In the southern colonies, Loyalism flourished among the wealthy elite of English heritage, but most backcountry settlers were slow to become involved in the controversy over imperial taxation. Most were yeoman farmers who were not rich and not English—they were of German, Scottish, or Scots-Irish heritage—and they were non-Anglican "dissenter" Protestants. Most significantly, they valued their isolation in the western hills and would fight to protect their liberty as independent frontiersmen. Yet as war became imminent, decisions were forced upon them. Pressured from both sides—by the wealthy Loyalists in their midst and the coastal Patriots who arrived to recruit them—backcountry men proved stubbornly resistant to recruiting, sermonizing, and fear mongering, as we see in the reports of determined but frustrated Patriot recruiters in the South Carolina backcountry.
