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Cumberland can be said to be the link between the Atlantic Ocean and the Central Great Plains.

If you open the topographic map of North America, you will find that the Appalachian Mountains stretch from north to south, from the eastern part of the Maple Leaf Country to the southern part of the Ugly Country to Georgia and Alabama, almost parallel to the Atlantic coast.

In this way, the plains along the Atlantic coast are separated from the vast central plains.

Although the Appalachian Mountains are not very different in elevation compared to many other large mountain ranges, it is a folded mountain that has undergone three orogenies and prolonged erosion in geological history, forming many groups of small mountain ranges parallel to each other, and the terrain is very complex.

During the colonial era, the Appalachian Mountains served as a natural barrier to the westward expansion of British colonies along the Atlantic coast.

In the 17th century, although tobacco cultivation in the South and crafts, fishing, and shipbuilding in New England fed the British colonists in North America, there were still people who were not satisfied.

Some British colonists wanted to continue westward to the other side of the Appalachian Mountains.

What are you going to do? Hunt!

There is an animal that lives in North America – the beaver.

Clothes made from beaver fur were popular among the European upper class.

The economic benefits they bring are higher than those of the so-called "money crop" tobacco.

If you want to hit more beavers, you have to go west, and to go west, you have to climb over the Appalachian Mountains.

In this way, the Appalachian Mountains became one of the greatest obstacles between hunters and wealth.

Fortunately, when nature forged Mount Appalachia, it left a gap in a roughly east-west direction – the Cumberland Pass.

About 330 million years ago, crustal movements pushed a massive reverse fault in Mount Cumberland, a branch of the Appalachian Mountains west of the Great Valley, bringing softer rocks deep underground to the surface.

As a result, under various erosions, the loose rock was peeled away, and a crack gradually grew on Mount Cumberland.

About 300 million years ago, a meteorite about the size of three basketball courts crashed into the Earth and hit the crack right in.

The tremendous impact shattered the already fragile rock.

Since then, a pass more than 200 meters deep and more than 3,000 meters long has been formed.

It cuts off this section of the mountain and connects the Great Valley to the lowlands west of the Appalachian Mountains.

From then on, there was a connecting passage between the East Coast and the Central Great Plains.

In fact, there are many dangerous passes in the Appalachian Mountains, such as the Delaware River Gorge, the Great Moccasin Pass, and the Skukiri Pass.

However, these passes, either east of the Great Valley, cut only part of the Appalachian Mountains, or blocked by river rapids or marshes, were not sufficient to form a convenient passage to the western world.

Only the Cumberland Pass, which is completely cut off by the weakest of the Cumberland Mountains west of the Great Valley and south of the Allegheny Plateau, has no rivers and is relatively easy to navigate.

Indian tribes such as the Cherokee and Shawnee have long used Cumberland Pass as their main transportation route.

It was also discovered by hunters in England in the 17th century.

In 1670, Cumberland Pass was first discovered by a merchant who traded beaver furs.

In the mid-18th century, Virginia explorer Thomas Walker led a expedition to the Appalachian Mountains to the eastern end of the Cumberland Pass, which he officially marked on a map and named it after the fief of the Duke of Cumberland, the son of King George II of England.

Since then, hunters have flocked to the area to find more beavers behind the Appalachian Mountains.

The world behind the Appalachian Mountains began to attract the attention of more British colonists.

They learned that on the other side of Cumberland Pass was densely forested Kentucky, with endless resources of timber and plenty of wild animals to hunt;

Just north of Kentucky is a lowland with abundant water and grass called the Ohio River Valley.

So in 1748, the Virginia colony formed the Ohio Company, which sent people through the Cumberland Pass to survey the Ohio Valley and prepare to take it for themselves.

However, the move irritated the French.

The French entered North America from the St. Lawrence River, then crossed the Great Lakes and traveled south along the Mississippi River to New Orleans, where they had a sphere of influence throughout central North America, including the Ohio region.

