APPALACHIAN HISTORY INTRODUCING APPALACHIAN STUDIES NATIVE AMERICANS Native

APPALACHIAN HISTORY INTRODUCING APPALACHIAN STUDIES

NATIVE AMERICANS ● Native Americans had been living in Appalachia for 3, 000 years prior to European contact. ● Iroquois: 1300 B. C. from West; split into Northern Iroquois and Southern Cherokee. ● Yuchi Indians in Southwest Virginia, assimilated into Cherokee society prior to much of the recorded history of native peoples. ● The “Peoples of Appalachia” section will address Cherokee culture

CHEROKEE ● 1700 -1761: contact and conflict escalates as Europeans seek settlement expansion and skins for trading ● 1761: final defeat of Cherokee by British; white expansion increases rapidly ● People & Nature ○ Cherokee: language, names, religious beliefs based upon relationship between people and environment; humans part of natural world, not superior ○ Europeans: urged by God to conquer nature and be its master ● Indian Removal Act of 1831 ○ 1/4 of Cherokees die on 1838 trek westward; Trail of Tears ○ Some escaped to mountains of North Carolina, settled in Qualla Boundary

EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT ●First half of 18 th century in Great Valley of VA ●Immigrant populations grow, conquest of Indian lands, land speculation in Appalachia all contribute ●Blue Ridge Mountains and Great Valley become American frontier prior to Revolutionary War ●Flow into Appalachia in 18 th century: central valley of Pennsylvania, Piedmont of North Carolina, western Pennsylvania ●Earliest immigrants (1720) from eastern Pennsylvania were German and Scots-Irish into Shenandoah Valley, eventually expanding to Carolina Piedmont, then to southwestern VA, western NC, and eastern TN ●By 1760, western PA sends German, Scots-Irish

ULSTER PLANTATION ● King James VI of Scotland (King James I of England) ○ United thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1603 ○ Promoted "plantation of Ireland" by lowland Scots and some English to subdue Catholic Irish ○ Many Scots were Presbyterian: persecuted by Episcopal Church of Ireland, Catholics, and Anglican Church ○ Eventually left for religious, economic (linen industry depression), and rack-renting (renting to the highest bidder) reasons ○ By the way, this is the King James of the King James version of the Christian Bible and ruled During the latter portion of the writings of William Shakespeare

APPALACHIA & THENEW NATION ● Small number of British (many Welsh) migrate from east coast of VA in mid-1700 s; some with slaves ● African American population at 10% prior to Civil War; higher in some areas ● Tension between small mountain farmers and flatland plantation owners begins early and would remain ● Feeling of Appalachian alienation leading up to Revolutionary War led to hostility toward political elites ● Appalachians eventually supported war due to desire for religious freedom (Germans) or hatred of British royalty (Scots-Irish)

KINGS MOUNTAIN ● Turning point in Revolutionary War – October 7, 1780 ● Patriot vs. Loyalist Militia – a “civil” war of mostly Americans ● Patriots: William Campbell (VA)--commander, Isaac Shelby (TN), John Sevier (TN), Benjamin Cleveland (NC), James Williams (SC), Edward Lacey (SC), Frederick Hambright (NC), Joseph Mc. Dowell (NC), Joseph Winston (NC) ● Loyalist: Major Patrick Ferguson— only British army officer in battle ● Challenge to Patriot leaders from Ferguson: Lay down arms or I’ll “lay waste to their country with fire and sword” ● The bayonet charge from Ferguson proved Unsuccessful and Ferguson shot from his horse ● 65 -minute battle ending in Patriot victory

Kings Mountain

PREINDUSTRIAL APPALACHIA ● Small, open-country communities and scattered settlements prior to industrialization ● Self-sufficiency, socially and economically ● Shared identity, common ideals and values, shared work and church provides unity ● Contradicting Appalachian isolation as reason for strong community ○ First 2/3 of 19 th century, Appalachia was no more isolated than other rural areas ● Economy ○ Non-commercial, self-sufficient farms; some evidence that farming for external market took place ○ Salt works, iron foundries, copper mines, tanneries existed - some industry

