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Explore the unique history and culture of the Appalachian Borderlanders, their migration to America, and their impact on the region. Discover their characteristics, their role in the Great Awakening, and their cultural anxiety. Learn about the current boundaries of Appalachia and the diverse groups that belong to the region.
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App./Ky. Studies You need one ½ sheet of paper.
Quiz • 1. When referring to those who first settled what is identified as Appalachia as Borderlanders, what does this mean? • 2. Approximately when (give a 50 yr. span) did these Borderlanders arrive in America? • 3. What were the characteristics of this migration? • 4. What type of individuals were the first to move into the Appalachian Mtns.?
5. How were the Borderlanders suited to the Great Awakening in America? • 6. What is meant by describing these Borderlanders, and then the Appalachians, as possessing cultural anxiety? • 7. Who belongs to Appalachia (portions of which states) according to the current Appalachian Regional Commission boundaries?
Peripheral people • The Borderlands • A people with a unique history and culture that eventually transplanted it in the Appalachian Mountains • They, and their ancestors, became the periphery in America as well • Get to this later
The beginnings…. • Appalachia’s first settlers: over 14,000 years ago • Ancestors of Iroquois and Cherokee migrated here 12,000 BC • Cherokee most prominent in pre-colonial Appalachia • but not only: Shawnee, Yuchi, Carawba and many others
And the Europeans came… • 16thc: Spanish explorers in Florida told by the Apalachee peoples that there was gold in the mountains north. (truth??) • By 1562, “Appalachen” appeared on European maps • De Soto’s journey took him as far as Mountains in East TN • Iroquois began to expand their territory south (VA, SC, NC) • The clashes in Appalachia were multicultural and multiethnic!
Competing perspectives: • Cherokee: humans were just another part of nature, not superior to animals, trees, etc. As a result, they didn’t believe in land ownership • European: humans on a mission from God to conquer nature, interested in expanding territory. Native societies viewed as primitive and savage.
First exploration into the S. Appalachians were fur traders around 1650 • Virginian Governors would periodically commission explorers into the mountains • Early exaggerations: Lions and tigers • Indians dominated and the fur trade was abundant (many of the traders coming out of Charleston) • Many of the traders were adopted into the Native cultures and took Indian wives
First white settlers: • 1730: VA offered land grants in the Shenandoah Valley • 1750’s: settlers reached western NC and East TN • To prevent white settlers from overrunning Native lands, British gov’t issued Proclamation of 1763: banned all settlement west of the Appalachian Mtns. • but largely ignored!
My Old Kentucky Home • The legendary long hunters came through Cumberland Gap during the 1760’s (despite the Proclamation!) • Despite some differences, mostly able to coexist with the Indians. • "All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse and a good wife."– Daniel Boone
The Borders of North Britain • Early 1900s, Cecil Sharp collected songs, ballads, etc. from Appalachia and found that the people “come from a part of England or the Border Country between Scotland and England where civilization is least developed.” • Even today the region is bare, empty, with deep valleys
Old World Backgrounds • Post 1715 – the migration to America was dominated by small independent farmers, or people who sought land ownership • Yeoman culture (small land owners)
So many immigrants from the Borderlands arrived in Pennsylvania, “a swarm of people… strangers to our laws and customs, and even to our language.” • They looked different • Tall, lean and weathered with a felt hat, loose sackcloth shirts, close belted at the waist and baggy trousers • Total number • 250,000 with 1/3 of them coming in the four years prior to the American Revolution
It was a movement of families • 61% of those from N. England came w/ families • 73% from Border Scotland • 91% from N. Ireland • Fairly even ratio of males to females (149/100) • Why did they come? • Material betterment and a shot at land; most were farmers back home • How does this differ from many others in New England who had come to America?
They possessed significant confidence and pride despite their poverty. • They demanded respect despite their rags. • The Borderlanders demanded the same from the English authorities • What were they called? • Ulster Irish, Northern Irish, Scotch Irish, Scots Irish, Anglo Irish, Saxon Irish
The People • 1-2% were elite gentry (would become important in American politics) • “statesman” were a small group of independent yeoman • majority were farmers and farm laborers who did not own land • a large minority were semiskilled craftsmen (weavers) or traders • They were mostly poor, but not desperately poor!
