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Having lived in WV and TN I knew some of the history - but only a small amount. I knew, for example, that the people were robbed of their resources and that they were incestuous (naturally - small population, no contact with the outside world)...
But I am reading a fantastic book written "one of them" (a KY Mountaineer) who became educated and a lawyer, etc. and took the time to study the history closely.
It is interesting - but it is SHOCKING. Of course, the people who need to read this the most probably won't - and, according to the book, many cannot read at all.
Here is the book and some bullet points - don't shoot the messenger....proof if provided and this is all real history, down to the murders and the robber barons. Furthermore, it never really stopped because KY decided not to get into public education (this was late in the game....even after the Civil War and into the 1900's).....
Night Comes To The Cumberlands: A Biography Of A Depressed Area
99 cents in the Kindle Edition.....
Some highlights
1. The Southern Highlands was populated by poor Brits (some Irish and Scots) - many let out of jail or debt or other trouble - in other words, the bad element of society, poor and illiterate was shipped over as indentured servants.
2. These people never wanted a "country". They never believed in America, the Constitution, the Vision of the Founding Fathers or any of that stuff. They lived in that area because after their service was done (as planters, usually), they desired to get as far away from others as possible.
3. They lived in squalor. It was decades before most had even log cabins with dirt floors. Rather, they learned just about everything from the Indians - many lived in caves or under cliffs which they enclosed.
4. There were no craftsmen among these groups - almost no skills. 100% were illiterate and, worse yet, their families had been illiterate for at least 3 to 4 generations (or forever).
5. They fought on both sides on the Civil War - not so much that they believed in either cause, just that they were bored by their lifestyle and the adventure appealed to them.
6. BUT, after the Civil War, they all held grudges against each other, resulting in many of the famous feuds which went on for decades and resulted in over 1,000 dead (out of a tiny population).
7. Self improvement, education, ambition, industry, etc - unheard of. If they saw a friend coming up with a better way to do things, they would think they had seen a Martian. In other words, while the rest of the country was industrializing, this area was stuck hundreds of years in the past.
In the end, nothing happened except for bad things. Their timber and coal were bought up by the coast cities for next to nothing and they were put to work for The Company. Of course, the coal is very dirty and not what is in demand any longer....let alone the disease and early death - so they have been left hanging.
The book is written very well and the intention is to tell it like it is - not to dump on these people. They are but a product of survival and history. But it never ended. In truth, Europe of 100's of years ago was far more advanced in terms of individual thought, learning, trades, etc.
My Advice - don't take my word for anything. Read it. It is an America you would have never thought existed - and I wouldn't either if I hadn't lived there for a year.
Oh, strangely enough, religion never permeated the area. It has the lowest participation in religion of just about any region of the country (given as 12% or so in 1960) - and there were no churches and such. Of course, there are some now....but when you consider that Churches founded much of the east coast in terms of community and education (Harvard, etc), it is an interesting case study.
The Author says that if we don't fix it we will be very sorry in the future. But 15 Billion Dollars has no fixed it. Maybe Sen Paul and McConnell do other things with the money.
There is an interesting part where WV and KY almost went to war against each other!
History nuts have to read this....99 cents for your device.
1. The Southern Highlands was populated by poor Brits (some Irish and Scots) - many let out of jail or debt or other trouble - in other words, the bad element of society, poor and illiterate was shipped over as indentured servants.
So was most of the country initially.
Quote:
2. These people never wanted a "country". They never believed in America, the Constitution, the Vision of the Founding Fathers or any of that stuff. They lived in that area because after their service was done (as planters, usually), they desired to get as far away from others as possible.
First of all it held true then as it does today that one can not say all persons of a state, region, country, religion, gender, political party, etc. believe the same things, have the same convictions or do the same things.
How did the Author support this testimony?
Quote:
3. They lived in squalor. It was decades before most had even log cabins with dirt floors. Rather, they learned just about everything from the Indians - many lived in caves or under cliffs which they enclosed.
Well during that time in our history most settlers no matter where they were settling were poor and their initial shelters were wagons and dirt floor cabins. Have you never read anything historical?
Quote:
4. There were no craftsmen among these groups - almost no skills. 100% were illiterate and, worse yet, their families had been illiterate for at least 3 to 4 generations (or forever).
Again BS. You really might want to check with another source.
