The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1904-09-21
WHO ARE The CRACKERS.
The People Who Live in the Sand
Hills Of the South.

The Ststesboro tragedy has stimu-
lated discussion Of that peculiar ele-
ment of the Southern population wide
" known to fame as crackers. !" A
writer in the Boston Transcript makes
notable contribution to the symposium
pictEring very fairly on the whole the
virtues and the vices of the cracker, "
but, in our opinion, extending the ap-
plication of that title much too far.
Moreover, the picture is vastly over
laid with romance and imagination.
As matter Of fact, the term crack
err was originally applied by the
Southerners, who invented it, TO the
low-class whites inhabiting the sand
hills OF South Carolina, Georgia and
Florida, whereas the corresponding
class inhabiting the highlands of North
Carolina, Tennessee. the Virginias and
Kentucky, were almost Invariably
called mountaineers. No doubt, ex-
cepting some few and comparatively
insignificant, infusions, they have a
common origin, towit: The criminals
first sent over here by the London
Company, by Oglethorpe, and other
pioneers of English occupation.
But Prof. John Riske, of Harvard
University, has left little room Cor
controversy in this regard. His great
work, Virginia and Her Neighbors, -
tells the whole story of the colonial
ton Of America so far as the UIited
Kingdom is concerned, and noyelists
innumerable have adorned and beauSl-
fed it with mingled fact and fancy.
We know that New England was set
tied by the yeonanry of the old com
try; that Maryland received the fugi-
tive Catholics. and Delaware, New
JERSEY, and Charleston, s. c., were
sought in great numbers by the 'Hu-
g2enots. But the earlier colonists sent
ont to Virginia and the Cacolinas
were criminals-politicsl and other
wise-and those exported to Jamestown
by the London Company we're under
bonds OF servitude. Oglethorpe's ear
lier recruits we're perhaps the worst
OF all. Bat these conditions did not
last. The bondsnen, as they COM
pleted their terms of service, moved
South and West, finding refuge in the
mountains and the sandy lands, and
the labor problem in the rich agricul-
tural regions was solved by the inpor-
tation Of negro slaves from Africa.
The Dutch began it, but our good
seafaring friends of New England so IN
mcnopolized the traffic, and then a
readjussment of the population wes
effected. The fertile plantations were
occupied by the aristoerats and their
sla7es. The towns filed up with
!
neys, etc., and the earlier colonists
retreated to the poor lands and the
mountains, where they live today,
very~mach as their ancestors did two
hundred years ago. Their "loyaity"
during the civil war was merely al ex-
preston of their antipathy to the
privileged class. Their feeling toward
the negro today is the legacy of an
ancient hate.
For ourselves, we diferentiate the
crackers and the r1ountaineers.
Originally they may have had COM
mon or at least equally forlorn origin
but today the highlander Of the Vir-
ginias, North Carolina, Tennessee
and Kentucky is greatly the superior
of the Florida and Georgia saac-hiller
III everything tnat makes Tor man
hood. They have their feuds-bitter
and cruel as can be found Iii any
chronicle of Scotland-but they are
/ ocld and self-reliant men, respecting
women with cbivalrous vigilance. hos
pitable, loyal, brave to heroism. It
may please outsiders to call them
"crackers. Such. however. is rot
our idea of propriety. Washington
Post.