PREINDUSTRIAL APPALACHIA (CONT. ) ●Appalachian farmers relied on family labor: build homesteads, cultivate orchards and livestock pastures, garden, graze hogs, raise turkeys and geese ●Most common crop: corn (milled and "liquified") ●Family was center of pre-industrial life; framework for education and social order ●Gender and age roles clearly defined ●Patriarchal society, but women maintained strong, influential positions within family ●Social activities: ○Church ○Community work: house/barn construction; clearing new ground; harvesting crops; preserving food; hog butchering; husking corn; road building/maintenance; etc.

CIVIL WAR &RECONSTRUCTION ● Slavery as a component of controversy in Appalachia during Civil War ● Fewer than 1 in 10 whites owned slaves in region (1 in 4 in South), but yes, it did exist in the mountains ● Slavery largely in bigger valleys in VA and TN ● Industrial slavery existed in tanning works, salt mines, iron foundries of VA and brick mills of TN and KY ● Quakers & Germans in Appalachia opposed slavery on moral, ethical, and religious grounds; majority of people opposed for political, economic reasons ● Stay with Union or side with Confederacy? ○ Pitted community against community, county against county, etc.

CIVIL WAR &RECONSTRUCTION ● Strongest areas of Unionist sentiment: western counties of VA, East TN, western North Carolina, eastern KY ● The Great Divide: 1/3 of Appalachia's residents sided with Union, 1/3 with Confederacy, 1/3 neutral ● 1861: 27 counties declared secession of their state illegal; became West Virginia in 1863 ● Confederate sentiment: strongest in valleys of Appalachia and in mountain counties close to flatlands in Blue Ridge of VA and western NC; economic/political elite ● "Living off the land": Both Union & Confederate soldiers destroyed crops and livestock, robbed and burned homes, killed civilians, causing widespread hunger

CONSCRIPTION ● April 1862 – Confederate conscription (or draft) ● Exempted “one potential soldier for every twenty slaves owned by a family” ● Angered small-scale farmers, who called it a rich man's war, and a poor man's fight ● Upset balance between community needs and needs of confederacy ● 1863 – Federal draft ensured that Union areas of Appalachia suffered the same fate ● As a result, transportation system fell into Disrepair as well as other infrastructure elements

CIVIL WAR &RECONSTRUCTION ● Lincoln promised support after war's end, but assassinated ● Political situation during Reconstruction left mountain counties (traitors to the Confederacy) neglected: transportation, public school, public services ● By 1880 s, Appalachia was discovered by northern and foreign investors, interested in natural resources ● Writers, missionary workers, teachers accompanied capitalists ●The result was a new picture of Appalachia that stressed poverty and cultural backwardness

EARLY INDUSTRIALIZATION ● Stereotype of unchanged frontier culture: noble savages ● Independent, proud, rugged, violent, dirty, uneducated, crafty, practical, drank too much, lazy, large families, etc. , as described by outsiders ● Local Color Movement begins ● Appalachia was a region in stark contrast to progressive, urban culture of rest of US ● Responses to emerging image of Appalachia ○ Middle-class women from northeast sought to educate mountain people ○ Cultural preservation (ballad collecting, etc. ) ○ Economic development and industrialization ○ Culture becomes commodity

EARLY INDUSTRIALIZATION ●From 1865 to 1920: US becomes world's largest industrial nation ●Demand for labor, minerals, timber ●The "coming of the roads" (railroads) between 1870 and 1910 ●Coal became most valuable natural resource; innovations in iron and steel making created demand ●Mine owners and operators: ○College educated ○Middle or upper-middle class ○Close ties to railroads ○Largely outsiders ○Established company town system; wielded great political and economic power ●Workers: native Appalachians, African Americans, immigrants from southern/eastern Europe

