Good read, and I recommend both Sowell’s and Hackett Fischer’s insightful and very readable books.
My husband’s Scots-Irish family fought the English in the American Revolution, moved to Kentucky and eventually to Ohio, crossing the river in a hail of rifle shots. They were apparently not best behaved.
Like JD Vance, they have acquired Ivy League degrees and nicer manners over the past fifty years.
"Hill Billy Yank" is where "hill billy" comes from. Hardscrabble farmers and mountaineers did not own slaves and had no desire to fight or die for the rich men in Montgomery. West Virginia split from the rest of the state and more Tennesseans fought for the union than the confederacy. "Border regions" in that sense must include Wayne County, AL and Johnson County, MS.
My impression was no one really knows where "hill billy" comes from. I'd heard it was because that many belonged to the Cameroonian church whose members were forced by the Church of Scotland to preach in remote hill areas.
I remember visiting the town of Bushmills in Northern Ireland and there were banners hanging from the light poles in town celebrating famous Scotch-Irish descendants; including a proud Dolly Parton
I now want to write an alternative fiction novel where North America hasn't been colonised and Jack Charlton fights Richard Nixon and Neil Armstrong in 20th Century border skirmishes.
Some of these names indicate that the monolithicness of the ethnicity can be overstated. Neither Armstrong nor Nixon had much of the stereotypical Borderer personality.
I always love visiting these Scottish country houses where you see the portraits of their lairds, and in one century they go from looking like Begbie to Hugh Bonneville.
Full disclosure: I had to look up ‘Begbie’. Reminiscent of Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining’. I guess we’re all softies these days, somewhat to our disadvantage. I’ll leave it there. You see, my emergency counselling is working already.
Fascinating subject. Thomas Sowell, in his book ‘Black rednecks and white liberals’ also makes a strong point about the cultural influence of the Reivers on American culture, but in his argument, this influence was shown to be particularly strong in black American culture. While slave owners could be often from higher social classes, the men engaged to oversee the slaves were overwhelmingly drawn from the scions of the Debatable Land. It was from these men that the slaves learned English and modes of behaviour, dress and customs. He argues that the propensity shown among the Reivers for engaging in criminal behaviour, their disdain for learning, literacy and the law, sexual licentiousness and clannish affiliation had a lasting effect on black American culture. Not to mention modes of speech (‘ain’t’ for example).These men were generally the only whites that blacks would have any contact with.
Also in the salience of ‘respect’ culture. A borderer raised in a lawless environment would not show acquiescence towards an agent of the law even in what we would call today a ‘traffic stop’. Doing what the lawman told him to do would have been viewed as a sign of weakness.
one of the stronger arguments against the progressive theory that disparate outcomes are the results of racism is that, the more racist an area in the US - you could measure it by level of slavery, attitudes, voting habits - the smaller the gap between black and white. The largest gap in terms of income, education, imprisonment is in the more liberal parts of the north. Of course, this is partly explained by white northerners behaving differently.
I can attest that among my Kentucky hillbilly relatives, family formation has always been rather...fluid. My grandpa "ran oft", as my grandma put it, when my dad was a baby in the late 1920s; my grandma moved to southern Ohio with her the man who fathered her second son (there exists no record of a divorce from the first husband nor a marriage with the second); and then apparently either he or she ran oft a few years later and she took up with her third husband and had another child. Husband #3 seemed to have a calming effect on her; he was a lay preacher and faith healer and they remained together until his death. Mamaw also raised a number of other cousins, nieces, nephews, etc. who came and went over the years along with her own children; which I understand was a pretty common scenario. Many of my "cousins" are related to me in such complicated ways that I would need to draw a diagram to explain; so we always just referred to everyone as "cuz" regardless of the actual degree of relation. It was all very exotic to me, as the East Coast cousin; people in my home town in Connecticut simply didn't behave like that.
My family was considered one of the more well-educated and respectable ones for that place and time; as two of my grandma's brother's graduated from high school and one went on to become a school teacher. But my dad was always of the opinion that college was only necessary if you weren't very smart; he felt that if you were intelligent, you shouldn't need all that additional schooling. And I can confirm that there is a strong hostility towards those who "get too big fer their britches" , which I think can discourage people from trying to attain more education or improve their socioeconomic class.