The British and the French were already hostile to each other, and the Virginia colonies and the French were irreconcilable over the ownership of Ohio, which led to the outbreak of the Franco-Indian War in 1754.

The French and their allies, the Indian tribes and the British, went to war in North America.

From a macro perspective, it was also part of the Seven Years' War between Britain and France.

This war united Britain's thirteen colonies for the first time and laid the groundwork for the future War of Independence.

Thirteen British colonies united to defeat the French.

France withdrew from the Ohio region and has been in a state of decline in North America.

Hunters and merchants in the British colonies were happily preparing to make a splash in this new land.

However, the British issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which forbade the colonies from exploiting the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains for various reasons such as taxation, defense, trade monopoly, and relations with the Indians.

To the west of the Appalachian Mountains, houses built by British colonists were confiscated and sealed by the government, and those who crossed the line to reclaim land without permission were arrested.

Such a policy caused strong resentment in the colonies against the British government.

As a result, many historians believe that this proclamation was the first trigger for the War of Independence.

Coupled with the cumulative effects of a series of events such as stamp duty, the Townsend Ordinance (a bill to raise taxes in the North American colonies), the Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party, the Thirteen Colonies finally launched the Revolutionary War.

In March 1775, just a month before the guns rang out in Lexington, Danny Boone, an explorer from Pennsylvania, led about thirty hunters to western Virginia to hunt.

They came to the eastern end of the Cumberland Pass.

Since most of the Indian tribes supported the French in the Seven Years' War, the relationship between the British and the Indians was not good.

After the Franco-Indian War, the Indians shrank on the west side of the pass, and the British also forbade the colonists to develop westward, so the original Indian trail in the Cumberland Pass gradually became less visited and was covered with thorns.

On the east side of the Cumberland Pass, Boone decides to cross the pass and go hunting behind the mountains to make more money, ignoring the announcement.

So, more than 30 people brandished long knives, pushed away the vines, cut through thorns, and went deep into the pass.

They are completely fighting against the water.

Faced with all kinds of dangers and unknown futures, they did not bring any supplies and medicines, nor did they have guides or maps, but only hope for the future and the courage to explore.

Finally, Boone and the others approached the west side of the pass and broke into the territory of the Indian Shawnee Division.

The Shawnee don't see Boone and the others as great explorers, they see them as invaders.

To defend their homeland, the Shawnee attacked Boone's party.

Boone was a man with military experience, having represented North Carolina in the Seven Years' War.

And he had a blood feud with the Indians: it was the Indians who killed his son. Therefore, under the attack of the Shawnees, Boone did not hide, but organized his subordinates to go to war with the Shawnees.

At this time, the Shawnee people had already learned the use of guns and had a strict social system in their interactions with European colonists.

They are numerous, well-trained, well-armed, and they fight on home and are familiar with the terrain.

Although Boone's men were brave and good at fighting, they were outnumbered and alone, and were finally routed and suffered heavy casualties.

Boone was lucky enough to break through and escape the encirclement, but instead of turning back, he chose to continue westward.

Eventually, the survivors made it out of the Cumberland Pass and reached Kentucky, where they reached the resourceful Kentucky and established the Boone Stronghold.

Just a year later, another explorer, James Robertson, led a group of men from North Carolina to the Cumberland Pass.

The purpose of their trip was to receive a piece of land that had just been bought from the Cherokees.

Unlike Boone, Roberson had a gift for diplomacy and was very good at dealing with the Indians.

The land they were to receive had been peacefully bought by Robertson from the Cherokee people to the south.

At the Pass, Roberson negotiated amicably with the Shawnees, and eventually he led his men safely through the Cumberland Pass and continued westward, establishing a small stronghold on the newly acquired land.

This small stronghold grew into what became Nashville, the City of Music.

Robertson's successful journey also marked the Cumberland Pass as a safe passage.

The road through Cumberland Pass, opened by Boone and Roberson, was traversed by more than 300,000 people over the next two decades.

It's called the Tennessee Wilderness Way because it connects the uncharted wilderness world behind the Appalachian Mountains.

