The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-11-12
HISTORY OF THE
GEORGIA CRACKER,
ATLANTA Constitution.)

| ers without any definite ideas regarding
| their history or the origin of their name.
| Lawton b. Evans, in his History Of
| Georgia" says of the wagon drivers in
our early days: "a
The driver of each wagon carried !,
whip which he often popped and crack
ed as he drove along. With the handle
in both hands, he would pop his whip
from side to side until it sounded like
| the rapid firing of a pistol. From this
practice the name Georgia cracker is
said to have originated, the cracker be-
ing man from the country who in
driving to market cracked his whip AZ
he went along"
The Century Dictionary says that the
name is said to have been applied be-
cause cracked corn was their chief arti-
Gle of diet, and it dates back to the
revolution.
According to Richard Malcolm John
ston, Marion had some Georgia soldiers
who were very expert with the rifle. the
crack of which was much dreaded by
the British, who gave these rifemen the
name of Georgia crackers. After the
revolution the name changed from n
military to social significance.
Bill Arp has another explanation. He
says that the hardy and industrious
Scotchmen who settled in Georgia, and
who came in contact with the rough and
uncultured settlers from other sections.
called them Crackers, which is a
Scotch term, and means Boosters"
''idlers," who talk much and work little.
Cracked and crack-brained may have
the same origin.
Joel Chandler Harris says that
Cracker" is n good old Shakespearean
word 1t is used in the play of king
John" to designate Il loud, boastful fell
low
Anthony Stokes, who was the royal
chief justice of Georgia before the revo-
luton, returned to England and wrote
a pamphlet about the colony, in which
he said:
Georgia is overrun by a swarm of
men from the western parts of Virginia
and North Carolina, distinguished by
the name of Crackers Many of these
people are descended from convicts that
were transported from Great Britain to
Virginia at different times, and inherit
so much profigacy from their ancestors
that they are the most abandoned set
of men on earth, few of them having
when these people are routed in
other provinces, they fly to Georgia,
where the winters are mild. and the
man who has rifle ammunition and a
blanket can subsist in that vagrant way
which the Indians pursue; for the quaa-
tity of deer, wild turkeys and other
game there affords subsistence and The
country being mostly covered with
= al Al,
power to construct temporary huts and
procure fuel.
"The eastern coast of Georgia. in
which they plant rice, is at this time
thinly settled on account of the depar-
ture of the loyalists and the greatest
proportion Of the inhabitants are negro
slaves; whereas, i'll the western part in
habltants are numerous, and daily in
crease by the accession of the crack
ers' from the other provinces; and it is
highly probable that these people will
in time oyerrun the rice part of the
country, as the Tartars in Asia have
done by the fruitful cultivated provinces
IN the southern parts of that country.
What induces me to think so is the
fact that during the kings government
these crackers We're very troublesome in
the settlements, driving off gangs of
horses and cattle to Virginia, and com
mitting other enormities they also oc-
casioncd frequent disputes with the In
dams, whom they robbed and sometimes
murdered, and then in their turn were
robbed and murdered by the Indians.
During the war the Americans lost
much of that apprehension which they
formerly entertained for the Indians. for
the crackers who are destitute of the
sense of religion which might withhold
them from perfidy and cruelty, have
been discovered to Guido the Indians in
bearing hunger and fatigue and as they
lead a savage kind of life. they are
equally skilled in the arts of bush fight |
ing, and discovering the enemy by their |
tricks
These men will naturally settle in
the western part of Georgia, and as the |
Indians dwindle away before them they |
certainly threaten ruin to the civilized |
part of the rice colonies, who have no |
longer a common parent to call to their |
assistance
Mr. Charles \. West, a well known |
Savannah lawyer and literary man, has |
a chapter on the Bench and Bar in |
the memoirs of Georgia." in which he |
quotes the above extracts from Stokes. |
and then proceeds to throw a new light |
upon the crackers" Mr.. West says:
Putting aside the vaccinations of the
chief justice, there is truth to be got
from his statements as to the building
up of Georgia. of which too little is
known. We know of the settlement of
Georgia by 0glethorpe and his English
md of the Salzbargers up the Savannah
river, and of the Puritans from Dorches-
ter, 5. c., and of the Highlanders at
Darien.
But what of that large portion of the
state between the eastern counties and
the Ocmugee river before 1910?
Stokes says, and there is no reason
to doubt that he knew of the fact. that
in the forty years succeeding Ogle-
thorpe's arrival that portion of the State
was being settled not by the overflow
Of the colonists from the eastern ceun-
ties, but by the pressure Of hardy colo
nists, stealing down, as it were from
the North, behind the coIonists of Geor-
gia, and between them and the In
dams.
Thus it was that, even before the
evolutionary war, the middle of Geor-