I'm going to the continent this weekend, will still be writing for the first week but the two weeks after I will be fully on holiday. I've scheduled pieces for the period, but I might not be checking all the comments instantly or responding, so now is the ideal time to say something completely outrageous (I'm only joking, please don't).
My dad's family are hillbillies from Eastern Kentucky. Among my ancestors, there are about equal numbers who fought for the Union and the Confederacy during the Civil War, which makes sense - the Union sympathizers didn't want rich plantation owners from Virginia telling them what to do, and the Confederate sympathizers didn't want rich Yankees in Washington telling them what to do.
If anyone asked my dad his ethnic background, he always said "Kentuckian!" I think I was about nine or ten years old before I realized Kentucky was not actually a separate country.
Over the past two hundred years, our family has become more respectable and better educated. But there's still a rowdy streak is never too far from the surface.
I'm not really sure Jacobitism corresponds historically with populism in England. Events like the Gordon riots showed Catholic emancipation in late 18th century to early 19th century to be a largely elite concern set against a population that was virulently anti-Catholic. And there was, to my mind, little that could be called liberalism in popular hostility to Catholicism.
Also the author seems to ignore how in the 19th century protestants in Ulster became staunch Tories as that party came to be closely associated with unionism during the Home Rule era - the protestants there have remained far more conservative and immune to the blandishments of socialism than the Catholic population has.
Our Southern Highlanders is a great book about the inhabitants of the Appalachians in the early 20th century, illustrating the survival of many of these characteristics.
As I read your comment I saw a monochrome image of a middle-aged lady coming slowly toward me; now benign, now menacing. Then I heard a voice speak to me, 'In the year of Our Hillary 147, the Sisters of Resolute Justice launched the final assault of the hateful ones of the remote regions.'
Good read, and I recommend both Sowell’s and Hackett Fischer’s insightful and very readable books.
My husband’s Scots-Irish family fought the English in the American Revolution, moved to Kentucky and eventually to Ohio, crossing the river in a hail of rifle shots. They were apparently not best behaved.
Like JD Vance, they have acquired Ivy League degrees and nicer manners over the past fifty years.
thank you!
"Hill Billy Yank" is where "hill billy" comes from. Hardscrabble farmers and mountaineers did not own slaves and had no desire to fight or die for the rich men in Montgomery. West Virginia split from the rest of the state and more Tennesseans fought for the union than the confederacy. "Border regions" in that sense must include Wayne County, AL and Johnson County, MS.
My impression was no one really knows where "hill billy" comes from. I'd heard it was because that many belonged to the Cameroonian church whose members were forced by the Church of Scotland to preach in remote hill areas.
I remember visiting the town of Bushmills in Northern Ireland and there were banners hanging from the light poles in town celebrating famous Scotch-Irish descendants; including a proud Dolly Parton
I now want to write an alternative fiction novel where North America hasn't been colonised and Jack Charlton fights Richard Nixon and Neil Armstrong in 20th Century border skirmishes.
Some of these names indicate that the monolithicness of the ethnicity can be overstated. Neither Armstrong nor Nixon had much of the stereotypical Borderer personality.
The present Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, interviewed at Bowhill House (4¼m):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr0xiMk86Mo
He’s rather lovable, not at all the type to go a-smiting.
I always love visiting these Scottish country houses where you see the portraits of their lairds, and in one century they go from looking like Begbie to Hugh Bonneville.
Full disclosure: I had to look up ‘Begbie’. Reminiscent of Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining’. I guess we’re all softies these days, somewhat to our disadvantage. I’ll leave it there. You see, my emergency counselling is working already.
Fascinating subject. Thomas Sowell, in his book ‘Black rednecks and white liberals’ also makes a strong point about the cultural influence of the Reivers on American culture, but in his argument, this influence was shown to be particularly strong in black American culture. While slave owners could be often from higher social classes, the men engaged to oversee the slaves were overwhelmingly drawn from the scions of the Debatable Land. It was from these men that the slaves learned English and modes of behaviour, dress and customs. He argues that the propensity shown among the Reivers for engaging in criminal behaviour, their disdain for learning, literacy and the law, sexual licentiousness and clannish affiliation had a lasting effect on black American culture. Not to mention modes of speech (‘ain’t’ for example).These men were generally the only whites that blacks would have any contact with.
