Commentary: In Search of Appalachia

I entered In Search of Appalachia with excitement at the prospect of reading about Appalachia by an Appalachian, rather than through the eyes of outsiders, as is so often the case in media, who typically present Appalachia as a backward and dirty place— one characterized by lacking, rather than a destination draped in rich culture. But I left In Search of Appalachia with a furrowed brow, disappointed in the missed opportunity of really grappling with our history as colonizers on the frontier.

If you’ve never been to Appalachia or met an Appalachian, I’ll tell you this: heritage is important. I grew up in East Tennessee; my mom came from North Carolina and my dad came from Pittsburgh, also known as “The Paris of Appalachia”. Appalachia is where I come from through and through. Likewise, my heritage has always been important to me, however, I gave more attention to my father’s side— the Polish immigrants who arrived in the U.S in the 1880s. But this changed recently. After I read An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and learned about the role that the Scotch-Irish played in colonizing North America, I began to contemplate my mother’s heritage— Scotch-Irish— in a new way, one that accounted for the guilt AND love I felt for their way of life.

Historical artifacts are abundant in Appalachia, especially in the mountains, where old-timey log cabins still stand. My mother’s parents built such a cabin in the Smokies years ago, where my brother and I would visit during the summer. I fondly remember the front porch swing, where my grandmother and I would sit wrapped in a blanket, watching the wild turkey, deer, foxes, and songbirds pass by through the mountain mist. They kept a panflute hanging from a nail on the wall and I’d gingerly reach for it, level it under my lips, and breath out as I’d seen my grandparents do. The instrument rang out with the sound of the mountains— lonesome, gentle, and mystical.

As you can no doubt tell, I love my home region deeply. Each memory is sweetened by the voices of caring, loving, and generous Appalachians who knew us. As Diggs accurately points out, we are a “person-oriented” culture, one that values each other over things. Granted, not everyone is so friendly, but on-the-whole I knew many kind, decent people, who taught me how to help others, to speak up when something wasn’t right, and to love with my whole heart. (I’m tearing up as I write this.)

And yet, for all the adoration I have for my home and for my people, I must finally face the horrible truths of my heritage— as we all must eventually do, no matter how much it hurts.

The best way I can think to start this process is to listen to one of my heroes: Dolly Parton in her song “Sha Kon O Hey” from the album Blue Smoke. I frequently turn to Dolly in moments like these.

The phonetically spelled Sha-Kon-O-Hey is a representation of a Cherokee term meaning Land of Blue Smoke and refers to the name given to The Great Smoky Mountains, for the characteristic blue smoke that rises off the hills in the morning.

When I listen to this song, I feel immense pride in the beauty and magic of the Smokies; my heart swells as I remember those familiar blue hills. But I also cringe hearing a white woman appropriate Cherokee language and culture in her music, even though we all know Dolly means no harm and only wants to acknowledge and respect the role that Cherokee Nation plays in Appalachian history. The Cherokee are indigenous to East Tennessee and, therefore, many East Tennesseeans feel an affinity with them— plenty claim Cherokee DNA to varying degrees. Some are lying and some aren’t. The Melungeons, in fact, are a distinct ethnic group found in Appalachia, who are mixed European, African and Native American ancestry. Others simply don’t know and can’t help but wonder if they are “1/16 Cherokee”. Ironically enough, the author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States has claimed Cherokee ancestry falsely. Needless to say, appropriation of Cherokee culture runs rampant all over the U.S, but especially in Appalachia.

Does this mean I hate the song? Frankly, I wish it did, but the music is too damn beautiful. Besides, placing “hate” and “Dolly Parton” in the same sentence is near impossible. “Sha-Kon-O-Hey” captures the fascination we Appalachians have in Cherokee culture: we love proximity until it demands we look closer. We feel pride that early Scotch-Irish settlers in Appalachia learned how to survive in the hollers, thanks in large part to Indigenous knowledge of how to grow food, how to hunt, and how to live sustainably off the mountains. But the truth is that it was my people— and Dolly’s— who helped the U.S government with the labor of colonization, including genocide. And so, how can we profit off of Cherokee Nation’s forced relocation AND appropriate Cherokee culture?

It’s a distinctly Appalachian question. And my answer to it is that we can and have been doing both for centuries, but the time has come to reconcile the two.

The unique role that Scotch-Irish settlers played in creating the American mythos, blended with the hard truths of historic mountain living— survival of the fittest— produces in us a “both/and” perspective that ultimately hurts us all— settler and Indigenous alike. Over generations of remembering the parts we like and forgetting the rest, we find ourselves in a tight spot— how to de-tangle the truths and myths without obliterating our cherished Appalachian “way”.