KY vs. southern App. regions • Caudill’s book discusses the plight of the indentured servants, who moved from NC and SC up into KY • Many in Eastern KY came from the Pennsylvania region, down through Northern Carolina, then up into KY • Ex: Daniel Boone
Cultural character came from 1 unique issue: Who owned this Borderland? • The kings of Scotland and England could not agree: • From 1040-1745 all but three English Monarchs suffered Scottish invasion or invaded Scotland • Endemic violence perpetuated poverty • Land ownership not as important as a horse and weapons • Blood relations were highly important; families became clans; loyalty to the clan, not the Crown • There was little trust in legal institutions; settled own disputes through violence
The first U.S. census identified these Borderlanders as up to 90% of the inhabitants of SW Pennsylvania, Western Maryland and Virginia, N. and S. Carolina, and Georgia and Tennessee
Religious origins • Mostly Presbyterians and Anglican with a strong tendency towards New Light Christianity (Great Awakening) • A belief in free grace, field meetings, prayer societies; a settled hostility towards the established church • A group in Scotland founded by Richard Cameron was known for a Bible in one hand and a weapon in the other; sermons were overly militaristic
Their Colonial Mind • Intensely resistant to change, suspicious of “foreigners” (anyone not neighbor or kin!) • They disliked the great planters and the abolitionists • Possessed cultural anxiety and insecurity born of centuries of violence and uncertainty • Associated with the Regulator Movement • Against wealthy, corrupt colonial officials (inner circle of knowledgeable individuals) • Post defeat there was an attempt to form an independent Republic of Franklin and the Republic of Watauga in Tennessee
Review from yesterday: • 2 waves of immigrants into Appalachia: • People seeking land ownership (and some religious freedoms) that came into Pennsylvania, them migrated south into VA and NC, and finally into KY • People brought to America as indentured servants to work plantations in NC and SC, who then got free of masters and migrated north • Most of these came from what area?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypk5mG5JDvk • Understand the “cultural anxiety” of these people.
Traits of the backcountry: • Not called “frontiersman” at the time • “Backcountry” or “backsettlers”
“We never let go of a belief once fixed in our minds” • Clung tenaciously to their customs, culture and characteristics
Speech Ways • The words of the American backcountry or the same words recorded in the language of the Scottish lowland and highland speech, as well as that of Northern Ireland and the Northern English border • Name some unique “Appalachian” expressions/words:
Speech Ways – distinct pronunciations • Deef • Pizen • Nekkid • Fetch • Boosh • Wrassle • Chaney • Chaw • Poosh • Shet • Young-uns • Whar • Thar • Hard • Critter • Sartin • A-goin • Hit • He-it • Far • Be-it • Narrer
Verb forms • He come in • She done finished • They growed up • They is judged • You wasn’t there, was you • He done did it • She had a one • He don’t have none
Own distinct vocabulary • Lowp • Lettin’ on • Bumfuzzled • Scoot • Honey • Fornenst • Skift • Fixin • Brickle • Swan • Hant • Hate • Nigh • Scawmy
It’s an earthy dialect that didn’t contain the taboos of Puritan English • Sexual processes and natural functions were freely used in figurative expressions • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwAY4KlIU
Building Ways • The log cabin • Simple, suitable to migrating people, impermanent, and an expression of insecurity on the borders • Perfect for a scarce environment • Creates a strong sense of family and a weak sense of individual privacy – one great room
One English soldier upon seeing a borderlander’s home: "husbandmen's houses ... resemble our swine coates, few or none of them have more storeys than one, and that very low and covered usually with clods of earth, the people and their habits are suitable to the dwellings.”
Size was similar on both sides of the Atlantic, about 16 ft. • “any sort of rude enclosure, commonly built of the cheapest materials that came to hand: turf and mud in Ireland, stone and dirt in Scotland, logs and clay in America....” • Logs were “daubed” with clay • Communal event called a “clay daubin” for a newly married couple • In the American backcountry this was referred to as “wattle and funk” • Larger cabins were often referred to as “dog-trot cabins”
As late as 1939 there were 270,000 occupied log cabins in the United States. Many were in the southern highlands. In the county of Halifax, Virginia, 42 percent of all houses were log cabins as recently as World War II • The mobile home preserves an architectural attitude that was carried to the backcountry nearly three centuries ago—a cabin on wheels!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxjCeDDOJek • (show this later!)
Family Ways • Derbfine - all kin within the span of four generations. For many centuries, the laws of North Britain and Ireland had recognized the derbfine as a unit which defined the descent of property and power. It not only connected one nuclear family to another, but also joined one generation to the next.
Family Ways • Clan – a group of related families who lived near to one another, were conscious of a common identity, carried the same surname, claimed descent from common ancestors, and banded together when danger threatened. • Blood relations • Called each other cousin • 25% married within the clan • highly effective adaptation to a world of violence and chronic insecurity.
A migration of whole families: • “My grandfather and grandmother were born in Scotland about the [year] 1670. They were cousins and both of one name. His name was John and hers was Janet. They lived in their younger years in or near Glasgow and in 1695 they left Scotland and settled in Ireland in the county of Down . . . where he lived in good circumstances and in good credit until the year 1734, [when] he removed with his family to South Carolina.” • (grandparents, 7 children, 17 grandchildren, uncles and cousins!)
