A number of historians have held that antislavery activity died out in the South after the early 19th century. Neely Young's extensive research has uncovered evidence of a continuing antislavery tradition in the so-called "Upper South" from the Revolution until about 1850. This was not completely true, as you will learn in Ripe for Emancipation. ­This tradition of antislavery sentiment thrived most in the Appalachian regions of western Virginia, western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and Kentucky. One of the centers of antislavery activity was Rockbridge County, Virginia, which supplied some of the leading figures in the Virginia and Upper South emancipationists' movements. ­The people of Rockbridge were reluctant to join the Confederacy and when they did, it was not to defend slavery or even states' rights but to defend their lives, homes, and property against northern invasion.