The good part is that we already have Appalachians to look to who are leading the way. Dolly represents Appalachia to me and to many of her listeners for good reason. It’s not only her sound, but it’s her way of being; she walks in love, always, and models the kind of forgiveness that Christians proclaim but rarely live. And it’s that love and forgiveness that can get us through the emotional process of confronting our history.

So…

Who were the Scotch-Irish?

According to Diggs,

"The Scotch-Irish... would become 'the historic and ideological template from which modern understandings of 'American' were struck."

Likewise, according to Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz in An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States,

“… the Scots-Irish were the foot soldiers of British empire-building, and they and their descendants formed the shock troops of the ‘westward movement’ in North America, the expansion of the US continental empire, and the colonization of its inhabitants. As Calvinists (mostly Presbyterian), they added to and transformed the Calvinism of the earlier Puritan settlers into the unique ideology of the US settler class.”

How did they become foot soldiers of empire-building?

In the early 1600s, England conquered Ireland and opened a half-million acres for settlement, which was largely taken up by immigrants from Scotland.

Diggs explains,

"Not that [the Scotts] were welcomed by the native Irish, who did not take any more kindly to this intrusion and confiscation of lands than would Native Americans a century or so later."

I appreciate that Diggs explicitly voices that European settlers confiscated land from the Indigenous peoples living there and that she indirectly dispels myths that the Native Americans benefitted from our violence— a notion that is somehow still alive in the white imagination today.

By bringing Protestantism to the “heathens” of Ireland, England validated its violence, just like the violence of the Crusades was permitted. Religion has been, and is still today, the vehicle and excuse for imperialist colonization. Otherwise, the process of colonization in Ireland followed many of the patterns that we would later see in North America.

“The ancient Irish social system was systematically attacked, traditional songs and music forbidden, whole clans exterminated, and the remainder brutalized.”

The violence that the native Irish faced resembles that of the American Indian Alaska Natives in North America. For example, as Dunbar-Ortiz explains,

“The English government paid bounties for the Irish heads. Later only the scalp or ears were required. A century later in North America, Indian heads and scalps were brought in for bounty in the same manner.”

It didn’t matter that the native Irish were “just as white” as the English because the purpose of race-making is to create hierarchies arbitrarily so that those in power can profit and build wealth off of the backs of “others”. In the face of religious war, the white skin of the Irish could not protect them. As the centuries passed, the perception that the Irish were inferior to the English worsened and gained popularity with the help of Social Darwinists, who believed that the Irish (as well as people of color) had descended from apes and that the English had descended from angels.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert was the official in charge of the Ulster “plantation” and was instrumental in the first English colonial settlement in North America in Newfoundland (1583), bringing with him colonizing experience from Ireland. Following in his footsteps came millions of Scotch-Irish immigrants, experienced in the way of colonization and ready to exercise those muscles again in exchange for land and opportunity.

Why did the Scotts participate in the violence against the Irish and Native Americans?

At the time, Scotland was really struggling. A “Little Ice Age” in the late 1600s produced a poor harvest, resulting in famine. Rent increased significantly, at a time when folks were already economically struggling, after the Woolens Act of 1699, which barred Irish exports beyond England and Wales. After the Scottish Rebellion of 1745, clan chieftains were stripped of authority, causing further unrest and chaos.

Diggs writes,

"Once clan chiefs became mere landlords, focusing more on making their estates pay than on the welfare of their tenants, the path was smooth for The Clearances to take place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the Highlands, the land was 'cleared': farming was abandoned for the raising of sheep, which would require vast acres for grazing. Many of those living in their ancestral homelands were displaced and forced to move; why not choose America?"

Sound familiar?

This is the vicious cycle of colonization: It's the cycle of trauma-- we do what was done to us. The English displaced the Scotts of the Highlands, forcing them to relocate elsewhere, who then displaced the Irish, and then American Indians Alaska Natives. The English added a tantalizing opportunity: if you move to Ireland or across the Atlantic, if you risk it all, if you work hard, then you have the chance to own land.

“… between 1717 and 1776, over a quarter of a million Ulster-Scots-- one-third of the Protestant population of Ulster-- left for America.”

Diggs labels this journey (not only to America but also to Ulster previously) as a '“strike towards individualism,” whereby the Scotch-Irish could access upward mobility for the first time.

Diggs explains,

"The British were especially eager to create a buffer zone, peopled by the Scotch-Irish, to keep French encroachment and the native population in the colonies at bay; offering land was well worth it. Recruiting agents spelled out the previously unattainable dream of landownership, which brought prestige and respect in England. Now the destitute could move on up."