Also in the salience of ‘respect’ culture. A borderer raised in a lawless environment would not show acquiescence towards an agent of the law even in what we would call today a ‘traffic stop’. Doing what the lawman told him to do would have been viewed as a sign of weakness.
one of the stronger arguments against the progressive theory that disparate outcomes are the results of racism is that, the more racist an area in the US - you could measure it by level of slavery, attitudes, voting habits - the smaller the gap between black and white. The largest gap in terms of income, education, imprisonment is in the more liberal parts of the north. Of course, this is partly explained by white northerners behaving differently.
I can attest that among my Kentucky hillbilly relatives, family formation has always been rather...fluid. My grandpa "ran oft", as my grandma put it, when my dad was a baby in the late 1920s; my grandma moved to southern Ohio with her the man who fathered her second son (there exists no record of a divorce from the first husband nor a marriage with the second); and then apparently either he or she ran oft a few years later and she took up with her third husband and had another child. Husband #3 seemed to have a calming effect on her; he was a lay preacher and faith healer and they remained together until his death. Mamaw also raised a number of other cousins, nieces, nephews, etc. who came and went over the years along with her own children; which I understand was a pretty common scenario. Many of my "cousins" are related to me in such complicated ways that I would need to draw a diagram to explain; so we always just referred to everyone as "cuz" regardless of the actual degree of relation. It was all very exotic to me, as the East Coast cousin; people in my home town in Connecticut simply didn't behave like that.
My family was considered one of the more well-educated and respectable ones for that place and time; as two of my grandma's brother's graduated from high school and one went on to become a school teacher. But my dad was always of the opinion that college was only necessary if you weren't very smart; he felt that if you were intelligent, you shouldn't need all that additional schooling. And I can confirm that there is a strong hostility towards those who "get too big fer their britches" , which I think can discourage people from trying to attain more education or improve their socioeconomic class.
I'm going to the continent this weekend, will still be writing for the first week but the two weeks after I will be fully on holiday. I've scheduled pieces for the period, but I might not be checking all the comments instantly or responding, so now is the ideal time to say something completely outrageous (I'm only joking, please don't).
My dad's family are hillbillies from Eastern Kentucky. Among my ancestors, there are about equal numbers who fought for the Union and the Confederacy during the Civil War, which makes sense - the Union sympathizers didn't want rich plantation owners from Virginia telling them what to do, and the Confederate sympathizers didn't want rich Yankees in Washington telling them what to do.
If anyone asked my dad his ethnic background, he always said "Kentuckian!" I think I was about nine or ten years old before I realized Kentucky was not actually a separate country.
Over the past two hundred years, our family has become more respectable and better educated. But there's still a rowdy streak is never too far from the surface.
I tell everyone the same thing, but if you are with children, especialy, do take the sewers of Paris tour. Maybe you'll see the crocodile. :)
Did you see Ross Douthat's reflection on the Jacobites? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/opinion/britain-populism-jacobite-politics.html
I'm not really sure Jacobitism corresponds historically with populism in England. Events like the Gordon riots showed Catholic emancipation in late 18th century to early 19th century to be a largely elite concern set against a population that was virulently anti-Catholic. And there was, to my mind, little that could be called liberalism in popular hostility to Catholicism.
Also the author seems to ignore how in the 19th century protestants in Ulster became staunch Tories as that party came to be closely associated with unionism during the Home Rule era - the protestants there have remained far more conservative and immune to the blandishments of socialism than the Catholic population has.
And maybe that’s because white northerners can afford to behave differently - to have ‘luxury beliefs’?
Our Southern Highlanders is a great book about the inhabitants of the Appalachians in the early 20th century, illustrating the survival of many of these characteristics.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Southern_Highlanders
thanks. I shall look that up.
Now the subject of a board game:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/309913/border-reivers-anglo-scottish-border-raids-1513-16
Thanks for this. What a great read.
thank you
I've seen that name so many times and the lack of capital letters still pains me.
ha
As I read your comment I saw a monochrome image of a middle-aged lady coming slowly toward me; now benign, now menacing. Then I heard a voice speak to me, 'In the year of Our Hillary 147, the Sisters of Resolute Justice launched the final assault of the hateful ones of the remote regions.'
Goddam notion's going to haunt me all day.