Quote:
5. They fought on both sides on the Civil War - not so much that they believed in either cause, just that they were bored by their lifestyle and the adventure appealed to them.
Heavens sake read some history. Yes many families were split during the Civil War. Some agreed with the North and some with the South.
Quote:
6. BUT, after the Civil War, they all held grudges against each other, resulting in many of the famous feuds which went on for decades and resulted in over 1,000 dead (out of a tiny population).
Reference
Quote:
7. Self improvement, education, ambition, industry, etc - unheard of. If they saw a friend coming up with a better way to do things, they would think they had seen a Martian. In other words, while the rest of the country was industrializing, this area was stuck hundreds of years in the past.
Why do you feel the need to post your opinion of what people thought or said or over 200 years ago.
The south was an agricultural region, the north industrial.
Quote:
In the end, nothing happened except for bad things. Their timber and coal were bought up by the coast cities for next to nothing and they were put to work for The Company. Of course, the coal is very dirty and not what is in demand any longer....let alone the disease and early death - so they have been left hanging.
The book is written very well and the intention is to tell it like it is - not to dump on these people. They are but a product of survival and history. But it never ended. In truth, Europe of 100's of years ago was far more advanced in terms of individual thought, learning, trades, etc.
My Advice - don't take my word for anything. Read it. It is an America you would have never thought existed - and I wouldn't either if I hadn't lived there for a year.
You need to take your own advice.
Quote:
Oh, strangely enough, religion never permeated the area. It has the lowest participation in religion of just about any region of the country (given as 12% or so in 1960) - and there were no churches and such. Of course, there are some now....but when you consider that Churches founded much of the east coast in terms of community and education (Harvard, etc), it is an interesting case study.
Having lived in WV and TN I knew some of the history - but only a small amount. I knew, for example, that the people were robbed of their resources and that they were incestuous (naturally - small population, no contact with the outside world)...
But I am reading a fantastic book written "one of them" (a KY Mountaineer) who became educated and a lawyer, etc. and took the time to study the history closely.
It is interesting - but it is SHOCKING. Of course, the people who need to read this the most probably won't - and, according to the book, many cannot read at all.
Here is the book and some bullet points - don't shoot the messenger....proof if provided and this is all real history, down to the murders and the robber barons. Furthermore, it never really stopped because KY decided not to get into public education (this was late in the game....even after the Civil War and into the 1900's).....
Night Comes To The Cumberlands: A Biography Of A Depressed Area
99 cents in the Kindle Edition.....
Some highlights
1. The Southern Highlands was populated by poor Brits (some Irish and Scots) - many let out of jail or debt or other trouble - in other words, the bad element of society, poor and illiterate was shipped over as indentured servants.
2. These people never wanted a "country". They never believed in America, the Constitution, the Vision of the Founding Fathers or any of that stuff. They lived in that area because after their service was done (as planters, usually), they desired to get as far away from others as possible.
3. They lived in squalor. It was decades before most had even log cabins with dirt floors. Rather, they learned just about everything from the Indians - many lived in caves or under cliffs which they enclosed.
4. There were no craftsmen among these groups - almost no skills. 100% were illiterate and, worse yet, their families had been illiterate for at least 3 to 4 generations (or forever).
5. They fought on both sides on the Civil War - not so much that they believed in either cause, just that they were bored by their lifestyle and the adventure appealed to them.
6. BUT, after the Civil War, they all held grudges against each other, resulting in many of the famous feuds which went on for decades and resulted in over 1,000 dead (out of a tiny population).
7. Self improvement, education, ambition, industry, etc - unheard of. If they saw a friend coming up with a better way to do things, they would think they had seen a Martian. In other words, while the rest of the country was industrializing, this area was stuck hundreds of years in the past.
In the end, nothing happened except for bad things. Their timber and coal were bought up by the coast cities for next to nothing and they were put to work for The Company. Of course, the coal is very dirty and not what is in demand any longer....let alone the disease and early death - so they have been left hanging.
The book is written very well and the intention is to tell it like it is - not to dump on these people. They are but a product of survival and history. But it never ended. In truth, Europe of 100's of years ago was far more advanced in terms of individual thought, learning, trades, etc.
My Advice - don't take my word for anything. Read it. It is an America you would have never thought existed - and I wouldn't either if I hadn't lived there for a year.