I feel grateful that Diggs acknowledges the historical fact that the Scotch-Irish and other European settlers were used by the British as a controlling force over native resistance, but such moments of acknowledgment are all too brief and miss the chance to really look our history in the face.

Dunbar-Ortiz elaborates,

“… the Scots-Irish engendered a strong set of individualist values that included the sanctity of glory in warfare. They made up the officer corps and were soldiers of the regular army, as well as the frontier-ranging militias that cleared areas for settlement by exterminating Indigenous farmers and destroying their towns.”

The journey to “freedom” was not easy. For the Scotch-Irish to made the passage to “the New World,” they faced hunger, disease, and violence for the chance of something better. Diggs tells us,

"Many [Scotch-Irish] chose the route of becoming indentured servants, a kind of temporary slavery..." or they were "... redemptioners, those who were committed to raise the unpaid amount of their passage within a certain time or enter into indenture."

The struggles continued once they arrived, searching for work, shelter, food, and medicine. They survived due to their resilience and resourcefulness— traits cherished by Appalachians to this day. But they also survived thanks to the Indigenous peoples’ knowledge and cultivation of the land.

Dunbar-Ortiz writes,

“The first Jamestown settlers lacked a supply line and proved unable or unwilling to grow crops or hunt for their own sustenance. They decided that they would force the farmers of the Powhatan Confederacy— some thirty polities— to provide them with food.”

The leader of the Powhatan Confederacy, Wahunsonacock, wrote to John Smith, the military leader of Jamestown,

“Why should you take by force that from us which you can have by love? Why should you destroy us, who have provided you with food? What can you get by war?… What is the cause of your jealousy? You see us unarmed, and willing to supply your wants, if you will come in a friendly manner, and not with swords and guns, as to invade an enemy.”

I must wonder where my ancestors’ thirst for violence came from. I understand that violence is cyclic and, in the face of retaliation, we may have to fight to survive. But it seems to me that my people “shot first” as you might say. I am not proud of this, but some of my fellow Appalachians are.

Dunbar-Ortiz writes about the pride the Scotch-Irish took then and now in their “patriotism”,

“They saw themselves, and their descendants see themselves, as the true and authentic patriots, the ones who spilled rivers of blood to secure independence and to acquire Indigenous lands— gaining blood rights to the latter as they left bloody footprints across the continent.”

Ironically, though the Scotch-Irish passed on a mistrust of central government to their descendants, they frequently fought and died for the benefit of the federal government in collecting land, conquering nations and tribes, and centralizing power. Perhaps, then, we must be more mistrustful of the central government to the degree we question their every move— past and present. Imagine if we all refused to do their bidding anymore! As Diggs explains in In Search of Appalachia, gun and military culture is strong in Appalachia because of the Scotch-Irish. Appalachians are proud of military exploits and so we continue sending our kids to the military to serve the imperialist U.S government. What if we stopped? What if we said, enough is enough?

But, if we benefit from colonization, can we ever stop?

Ultimately, to be a colonizer is to benefit from colonization. Did the Scotch-Irish benefit?

Dunbar-Ortiz writes,

“Although the majority [of settlers] remained landless and poor, some became merchants and owners of plantations worked by slaves, as well as politically powerful.”

For example, President Andrew Jackson is of Scotch-Irish descent, famous for his background as an “Indian-killer” and The Trail of Tears, where 16,000 Cherokee people were forcibly relocated from East Tennessee and Georgia to Oklahoma. 8,000 men, women, and children died on the journey, forced to march in the dead of winter. And after the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Jackson’s troops “fashioned reigns for their horses’ bridles from skin stripped from the Muskogee bodies, and they saw to it that souvenirs from the corpses were given to the ladies in Tennessee.”

Of Jackson, Diggs writes in In Search of Appalachia,

"Greed for gold would be the impetus for President Andrew Jackson to forcibly remove the Cherokees from their homeland in the winter of 1837-38."

Although the acquisition of gold and other valuable mineral resources was a driving force behind early colonization in the Americas (inspiring the Doctrine of Discovery, which empowered European nations to ‘discover’ land and to colonize it, even if there was a sovereign Indigenous nation already there) and in the mass migration of settlers across the country with “Manifest Destiny”, it’s reductive to state that gold was Jackson’s sole motivation in displacing Indigenous tribes. As history tells us, land is the greatest motivator in European colonization, because with land comes profit, not only from gold, but from other minerals, timber, agriculture, and cash crops like cotton, harvested by enslaved African peoples for the profit of the few.

