The Roanoke daily times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1895-1897, 1896-06-12
THE POOR WHITES.
ORIGIN OF A DISTINCT GLASS LIVING
IN THE SOUTH.

Century.
The notion that the poor white ele-
mont of the southern Appalachian re-
gion is identical with the poor people
generally over tho country is an error,
and an error Of enough Importance to
call for correction. Tho poor whito of
the south has some kinfolk in the Ad-
irondack region Of New York and tho
Blue and Allegheny mountains of Penn
sylvania, but he has few relatives any
place else about the Mason Dixon line.
The states of New York and Pennsylva-
mia were slave states until tho carly
part of this century.
This poor white mountaincer descends
direct from those immigrants who came
over in tho early days of the colonies,
from 1920 to about or some time after
the Revolutionary war period, as "sold
passengers. They sold their services
for time sufficient to enable them to
work out their passage money. They
were sold, articled to masters, in the
colonies for their board and fixed W age,
and thus they earned the cost of their
migration.
The laws under which they were Or
tlcled were severe, as severe ns apron
tice laws in those days. The "sold pas
senger" virtually became tho slave of
the purchaser of his labor. He could be
whipped if he did not do tho task set
him, and woe to the unlucky wight if
he ran away. He was sure to DO caught
and cruelty punished
And though he was usually descend
ant of the lowest grade of humanity on
the British islands, he still had enough
OF the Anglo-Saxon spirit about him to
make him an unsatisfactory chatteI.
From 1920 forward-tho year when
the Dutch landed the first cargo of Afri-
can slaves on tho continent-the "sold
passenger was fast replaced by negroes,
who took moro naturally and amiably
to the slave life
The poor white naturally came to
cherish bitter hatred for the blacks
that were preferred over him. He al
ready hated his domineering white mas
ter When he was free to CO. he put as
many miles as his means and his safety
from Indian murderers permitted be-
tween himself and those he hated and
hoped he might never SEQ again. In
that early time tho mountain region
was not even surveyed, let alone owned
by individual proprietors
The English, Scotch. Irish and con-
tinental immigrant who had some means
sat down on the rich valleys, river bot
toms and rolling savannahs, and the
poor white was made welcome to the
foothills and mountain plateaus
These descendants of the British vii
lein OF the feudal era grew and multi
piled, became almost as distinct a peo-
pie from the lords Of the lowlands as
the Scotch highlander was, us related to
his lowland ncighbor, in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries
The stir of the period since the close
OF our civil war has made somewhat in
distinct the line that separates the
mountaineer from the plainsman Of the
south. especially in the foothills and at
points where the two have interminglcd
in traffic, i'll the schoolhouse and church,
and especially where the poor whites
have been employed at mining, iron
making, etc. But go into the mountains
far enough and you find the types as
clear cut rs it was 100 years ago, with
its inimitable drawing speech and Gu
rious dialect, its sallow complexion.
lanky frame, lazy habits and immoral
ity-all as distinctly marked as they
were when hundreds of these people
found Cherokee wives in Georgia and
Tennessee i'll the early part of the CEN
fury and bleached most of the copper
out of the skin of the Choctaw as we'll
as out of the Cherokee.
1t IS pity that some competent an
thropological historian has not traced
the annals Of this interesting and dis
tinctive section Of our population and
made record Of it in the interest of sci
ence, no less than i'll the interest Of the
proper education ard elevation Of the
mountain people. 1t has become, cspc-
cially in the Piedmont section Of the
south, n most important labor element
Tie cotton mill labor by thousands
comes from the Cracker of the Hills. ="
and it is destined to become great
power, that labor population, social aud
political.
The redemption Of the poor white be-
gan when slavery went down i'll blood
and destruction, and it has gone Oh fast
er and travelled farther than some Of us
think Times.