How many knew this about Appalachia ??

[kentuck]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/194870.php

"During the 18th and 19th centuries, in the middle Atlantic and particularly in the Southern states, there was a long-standing cleavage between the coastal and 'piedmont' regions on the one hand and the upcountry areas to the west on the other. It's really the coastal lowlands and the Appalachian districts. On the other side of the Appalachian mountain range the pattern is flipped, with the Appalachians in the east and the lowlands in the west.

These regions were settled disproportionately by Scots-Irish immigrants who pushed into the hill country to the west in part because that's where the affordable land was but also because they wanted to get away from the more stratified and inegalitarian society of the east which was built by English settlers and their African slaves. Crucially, slavery never really took root in these areas. And this is why during the Civil War, Unionism (as in support for the federal union and opposition to the treason of secession) ran strong through the Appalachian upcountry, even into Deep South states like Alabama and Mississippi.

As I alluded to earlier, this was the origin of West Virginia, which was originally the westernmost part of Virginia. The anti-slavery, anti-slaveholding upcountry seceded from Virginia to remain in the Union after Virginia seceded from the Union. Each of these regions was fiercely anti-Slavery. And most ended up raising regiments that fought in the Union Army. But they were as anti-slave as they were anti-slavery, both of which they viewed as the linchpins of the aristocratic and inegalitarian society they loathed. It was a society that was both more violent and more self-reliant.

This is history. But it shapes the region. It's overwhelmingly white, economically underdeveloped (another legacy of the pre-civil war pattern) and arguably because of that underdevelopment has very low education rates and disproportionately old populations."

....more

[phillysuse]

1. Read "Born Fighting", Senator Jim Webb's book

about the Scots Irish immigration to America and his ancestors.

It's all in there - the clannishness of the Scots Irish, the anti government, anti Anglican impulses, the music, the storytelling, the whiskey, the origins of the "redneck", "white trash", NASCAR culture.

They were poor, had no slaves, had too many children and not enough land and the land they had was not the most productive. They were militaristic in the Scot tradition (think Braveheart) and loyal to each other - they gave their sons to the military and still do.

[FSogol]

3. I'll second that. Great book. n/t

[Hokie]

2. The main reason that Appalachia is poor is coal

The regions great natural resource was coal. The coal operators had a captive labor market and treated the miners like chattel. They hired paid armies to kill the miners to try to keep out the unions. They also fought any efforts from the states to place a severance tax on coal. They owned the state government in WV for years and still do to a great extent. They drove Gov. Marlin out of WV when he proposed a severance tax on coal. Marlin ended up driving a taxi cab in Chicago a few years after being governor of WV.

Had WV placed a severance tax on coal they could have been a very rich state. Today they are one of the poorest. The coal fields are mined out desolate and depressing areas.

[Captain Hilts]

6. Coal miners never got drafted. So, no GI Bill, etc. nt

[kentuck]

7. And they have strip-mined away some of the most beautiful country in America..

More varieties of trees and vegetation than anywhere else in America. The people were exploited by the coal miners. England had coal mines in some parts of Eastern Kentucky at the turn of the last century. There are still some remains of their exploitation.

[Rabrrrrrr]

9. And West Virginia also has land rights that apply only to the surface, not to the coal.

The companies own all the coal, so no matter how many millions of tons someone's land might be on top of, they get nothing in terms of mineral rights; nor do they even have the right to stop the coal companies from mining coal underneath their land.

I don't know if other coal mining states did the same thing, but I have a feeling they probably didn't - other states didn't have the level of criminal corporate/government incest that West Virginia had and still has.

[Elspeth]

4. On DU? Probably not many.

The general IQ around here is low these days.

[Captain Hilts]

5. Under-development is a function of the coal and steel industries and how these employees...

never got drafted so these areas disproportionately missed out on the GI Bill and the economic growth it generated in the 50s and 60s. The bulk of people in the coal mining areas never got out of the mines.

[kentuck]

10. I don't think that is true.

I would guess that per capita more people served the country from this area than anywhere else in America. Drive down thru Central Kentucky and ride on the Purple Heart Highway. There is one county in KY that had more casualties in Vietnam per capita than any other county in America.

Even with the GI Bill, there was never any industry in the mountains. Poverty and lack of education have been the largest obstacles to progress in that area.