IMPACT OF INDUSTRIALIZATION ●African Americans moved to mine coal in great numbers to West Virginia and eastern TN ●Coal camps were segregated; mine work was not ●Italians, Poles, and Slavs also provided labor ●By 1900, immigrants had largely replaced native workforce ●Work conditions: ○Low wages (average of $2. 00 a day in 1900) ○Unsafe work conditions: explosions, poor ventilation, coal dust in the air, rock and roof falls ●Company towns became necessary to promote industrialization due to level of immigration ●From 1880 to 1930, over 600 company towns; 5 -to-1 over independent towns in Appalachia

IMPACT OF INDUSTRIALIZATION ● Life in company towns varied: ○ quality of housing ○ degree of overcrowding ○ quality of sanitation and recreation ○ policies of company store ○ degree to which company sought to control people's activities ● Other industries during period ○ timber ○ textiles ○ railroading ○ non-coal mineral mining ○ chemical production ● Industry largely affected the region's economic situation negatively due to absentee corporations

THE GREAT DEPRESSION &NEW DEAL ● Farming prior to the Great Depression ○ Appalachia – 3% of U. S. Land area ○ According to 1930 Census – 1/3 of “self-sufficing” farms ○ Self-sufficing farm is where the value of the [home] farm products used by the family was 50 percent or more of the total value of all products of the farm ○ Income < $100 per year on self-sufficing farms ○ Some barely affected by Depression, but wage laborers would feel the impacts deeply

THE GREAT DEPRESSION &NEW DEAL ●Depression of the 1930 s began earlier in Appalachia when industry collapsed from overproduction and competition ●Couldn't return to agriculture; couldn't pursue other opportunities ●Mid-1920 s to early 1940 s--Appalachia's Great Depression ●End of 1930 s: 75% of mountain population receiving government assistance ●Many moved north; many stayed in inactive coal camps ● 1933's New Deal--didn't end hard times, but helped ● 1935: Wagner Act allows unions to be formed and that right to be federally protected ●Tennessee Valley Authority begins to regulate river flooding, restore eroded land, produce fertilizers, etc.

THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND NEW DEAL ● 1949: TVA builds 9 coal-powered electrical generating plants ● Push toward recent development of strip-mining

APPALACHIA AT MIDCENTURY &BEYOND ●World War II and effects on mountain people ●People uprooted and exposed to world away from home in record numbers ○Greater sense of difference and, sometimes, a feeling of inferiority ■Some would leave Appalachia afterward for better jobs; great out-migration to North and Midwest in 1950 s and 1960 s ○For some, it expanded horizons, aspirations, and attitudes ●Technological improvements during WWII eventually led to decline in workers; 476, 000 coal miners in 1940 and less than 200, 000 in 1960 ●Between 1945 and 1965, nearly 3. 5 million people left for Cincinnati, Detroit, Columbus, Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Baltimore; They were often called “briers”

APPALACHIA AT MIDCENTURY &BEYOND ● 1950 s: Appalachia rediscovered in media reports highlighting poverty ●Democratic Presidential nomination of 1960: JFK, Lyndon Johnson, and Hubert Humphrey visit mountains ●Media attention was huge following the election; Appalachia generally presented negatively ●Appalachians resented images of isolation, backwardness, ignorance, and pathetic impoverishment ●The outside feeling that Appalachia was in America, but not of America ● 1963: Johnson pledges to fulfill Kennedy's programs and Appalachian Regional Development Act is passed ●Appalachian Regional Commission created by the bill and War on Poverty begins ●Four areas of ARC: highway construction, resource development, flood control and water tower projects, improvements in human services

APPALACHIA AT MIDCENTURY &BEYOND ● ARC includes 393 counties in 13 states from New York to Mississippi originally ● Other Programs: OEO, VISTA, Head Start ● Although these programs were largely unsuccessful, Appalachians began to see their own potential to create change; swelling of regional pride and identification with "Appalachia" ● Appalachia remains a contradiction in America: a region rich in natural resources yet a land of great poverty.