With so many sympathizers with the oppressed in the back country, the South had much difficulty in holding the mountaineers in line to force upon the whole nation their policies, mainly determined by their desire for the continuation of slavery.  Many of the mountaineers accordingly deserted the South in its opposition to the tariff and internal improvements, and when that section saw that it had failed in economic competition with the North, and realized that it had to leave the Union soon or never, the mountaineers who had become commercially attached to the North and West boldly adhered to these sections to maintain the Union.  The highlanders of North Carolina were finally reduced to secession with great difficulty; Eastern Tennessee had to yield, but kept the State almost divided between the two causes; timely dominated by Unionists with the support of troops, Kentucky stood firm; and to continue attached to the Federal Government forty-eight western counties of Virginia severed their connection with the essentially slaveholding district and formed the loyal State of West Virginia.

In the mountainous region the public mind has been largely that of people who have developed on free soil.  They have always differed from the dwellers in the district near the sea not only in their attitude toward slavery but in the policy they have followed in dealing with the blacks since the Civil War.  One can observe even to-day such a difference in the atmosphere of the two sections, that in passing from the tidewater to the mountains it seems like going from one country into another.  There is still in the back country, of course, much of that lawlessness which shames the South, but crime in that section is not peculiarly the persecution of the Negro.  Almost any one considered undesirable is dealt with unceremoniously.  In Appalachian America the races still maintain a sort of social contact.  White and black men work side by side, visit each other in their homes, and often attend the same church to listen with delight to the Word spoken by either a colored or white preacher.

C. G. WOODSON

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] Wertenbaker, “Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia,” 31.

[2] Exactly how many of each race settled in the Appalachian region we cannot tell, but we know that they came in large numbers, after the year 1735.  A few important facts and names may give some idea as to the extent of this immigration.  The Shenandoah Valley attracted many.  Most prominent among those who were instrumental in settling the Valley was the Scotchman, John Lewis, the ancestor of so many families of the mountains.  The Dutchmen, John and Isaac Van Meter, were among the first to buy land from Joist Hite, probably the first settler in the Valley.  Among other adventurers of this frontier were Benjamin Allen, Riley Moore, and William White, of Maryland,