These 300,000 people became the first white residents of Kentucky and Tennessee, established strongholds, forts, villages and towns, and made great contributions to the newly established ugly country to stabilize the territory of Kentucky and Tennessee.

But the meaning of this road is not so simple, the emergence of this wild road provides a way to the vast world of the west for the ugly people who have just established the country:

After the establishment of the Ugly Country, the British order prohibiting westward reclamation ceased to exist, and the dredging of the Cumberland Pass was like a clarion call for the large-scale westward migration of the Ugly Country, and the westward expansion movement that lasted for many years kicked off.

There are many reasons for the westward expansion movement, but the social contradictions and population explosion on the Middle East coast are the main reasons.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Napoleonic Wars broke out in Europe.

In order to prevent the other side from receiving supplies from the Americas, European countries successively blocked each other's coastlines, which caused the merchant ships of the ugly country to suffer heavy losses and could not enter Europe.

Decent businessmen went bankrupt, speculators engaged in smuggling, and barely managed to maintain the economy in the chaos.

For such a blockade, the ugly country is very helpless.

So Madison ordered that the ugly country also block its coastline and not provide any military supplies to the European countries until the countries promised not to harass the ugly ships.

However, the European countries were in a mess and did not bother to pay attention to the opinions of the ugly people.

As a result, even the smugglers could not sustain themselves, and the economy of the ugly country came to a standstill.

At the same time, the hidden social dangers that have been precipitated for many years after the independence of the ugly country have gradually been revealed.

The population of the eastern part of the country, especially in the southern states, continues to increase, but the supply of land is limited.

Apart from bullying the aborigines and occupying some land, there is no surplus land left in the south of the country to open new plantations.

In order to pay off their debts during the Revolutionary War, some states began to charge high taxes, even higher than during the British colonial period;

In other states, in order to satisfy the people, they had to legislate to disown the wealthy businessmen, and Rhode Island even experienced the tyranny of the majority, and there were frequent civil uprisings across the country.

Under such a grim social situation, the ugly country can only encourage the people to go west.

To the west there is a vast plain, and there is land for land, timber for timber, and minerals for minerals.

In places where there is no structure, autonomy can even be formed.

The best way for the people at the bottom who are living in difficulty in the east to turn over is to go west and reopen up their living space in the wilderness.

This is the same choice that their ancestors chose to leave Europe and come to the Americas.

And so, the westward movement that had lasted for decades began, and the initial starting point of the westward expansion was the Cumberland Pass, and the first road was the Tennessee Wilderness Road.

In the process of westward expansion, the ugly country bought Louisiana, annexed Texas, defeated its powerful neighbor Mexico, and infiltrated Oregon.

They crossed the Mississippi River, conquered the Colorado Plateau, climbed the Rocky Mountains, defeated the brave Sioux people, dug into the gold mines of Nevada, and finally saw the sea again at the end of the land.

By the mid-19th century, the country had grown from a small country with a narrow strip of land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean to a large country stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

The westward expansion brought not only a vast territory and abundant natural resources to the country.

In the westward expansion movement, the ugly people turned their backs to the Atlantic Ocean and went further and further, while also leaving behind the historical baggage of the colonial era.

When they arrived in the west, they saw the magnificent wilderness landscape, so they thought that God had created the world in the ugly country, so they left the best landscape in the ugly country.

Therefore, the rise of the ugly country is a "destiny".

This kind of thinking, as well as the yearning for wilderness and freedom, has been deeply imprinted in the genes of the ugly people, and gradually formed local cultures, such as the cowboy culture that endures hardships and advocates individual heroism, and the rebellious hippie culture.

The qualities and spirit of the pioneers of the Westward Expansion are the same as those of Boone as he crossed the Cumberland Pass: bravery, tenacity, exploration, and unhesitation. These qualities and spirits have gradually developed into the national spirit of the ugly country.

This is an ideological improvement, and it is also the highest level of brainwashing, otherwise it would not have cultivated those ugly people who will not be able to stink and shame in later generations.

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