Oh, strangely enough, religion never permeated the area. It has the lowest participation in religion of just about any region of the country (given as 12% or so in 1960) - and there were no churches and such. Of course, there are some now....but when you consider that Churches founded much of the east coast in terms of community and education (Harvard, etc), it is an interesting case study.
The Author says that if we don't fix it we will be very sorry in the future. But 15 Billion Dollars has no fixed it. Maybe Sen Paul and McConnell do other things with the money.
There is an interesting part where WV and KY almost went to war against each other!
History nuts have to read this....99 cents for your device.
Having 23 years of genealogy behind me, 1/4 of my lines in this area... ca 1630 to 1900
1. Largely poor, yes. Not all by any stretch were indentured servants.
2. BS. mostly they moved west for cheap land.
3. Caves are uncommon. Less than a crude cabin or higher end lean to for more than 1 year leads to being dead. Crude cabins seems to be the norm early.
4. No skills? BS unless basic carpentry isnt a skill. Throw in little details like farming and tinkering... Illiterate. Yep.
5. Yes to both sides but didnt believe in it??? Good grief man.
6. Seems to make it sound like every place had a feud. I dunno on that. My ancestors were not.
7. Uh yea... Nooooooooo.
Educated Kentuckian of Scots-Irish non-incestuous heritage here. Been fighting strip mining and mountaintop removal for about half a century. Been fighting stereotypes for just about as long.
Harry Caudill's epic "Night Comes to the Cumberlands" was written in the early sixties, when I was in high school. It was a groundbreaking book and deserves to be read and re-read still - but my take from it is very different from that of the OP, other than the bit about the robber barons, theft of natural resources through extractive industries.
I do not recall that Caudill described the people of the Southern Appalachian coalfields in such a manner as you cite - he was far more respectful and demonstrated a far better understanding of the effects of history and background on the people of the area.
Your sensationalist description is that of the stereotypical hillbilly - Caudill's was not. He was never condescending.
"The Watches of the Night", a sequel to NCTTC, was published in 1976, and I recommend it. It deals with the War on Poverty and related programs which focused on the mountains, and their effects or lack thereof. By then, the notorious broad-form deed had been declared invalid - read on.
Also, try reading "Albion's Seed" for a better understanding of the heritage, ways and typical traits of the descendants of the Ulster Scots in the United States.
Strip mining of coal was starting to really take off about the time NCTTC was published, and the shameful "broad form deeds" were still in effect in Kentucky - mineral rights were sold off for as little as fifty cents an acre back in the nineteenth century, when the only means of mining coal was deep mining.
For a long time, courts held that such deeds meant that any method of mining, including the tremendously destructive strip mining, though unheard of when the broad form deeds were signed, was a legal way to extract coal from land whose mineral rights had been sold decades previously, regardless of the wishes or rights of the current surface landowners, who did not have to be paid any additional fees. Nor did any kind of restoration need to be done after the coal was taken.
As a result, family cemeteries were thrown down mountainsides, crops were destroyed, small children were killed by boulders being dynamited and left to roll downhill into the houses below...once clear waters ran red and yellow and black, with no life left in them, forests were destroyed and "overburden" washed down flooding creeks, taking trees, houses - and human lives - with it.
All legal.
Harry Caudill, a country lawyer and highly intelligent and ethical man, saw that this was wrong, so he wrote his first book. He worked for the remainder of his life to change things.
I can only imagine what he would make of today's mountaintop removal coal mining, which is just what it sounds like: the tops of the oldest mountains in American are blown off to get at coal seams that are too narrow to be mined by other methods. Cursory "restoration" is done afterwards, with non-native quick growing grasses, heavily drenched in fertilizer, being a favorite method, while it's claimed the resulting flat land can be used for industrial parks. That has rarely happened, and most of the coal extracted by this method is sold to China.
You can see the vast scope of the enormous destruction caused by mountaintop removal on Google Earth.
Trump referred to this in his speech last night, when he referred to these "beautiful coal mines" and boasted that our country is even exporting coal now.
What he didn't cite was the enormity of the actual cost of such practices: we are exporting coal to China and elsewhere at the cost of the destruction of the oldest mountains in the world, and everything that grows or lives on or in them. For the sake of very limited and temporary financial profit for a very few, we are destroying the very land we live on.
