Which side did most Americans on the frontier take in the revolutionary war?

Answer 1

People on the frontier tended to favor the Patriot cause, for several reasons. The British were keeping the Indians stirred up to attack isolated frontier farms and settlements. The British were paying the Indians a cash bounty for Patriot scalps. The Indians called British general Harrison at Detroit "the hair buyer". As part of the settlement ending the French and Indian War in 1763 the British government issued the Proclamation of 1763. This forbid the colonists to settle west of the crest of Blue Ridge, and was aimed at preventing Indian trouble, with the consequent need to station large numbers of troops in the colonies to fight the Indians. The colonists resented this, especially the recent arrivals and the landless poor, as it confined settlement to the east of the "Proclamation Line" where land was more expensive than they could afford, while good land was lying empty and uninhabited just over the mountain. Some settlers had already gone beyond the Proclamation Line, such as the Overmountain Men of the Watauga settlements in today's east Tennessee, who went and fought at King's Mountain in 1780. Under British rule their claim to the title to their land was invalid as being in violation of the Proclamation.