While there were plenty of Scotch-Irish who did well in “the New World”, it’s perhaps more important to investigate the reasons why so many struggled and why their descendants in Appalachia continue to struggle economically. If the Scotch-Irish were promised land by the English, what happened there?

According to Dunbar-Ortiz,

“Most of the settlers who fought for [land] kept moving on nearly every generation. In the South, many lost their holdings to land companies that then sold it to planters seeking to increase the size of their slave-worked plantations.”

When land was acquired, then, it rarely stayed in the possession of the “frontiersmen” who were bought out by the aristocracy— JUST LIKE IN ENGLAND. I can’t help but wonder if this pattern of promises unmet ties into Appalachian fatalism— accepting things as they are, rather than resorting to mainstream American optimism. Things don’t change, but we keep going.

For those who were able to remain in Appalachia, rather than moving westward in search of land or gold, they worked hard to put food on the table and take care of their families. But, nonetheless, they did so by exploiting the land around them— namely, in mining. Coal has been King of Appalachia since the 1800s, though it has lost significant ground over the last 70 years. I don’t lay the destruction of Appalachia’s forests, the loss of 2,000 miles of mountain streams, the death of the local fish who lived in those streams, and the pollution that brought acid rain to the region, at the feet of my ancestors— the working class who were doing anything to survive. I lay the blame on the capitalists who profited from the mines— who profited by placing men and children in harm’s way, lucky just to survive the day. And yet, we aren’t absolved.

Dunbar-Ortiz writes,

“Even small and landless farmers relied on slavery-based rule: the local slave plantation was the market for what small farmers produced, and planters hired landless settlers as overseers and sharecroppers.”

Appalachians respect the land around them, having lived off of its bounties for generations. They gleaned Indigenous knowledge about foraging, medicine, and reading the landscape. My grandmother, may she rest in peace, grew up poor in the mountains of North Carolina. She practiced sustainability before the word even hit the mainstream. She taught me how to compost, to wash aluminum foil for re-use, to grow vegetables in the garden, and to respect the land under my feet.

But, if we truly love the land, we must acknowledge our role in its destruction.

Being from East Tennessee, I want to highlight the history of my home region and how my Scotch-Irish ancestors harmed the land in the process.

Dunbar-Ortiz talks about the “war-zone” that was Knoxville, TN and its surrounding areas in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

“The mostly Scotch-Irish squatters, attempting to secure and expand their settlements, were at war with the resistant Cherokees called ‘Chickamaugas.’ The settlers hated both the Indigenous people whom they were attempting to displace as well as the newly formed federal government.”

Statue of John Sevier at the U.S Capitol Building

In 1784, John Sevier— settler-ranger famous in Tennessee— led a group of North Carolina settlers in establishing an independent country in Franklin, TN. Sevier became president. With that power, he chose to order a preemptive, unprovoked attack on the Chickamauga towns. But Washington wanted to restrict Indigenous resistance in the south and so in 1785 the U.S government and the Cherokee Nation signed the Treaty of Hopewell, wherein the government agreed to prohibit settlement east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We of course know that this promise was not kept. Naturally, the Cherokees retaliated when more settlers came, despite the fed’s promise. The settlers were desperately fending off Cherokee counter-attacks— most of the settlers starving and houseless. The fighting continued until the Cherokees reluctantly signed the Treaty of Holston, forcing them to abandon the land that the Franklin settlements had claimed. But this still did not stop the warfare. Because the federal government did not hold up its promise to stop squatters from crossing over the boundary into Cherokee land, the Cherokee continued to resist. By 1793, Sevier led a scorched-earth offensive against the Chickamauga towns with the intent of total destruction, despite such actions being illegal according to the federal government. He attacked at harvest time, so to starve every man, woman, and child in the towns. Sevier demanded absolute submission, killing those who refused and burning down their fields and villages.

Today, he is celebrated as a folk hero. My grandparents lived just off of John Sevier highway— his name echoed daily throughout my childhood, but no one ever told me the violence he caused for his own benefit and for the benefit of his fellow Scotch-Irish settlers.

When we displace any sovereign, Indigenous nation, including citizens who are land and water protectors, we hurt the land. There’s no way around that.

When exactly did we forget this history?

We don’t know or talk about the true history of the colonization of Appalachia because the myth of the American Dream MUST live on, or else how can the U.S continue to attract immigrants to come and labor (either unpaid or under-paid) to build our wealth, our infrastructures, and our militaries? The only way to ensure the American Dream myth lives on is to bury history that proves its deceit. Propaganda forms the textbooks of our history classes in American public schools; we don’t learn this history at school, so when are we expected to learn it? And if we never learn it, we forget.

