to the frontier. They found their way over the mountain trails into
the western part of the colony; they pushed southward along the
fertile plateaus that terrace the Blue Ridge Mountains and offer a
natural highway to the South; into Virginia, where they possessed
themselves of the beautiful Shenandoah Valley; into Maryland and the
Carolinas; until the whole western frontier, from Georgia to New York
and from Massachusetts to Maine, was the skirmish line of the
Scotch-Irish taking possession of the wilderness.

The rebellions of the Pretenders in Scotland in 1715 and 1745 and the
subsequent break-up of the clan system produced a considerable
migration to the colonies from both the Highlands and the Lowlands.
These new colonists settled largely in the Carolinas and in Maryland.
The political prisoners, of whom there were many in consequence of
the rebellions, were sold into service, usually for a term of fourteen
years. In Pennsylvania the Welsh founded a number of settlements in
the neighborhood of Philadelphia. There were Irish servants in all the
colonies and in Maryland many Irish Catholics joined their fellow
Catholics from England.

In 1683 a group of religious refugees from the Rhineland founded
Germantown, near Philadelphia. Soon other German communities were
started in the neighboring counties. Chief among these German
sectarians were the Mennonites, frequently called the German Quakers,
so nearly did their religious peculiarities match those of the
followers of Penn; the Dunkers, a Baptist sect, who seem to have come
from Germany boot and baggage, leaving not one of their number behind;
and the Moravians, whose missionary zeal and gentle demeanor have made
them beloved in many lands. The peculiar religious devotions of the
sectarians still left them time to cultivate their inclination for