You can't put it back.
I clearly need to send copies of "Night Comes to the Cumberlands" and "The Watches of the Night" to the White House, but then, Trump would no doubt identify with the robber barons...
Last edited by CraigCreek; 01-31-2018 at 12:56 PM..
The "Coal Miners Daughter" produced by the poor mountain people of Kentucky I think is another good example of a "skilled craftsman" from the area.
Yes, and long before Loretta Lynn, the Southern Appalachians were referred to as a "nest of singing birds" by English folklorist Cecil Sharp, who collected hundreds of traditional British ballads and songs in the mountains in the 1910s.
The Appalachian Mountains are also noted for traditional crafts, both now and 100 years ago. Once necessities, now handmade coverlets, quilts, furniture, baskets, cornshuck crafts, musical instruments, pottery, wrought iron and other items are both beautiful and boosts to local economies.
Educated Kentuckian of Scots-Irish non-incestuous heritage here. Been fighting strip mining and mountaintop removal for about half a century. Been fighting stereotypes for just about as long.
Harry Caudill's epic "Night Comes to the Cumberlands" was written in the early sixties, when I was in high school. It was a groundbreaking book and deserves to be read and re-read still - but my take from it is very different from that of the OP, other than the bit about the robber barons, theft of natural resources through extractive industries.
I do not recall that Caudill described the people of the Southern Appalachian coalfields in such a manner as you cite - he was far more respectful and demonstrated a far better understanding of the effects of history and background on the people of the area.
Your sensationalist description is that of the stereotypical hillbilly - Caudill's was not. He was never condescending.
"The Watches of the Night", a sequel to NCTTC, was published in 1976, and I recommend it. It deals with the War on Poverty and related programs which focused on the mountains, and their effects or lack thereof. By then, the notorious broad-form deed had been declared invalid - read on.
Also, try reading "Albion's Seed" for a better understanding of the heritage, ways and typical traits of the descendants of the Ulster Scots in the United States.
Strip mining of coal was starting to really take off about the time NCTTC was published, and the shameful "broad form deeds" were still in effect in Kentucky - mineral rights were sold off for as little as fifty cents an acre back in the nineteenth century, when the only means of mining coal was deep mining.
For a long time, courts held that such deeds meant that any method of mining, including the tremendously destructive strip mining, though unheard of when the broad form deeds were signed, was a legal way to extract coal from land whose mineral rights had been sold decades previously, regardless of the wishes or rights of the current surface landowners, who did not have to be paid any additional fees. Nor did any kind of restoration need to be done after the coal was taken.
As a result, family cemeteries were thrown down mountainsides, crops were destroyed, small children were killed by boulders being dynamited and left to roll downhill into the houses below...once clear waters ran red and yellow and black, with no life left in them, forests were destroyed and "overburden" washed down flooding creeks, taking trees, houses - and human lives - with it.
All legal.
Harry Caudill, a country lawyer and highly intelligent and ethical man, saw that this was wrong, so he wrote his first book. He worked for the remainder of his life to change things.
I can only imagine what he would make of today's mountaintop removal coal mining, which is just what it sounds like: the tops of the oldest mountains in American are blown off to get at coal seams that are too narrow to be mined by other methods. Cursory "restoration" is done afterwards, with non-native quick growing grasses, heavily drenched in fertilizer, being a favorite method, while it's claimed the resulting flat land can be used for industrial parks. That has rarely happened, and most of the coal extracted by this method is sold to China.
You can see the vast scope of the enormous destruction caused by mountaintop removal on Google Earth.
Trump referred to this in his speech last night, when he referred to these "beautiful coal mines" and boasted that our country is even exporting coal now.
What he didn't cite was the enormity of the actual cost of such practices: we are exporting coal to China and elsewhere at the cost of the destruction of the oldest mountains in the world, and everything that grows or lives on or in them. For the sake of very limited and temporary financial profit for a very few, we are destroying the very land we live on.
You can't put it back.
I clearly need to send copies of "Night Comes to the Cumberlands" and "The Watches of the Night" to the White House, but then, Trump would no doubt identify with the robber barons...
Excellent post, CraigCreek. Harry Caudill was never as condescending and critical of the people of Appalachia as the OP suggested and would have been appalled at his interpretation of his writing.
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