According to Dunbar-Ortiz,

“Democracy, equality, and equal rights do not fit well with dominance of one race by another, much less with genocide, settler colonialism, and empire. It was during the 1820s— the beginning of the era of Jacksonian settler democracy— that the unique US origin myth evolved reconciling rhetoric with reality… Reconciling empire and liberty— based on the violent taking of Indigenous lands— into a usable myth allowed for the emergence of an enduring populist imperialism. Wars of conquest and ethnic cleansing could be sold to ‘the people’— indeed could be fought for by the young men of those very people— by promising to expand economic opportunity, democracy, and freedom for all.”

Here we are again, at the crossroads of promises and realities. Were promises of expanded economic opportunity kept? Look at Appalachia and tell me that the sacrifices made by early settlers have empowered prosperity. And still to this day we are fed the promise of economic opportunity by people like Donald Trump, if we support imperialistic wars around the world, stealing and hoarding resources for the top 1% to profit off of. The rest of us still labor, still struggle, and still pray for the day to come when promises are kept.

When will we learn?

Truth be told, Appalachians aren’t the only ones who fall prey to this trap. In many ways, American settlers are nearly identical to Russian colonizers in Siberia, pursuing the state’s imperialist goals under the promise of “something better”.

From James Forsyth’s A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony 1581-1990,

"Indeed, they have been compared with Americans, in that after a history of unremitting struggle with nature and aboriginal peoples, and the insecurity of frontier life, they enjoyed a similar sense of scope and freedom, the opportunity to prosper, and more democratic social relations than those who they had left behind in their countries of origin."

This isn’t simply an Appalachian lesson to learn, it’s a colonizer’s lesson to learn. There are plenty of us out there to share this journey with.

Dunbar-Ortiz shares,

“The late Native historian Jack Forbes always stressed that while living persons are not responsible for what their ancestors did, they are responsible for the society they live in, which is a product of that past.”

I am not guilty for my ancestors’ choices to move to another land, to steal that land from its caretakers, or to exploit that land and non-white peoples for profit. But I am guilty of allowing the continuation of that exploitation and destruction today, even in small, seemingly insignificant ways.

According to Diggs, the Scotch-Irish from whom I descend believed in intimate personal relationships, honesty, neighborliness, modesty, self-reliance, and family, values that Appalachians still hold today. If we hold these values dear to us, then we already have a road map to confront and dismantle our role as colonizers.

We profited off of the genocide of Native Americans. We did the hard work of it ourselves on the frontier, where the British and the U.S governments pushed us to be one way or another, and then we got paid: a little land, maybe, a homestead, food for your family. And the promise of upward mobility-- the American Dream from the very beginning. But we know that the American Dream is a myth. It's a promise that brings workers to this country, where they sweat and grind and die for the state to grow stronger- like fuel--, and then get discriminated against so that they're forced to survive at all costs. The bill is sent to Black people, Indigenous people, and Brown people who live all over the world who suffer because of our greed.

I recognize and respect the traits of my ancestors that I admire— like their strength, their resourcefulness, and their relationship with the land, but I don’t admire the violent history of my people and how many perpetuated genocide against the Irish and Native Americans. But Diggs does not often confront this history in In Search of Appalachia.

Throughout are peppered brief mentions of how what the Native Americans experienced at the hands of our people was “tragic”, but then we immediately fall back into valorizing that violence as a statement to our ability to survive. If you study genocide, then you see how this exact type of glorification without balancing a critical political lens only deepens the divide between “us and them” and makes cross-community healing near impossible.

Furthermore, Diggs’ political lens, while critical when examining Appalachian economic and political struggles, turns off when the focus is no longer on her own people. For example, in her introduction, Diggs writes about the population of Appalachia and how it compares to foreign countries’ populations, and references, “… such troublesome places as Yemen, North Korea, and Afghanistan.” She does not elaborate. What makes a place “troublesome”? Is a place troublesome because the U.S deems it so? Such troublesome places are seen as “tameable” by U.S military intervention, which historically disables democracy and peoples’ movements in favor of politics that serve U.S interests, like the extraction of precious resources. Our ancestors saw the Cherokee and the other hundreds of Indigenous nations and tribes as “troublesome” too, giving us permission to move in wherever we wanted, take what wasn’t ours, and survive at all costs. It’s all connected; it’s all the same story being told over and over again.

When will we learn??

All told, this made me sad. What a marvelous opportunity to demonstrate solidarity— to show that Appalachians know what it means to struggle and that we are trustworthy allies. But, we can’t stand in solidarity if we discriminate against others, and especially not if we don’t know our history.