[MountainLaurel]

15. You are absolutely correct

Per capita, West Virginia has the most people serving in the Armed Forces and the largest number of veterans.

[Captain Hilts]

18. NOW. But coal was declared a 'war priority' industry and miners did not get drafted for WWII.

So, in the sixties, they were playing 'catch up'.

[melody]

8. They were also descended from Scots-Irish slaves

My people come in part from the region.

When the government stole (uh, I mean purchased) the Appalachians for the "Great Smoky Mountains National Park", the hillbillies flooded out of the mountains and into the piedmont then down into Texas, Arkansas, and points west. Most "redneck" southerners' roots are in the Appalachians.

[kentuck]

11. Poverty is the great equalizer...

When you are hungry, it doesn't really matter if the person sitting by you is brown or black. You are equal.

[Pirate Smile]

12. Because of its history it has a very small black population.

Obama has excelled in most states which are primarily white except in WV which obviously has a very different dynamic happening for a variety of demographic reasons.

[kentuck]

14. I don't think he understands the people of their history..

He doesn't realize that he is one of "them". Being a basketball fan, he has probably watched "Glory Road", and believes that Adolph Rupp, ironically from Obama's home state of Kansas, was a racist because of the white vs black national championship game of 1966? That is not Kentucky. That was not Kentucky then.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

13. Yep

Knew all about the Scots-Irish and the mountains. George Washington even said that if the British were to win the Revolutionary War, he'd make his last stand in the Blue Ridge with the Scots-Irish.

Sevier County TN still proudly proclaims that THEY refused to secede from the Union during the Civil War. And of course Andrew Johnson was from nearby Greenville, and showed great courage remaining in the Senate after TN seceded. They were a part of the same group of folks who formed WV during the War.

BTW, some of these folks drifted West--one branch of my family came from TN to IL, where all the sons enlisted in the Union Army. One was maimed for life, another became an alcoholic, another died, another went missing--I was told their stories by my grandmother, who was proud of her Scots-Irish heritage.

[Individualist]

16. I did

My great grandfather fought with the Union Army, but a number of people in Northeast TN fought for or supported the Confederacy. While great grandfather was a soldier with the Union Army, his brother-in-law was a soldier with the Confederacy.

[kentuck]

17. I have a distant relative buried in an Atlanta cemetary...

He fought for the Union.

[razors edge]

19. Ever heard of these people?

Helvetia, West Virginia is a small Swiss village in a high mountain valley. The original Swiss and German settlers arrived in 1869 and their descendants remain. Due to the isolation of the area, the traditions of dance, music, food, and holidays have survived through the generations. Popular events include: Fasnacht, Ramp Supper, Swiss National Holiday, Chicken Supper, Helvetia Fair, Helvetia Day, and monthly Square Dances. Businesses include the Hutte Restaurant, Beekeeper Bed and Breakfast, Cheese Haus (Cheese House), Healing Honey, General Store, and Blue House Gallerie.

http://www.helvetiawv.com/

Helvetia is located in Randolph County South of Buckhannon. My brother has a cabin near there and we visit the place when we go hunting.

[kentuck]

20. Ever heard of these people?

The Melungeons?

A few familes still remain in SE KY with names like McQueen, Sizemore, and Collins. Some folks say they are from Portuguese heritage? Others say they are maybe from the lost colony of Roanoke. Sir Walter Raleigh had dropped them off on the southern coast of NC and when he returned for them, they were nowhere to be found. Some think they joined with the native Americans, or were captured, and these folks are descendants of those early Americans. This was before Capt John Smith and the Jamestown colony in Virginia. For a long time in our history, the "Melungeons" were not permitted to vote - they were considered "mixed race".

My Great-Grandma was a Collins before she married my Grandpa Jim. She said she was one-quarter Cherokee? But nobody knows where her descendants originated.

[razors edge]

21. Never heard of that tribe.

Thats very interesting, and I will look into it for my own curiosity.

The small communities in these remote locations retain their heritage and some have been able to avoid outside influences, for the most part.

I played under the quilting table and listened to the women gossip, artists now long gone, and hung tobacco in the rafters of my great grandparents barn when I was a too young for school.

When I tell my mother she has lived for well more than a quarter of the time the US has been in existence, she looks at me like it never crossed her mind how young this nation really is.

A nation without a sense of itself, no doubt.