The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-07-19
THE CRACKER OF THE HILLS.

The Origin of the Poor Whites of the
Southern Mountain Regions.
The notion that the poor white element
OF the Southern Appalachian region is
Identical with the poor people generally
over the country is an error, and an
error of enough Importance to call for cor
rection. The poor white of the South has
some kinfolk in the Adirondack region of
New York and the Blue and Alleg any
mountains of Pennsylvania, but he has
few relatives any place else above the
Mason Dixon line. The States OF New
York and Pennsylvania were slave States
until the early part of this century.
This poor white mountaineer descends
direct from those immigrants who came
over in the early days of the colonies, from
1920 to about, or some time after, the Rev
dictionary war period as "sOld passen-
gers" They sold their services for time
sufficient to enable them to work out their
passage money. They were sCld, articled
to masters. in the colonies for their board
and liked wage, anG thus they earned the
cost of their immigration.
The laws under which they were articled
were severe, as severe as apprentice laws
in those days. The "old passenger" vir-
tually became the slave of the purchaser
of his labor. He could be whipped if he
did not do the task set him, and woe to the
unlucky wight if he ran away. He was
sure to be caught and cruelty punished.
And though he was usually descendant
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 chattel.
From 1920 forward-the year when the
Dutch landed the first cargo of African
slaves on the continent--the "sold pessen-
ger" was fast replaced by negroes, who
took more 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 alrea ~ hated his
domineering white master. When he was
free to go he put as many miles as his
means and his safety from Indian murder
ers permitted between himself and those
he hated and hoped he might never see
again. In that early time the mountain
region was not even surveyed let alone
owned by individual proprietors.
The English, Scottish, Irish and CONT
mental immigrant who had some means sat
down in the rich valleys, river bottoms
and rolling savannahs and the poor white
was made welcome to the foothills and
mountain plateaus. These descendants of
the British villein of the feudal era grew
and multiplied, became almost as distinct
people from the lords of the lowlands as
bis Lowland neighbor in the sixteenth
and seventeenth century.
The stir of the period since the close of
our civil war has made somewhat indis-
tlnct the line that separates the
mountaineer from the plainsman of the
South, especially in the foothills and at
points where the two have intermingled
In traffic, in the schoolhouse and church,
and especially where the poor whites
have been employed at mining, ironmak-
ing, etc, but go into the mountains far
enough and you will find the type as clear
cut as it was 100 years ago with its inimit-
able drawing speech and curious dialect,
its sallow complexion, lanky frame. lazy
habits and immorality-all as d distinctly
marked as they were when hundreds of
these people found Cherokee wives in
Georgia and Tennessee in the early part
copper out of the skin of the Choctaw, as
well az out of the Cherokee.
1t isra pity that some competent an
thropological historian has not traced the
annals of this interesting and distinctive
section of our population and made rec
ord of it in the interest of science, no less
than in the interest of the proper educa-
ton and elevation of the mountain peo-
pie. IL has become, especially in the Pied
mont section of the South, a most impor-
tant labor element. The cotton-milI labor
by thousands comes from the "cracker of
the hills and it is destined to become a
great power, that labor population, social
and political.
The redemption of the poor white began
when slavery went down in blood and de-
struction, and it has gone on faster and
travelled further than some of us think
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