Redneck

In modern usage, redneck predominantly refers to a particular stereotype of whites from the Southern United States, Western United States, and Appalachia. The word can be used either as a pejorative or as a matter of pride, depending on context.

Historical usages

Scotland

The word redneck is first cited in Scotland, where it referred to supporters of the National Covenant and The Solemn League and Covenant, otherwise known as Covenanters - largely lowland Presbyterians.

Related Topics:
Scotland - National Covenant - The Solemn League and Covenant - Covenanters - Lowland - Presbyterians

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The Covenanters in the mid-17th Century signed documents that stated Scotland desired the Presbyterian form of church government and would not accept the Church of England as its official state church. Many Covenanters signed the documents in their own blood to signify that they would spill their blood to keep the Church of England from becoming the official church, and wore red pieces of cloth around their necks as distinctive insignia - hence the term Redneck.

Related Topics:
17th Century - Church of England - State church

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These Scottish Presbyterians migrated from their lowland Scottish home to Ulster (the northern province of Ireland) during the 17th Century and soon settled in considerable numbers in North America across the 18th Century. One etymological theory holds that since many Scots-Irish Americans who settled in Appalachia and the South were Presbyterian, the term was bestowed upon them and their descendants.

Related Topics:
Ulster - Province of Ireland) - 17th Century - North America - 18th Century - Scots-Irish American

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United States

It is clear that by the post-Reconstruction era (after the departure of Federal troops in the American South in 1874-1878), the term had worked its way into popular usage. Several 'black-face' minstrel shows used the word in a derrogatory manner, comparing slave life over that of the poor rural whites. This may have much to do with the social, political and economic struggle between Populism and the Redeemers of the post-Civil War South and Appalachia, where the new middle class of the South (professionals, bankers, industrialists) displaced the antebellum planter class as the leaders of the Southern states. The Populist movement, with its pseudo-socialist message of economic equality, represented a threat to the status quo. The use of a derrogative term, such as 'redneck' to belittle the working class, would have assisted in the gradual disenfranchisement of most of the Southern lower class, both black and white, which occurred by 1910.

Related Topics:
Reconstruction - Minstrel shows - Populism - Redeemers - Populist

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