What other sources might provide information — wills, estate inventories, church records, later census records where names were recorded? What does it mean that the founding document of American demographic data counted these people without naming them?

Community History Portfolio Integration

Exercise 5.11 — Connecting Migration to Your County Using your Chapter 4 portfolio work (which traced Indigenous displacement in your county), connect that displacement to the settlement patterns documented in this chapter. When did the first non-Indigenous settlers arrive relative to Indigenous removal or displacement? What ethnic groups were represented? Were enslaved people present? Identify at least one specific family or individual from early records and write 200 words about what their presence reveals about the chapter's themes. This exercise bridges the transition from Part I's Indigenous history to Part II's settlement history.

(† = Exercises marked with † are referenced in the answers appendix.)