Moreover North Carolina was a much weaker and more turbulent State than Virginia, so that a separatist movement ran less risk of interference.

Chains of forest-clad mountains severed the State proper from its western outposts.

Many of the pioneer leaders were from Virginia--backwoodsmen who had drifted south along the trough-like valleys.

These of course felt little loyalty to North Carolina.

The others, who were North Carolinians by birth, had cast in their lot, for good or for evil, with the frontier communities, and were inclined to side with them in any contest with the parent State.
North Carolina Indifferent to Her Western Settlements.
North Carolina herself was at first quite as anxious to get rid of the frontiersmen as they were to go.