The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-05-24
THE POOR WHITES OF THE SOUTH.
Origin Of the Distinct Class Living I'm
the 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 correction.
The poor white of the South has some kin
folk in the Adirondack region of New York
and the Blue and Allegheny mountains of
Pennsylvania, but he has few relatives any
place else about 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 d.
rect from those immigrants who came over
In the early days of the colonies, from 1920
to about or some time after the Revolution
airy war period: as sold passengers" Tney
sold their services for a time sufficient to
enable them to work out their passage
money. They were sold, articled TO mas
fxed wage, and thus they earned the cost
or their migration.
The laws under which they were articled
were severe, as severe apprentice laws
in those days. The sold passenger virtu-
ally 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 IL he ran away. He was
sure to be caught and cruelty punished.
And, though he was usually descendant
British Islands. he still had enough OF the
Anglo-Saxon spirit about him TO make him
an unsatisfactory chattel.
Dutch landed the first cargo of African
slaves on the continent-the sold passen-
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 already hated his
domineering white master. When he was
free to go he put as many miles as his
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 conti-
mental immigrant who had some means
toms and rolling savannahs. and the poor
white was made welcome TO the foothills
and mountain plateaux.
These descendants of the British villein
of the feudal era grew and multiplied. be-
came almost as distinct a people from the
lords of the lowlands as the Scotch High
lander was as related to his L0wland neigh
Dor, in the sixteenth and seventeenth cent
uries.
The stir of the period since the close of
our civil war has made somewhat indis-
tinct the line that separates the mountain
eer from the plainsman of the South espe-
clally in the foothills and at points where
schoolhouse and church, and especially
where the poor whites have been employed
at mining, iron-rnaking, etc. but go into
type as clear-cut as IL was one hundred
years ago, with its inimitable drawing
speech and curious dialect. its sallow COM
plexion, lanky frame, lazy habits and inn
morality-all as distinctly marked as they
We're when hundreds OF these people found
Cherokee wives in Georgia and Tennessee
in the early. part of the century, and
bleached most of the copper out of the skin
of the Choctaw, as well as out of the
Cherokee.
1t Is pity that some competent anthro-
biological historian has not traced the an
nails Of this interesting and distinctive sec
ton Of our population and made record of
Ii in the interest of science, no less than in
the interest of the proper education and
elevation of the mountain people. 1t has
become especially in the Piedmont section
of the South, most important labor, ele-
ment. The cotton mill labor by thousands
comes from the Cracker of the hills" and
IL 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 Ii has gone on faster and
Travelled further than some of us think.