Further proof that South Carolina Whites Thought of Themselves as Anglo Saxon Not Celtic

But what is an Anglo-Saxon? This title is at least as dubious as the term Celt.

The German tribes called Anglo-Saxons invaded and then intermingled with the Britains. Then the Danes invaded and intermingled with the "Anglowhatevers". These Viking invaders conquered all but Wessex. The Viking invasions literally continued for decades and the area they ruled became know as "Dane Law". The last Viking invasion was literally turned back just prior to the Norman invasion of 1066 (who were also descended from the Vikings or "Northmen").

So after all that fighting, conquering & mingling of peoples over centuries... who are the "Anglo-Saxons"?

I think it was a generic term that was used in referring to any white Protestant.
 
I suggest you read Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fisher.Most likley the best book on the traditions and difference in the founding groups of America.
I've never met an Anglo-Saxon Protestant who wasn't "white" so I guess you could call them an ASP. Well let me correct myself I've known people who are very Anglo-Saxon in their culture, but their ancestors were not "white "but they had him been raised in England for generations. There are plenty of Anglo-Saxon Roman Catholics as well. They are y Anglo-Saxon insofar as their particular cultural and linguistic traditions,thye have chosen himor themsle him ves.
Of course I got sucked into the white thing, white should be abandoned for some other term like indigenous Europeans. I myself am a Buddhist great respect for traditional Japanese culture and Chinese culture and for that matter Indian culture.

As for your question but what real cultural differences? The answer to that would depend upon how you define real cultural differences.
That would be entirely subjective unless one were to set out some sort of precise sociological criteria for defining the groups. Although the great diversity for lunch bunch would like you to believe you were all going to meld into one identity it certainly hasn't happened in the UK, or even in Europe.
Being that my grandmother's people are from Northern Ireland and having spent a good deal of time there as well as in Wales ,Scotland and the Yorkshire Dales I have seen definite differnces in each groups worldview, disposition, and what they consider valuable, what they don't. Not to mention the differences in dialect.
The differences are real enough for the people that the dissolution of the United Kingdom into England, Scotland and Wales is a possibility.
Good point about the United Kingdom possibly breaking up . My argument is with all the DNA swapping on the US most white Americans then and now are not aware or care if they are WASPs or Celtic . Soldiers on either side of the Civil War are not going to enlist on the basis that one side or the other represents their heritage the best.
This whole thread was inspired by a poster who asserted that the majority of Confederates where inspired to fight the Union because of ancient Celtic values.
Pat Young pointed out that was absurd since the Union Army had more soldiers with Celtic surnames then the Confederate Army.
Leftyhunter
 
I recall that the aristocratic snobs of Richmond never found that Jefferson and Varina Davis met their high standards of heritage or cultivation. My experience living in Virginia was that my friends and I, who were from lesser states in the South, still didn't meet some imaginary standards of background in the late 20th Century when we traveled to state agency conferences and working groups around The Commonwealth. I've lived in mostly red states and areas, so it's not about politics.

My immediate ancestors left the counties in Virginia and West Virginia where their father, uncles, cousins had fought with the 18th Virginia Cavalry sometime after the Civil War and moved on west.
Always funny when modern folks talk about "blood".
 
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But what is an Anglo-Saxon? This title is at least as dubious as the term Celt.

The German tribes called Anglo-Saxons invaded and then intermingled with the Britains. Then the Danes invaded and intermingled with the "Anglowhatevers". These Viking invaders conquered all but Wessex. The Viking invasions literally continued for decades and the area they ruled became know as "Dane Law". The last Viking invasion was literally turned back just prior to the Norman invasion of 1066 (who were also descended from the Vikings or "Northmen").

So after all that fighting, conquering & mingling of peoples over centuries... who are the "Anglo-Saxons"?

I think it was a generic term that was used in referring to any white Protestant.
I am just looking at how people perceived themselves, not at genetics.
 
As Pat pointed out, it depends on what part of France your family came from. The people of Brittany also play a type of bagpipe. . And if you think bag pipes are annoying, you should hear 30 or 40 of these puppies

Here is some information about the Celts from Wikipedia:
The Celtic nations are territories in Northern and Western Europe where Celtic languages or cultural traits have survived.[1] The term "nation" is used in its original sense to mean a people who share a common identity and culture and are identified with a traditional territory. It is not synonymous with "sovereign state".

The six territories recognised as Celtic nations are Brittany (Breizh), Cornwall (Kernow), Wales (Cymru), Scotland (Alba), Ireland (Éire), and the Isle of Man (Mannin).[1][2] Each has a Celtic language that is either still spoken or was spoken into modern times.[3]

Territories in north-western Iberia—particularly Galicia, Northern Portugal and Asturias; sometimes referred to as Gallaecia, which includes North-Central Portugal and Northern Spain—are sometimes included due to their culture and history.[4] Unlike the others, however, no Celtic language has been spoken there in modern times.[
I thought Brittany was a part of northern France at one time. My family name only in general, can be traced to northern france. Then got transferred to England with William the Conqueror, then Ireland. We got kicked out of Ireland as horse thieves.
Somehow one got to the colonies in 1638.
But anyway, Brittany was celtic and a province in England?
 
I thought Brittany was a part of northern France at one time. My family name only in general, can be traced to northern france. Then got transferred to England with William the Conqueror, then Ireland. We got kicked out of Ireland as horse thieves.
Somehow one got to the colonies in 1638.
But anyway, Brittany was celtic and a province in England?
Yes, at the time of Henry II, a substantial part of France was ruled by him.

Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle (French: Court-manteau), Henry FitzEmpress or Henry Plantagenet, ruled as Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Nantes, King of England (1154–89) and Lord of Ireland; at various times, he also controlled Wales, Scotland and Brittany. Henry was the son of Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England. He became actively involved by the age of 14 in his mother's efforts to claim the throne of England, then occupied by Stephen of Blois, and was made Duke of Normandy at 17. He inherited Anjou in 1151 and shortly afterwards married Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to Louis VII of France had recently been annulled. Stephen agreed to a peace treaty after Henry's military expedition to England in 1153: Henry inherited the kingdom on Stephen's death a year later. (Wikipedia)
 
Most thinking southerners, knew their English history and were well aware that the British got its beginning by kicking Celtic b****'s and taking over their lands.
 
The whites don't say that they are merely asserting the interests of white South Carolinians, but of Anglo Saxons:

Not for ourselves only, but on behalf of the Anglo-Saxon race and blood in this country, do we protest against this subversion of the great social law, whereby an ignorant and depraved race is placed in power and influence above the virtuous, the educated and the refined. By these acts of Congress intelligence and virtue are put under foot, while ignorance and vice are lifted into power.

This is after the South lost the war. The June 1860 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger includes a long article titled The Difference of Race Between the Northern and Southern People, which asserts that Northerners are by and large Puritans “descended of the ancient Britons and Saxons,” whereas Southerners are largely “descended from the Norman Barons of William the Conqueror.” The article is largely about the national conflict over slavery, but casts the conflict in terms of a racial difference between North and South.

I don't know exactly how widespread this idea was, but Jefferson Davis used it in a December 26, 1862 speech:

Our enemies are a traditionless and a homeless race; from the time of Cromwell to the present moment they have been disturbers of the peace of the world. Gathered together by Cromwell from the bogs and fens of the North of Ireland and of England, they commenced by disturbing the peace of their own country; they disturbed Holland, to which they fled, and they disturbed England on their return. They persecuted Catholics in England, and they hung Quakers and witches in America. Having been hurried into a war with a people so devoid of every mark of civilization you have no doubt wondered that I have not carried out the policy, which I had intended should be our policy, of fighting our battles on the fields of the enemy instead of suffering him to fight them on ours.​

Earlier that year, the Richmond Whig asserted that “the master race of this continent is found in the Southern States.”

Before the South lost the war, Southern leaders needed a way to discredit the anti-slavery message, and (once the war started) to justify fighting against the Union and to build confidence that the Confederacy would win. So Northerners are the Anglo-Saxons, and Southerners are the Normans who conquered the Anglo-Saxons in 1066. After the war, I would guess that racist Southerners wanted the support of racist Northerners in their efforts to maintain ****, so whites everywhere become Anglo Saxons who should unite against the black race.

According to Wikipedia, the “Celtic Thesis” was proposed by Grady McWhiney and Forrest McDonald in the 20th century. The Wikipedia page gives the impression that the idea is not intellectually defensible.
 
Hmmm....So the Northerners are Puritans, who were harried by religious persecution, because they believed that civilization had strayed too far from God's ways, while the Southerners are Normans,who subjugated a whole race of people and exploited them for their own benefit. Interesting.
 
As Pat has pointed out, he is looking at how people perceived themselves. I think the example of Wales is interesting. When the Welsh coalfields and industry were developing, English emigration to Wales was commonplace. Farm labourers from Oxfordshire and other areas of the south and midlands took advantage of the opportunities to make far higher wages. Over the passing generations, the decendants of these families most certainly consider themselves Welsh and indeed Celtic.
Catalunya in Spain is another interesting case. Catalunya, like the Basque region has a long standing independance movement. During the 1960's and 70's, General Franco thought he had found a solution. He opened the area to tourism. Holiday resorts and villa's were thrown up on the Costa Brava. Large numbers of Spaniards, who obviously spoke Spanish and not Catalan moved to the area to work. Franco assumed that this would dilute Catalan calls for independance. He was wrong. The immigrants actually began speaking Catalan and embraced Catalunyan culture. I have no doubt their decendants now consider themselves Catalan.
I'm not sure if those examples actually prove anything. I just wonder if maybe second or third generation immigrants even considered whether they were Anglo-Saxon or Celtic. Did they not just think of themselves as American? Or as this is the Civil War period then Virginians, Vermonters, Texans as the case may be.
Good thread.
 
Pat:

I have an abiding interest in the topic of what Charles Anderson called the "myth" of white Anglo-Saxon destiny. He challenged this dominant belief in 1849 (An Address of Anglo Saxon Destiny), a very unusual position for a white intellectual to take at that time. He argued that there was really no such thing as an "Anglo-Saxon" race. This was an artificial construct that had more to do with a romantic ethnic ethos used to justify manifest destiny and dominion over blacks and native Americans. He also argued that if white were destined to rule the world, how then does one explain ancient China or Anceint Egypt? Anderson anticipated the arguments of Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel over 100 years earlier.

This is what originally attracted me to Anderson, thanks to my friend Tim Wise, an anti-racism activist you probably know. at that time, I had not idea that Anderson had spoken at Gettysburg.

The best study on this subject, in my opinion, is Reginald Horsman's Race and Manifest Destiny, published by Hardvanrd Univ Press in 1981. I have a copy at home.

Thanks for this post.
 
Interesting subject, I frequently get into arguments about the South's origins, it still goes on, they are adamant that white Southerners are descended from Scots-Irish ancestry, I'm adamant that while around, the vast majority is English decent. I point out that people immigrate to areas similar to where they come from, and outside of the Appalachians the South is nothing like where they came from, and I point out that most of Southern accents, or dialect, share more in common with Northern English than anything Scottish or Irish, and to top it all off I say look at our cultures, again more similarities with the English than anything "Celtic".

The arguments always end with insults to me, one time it was with a friend and some colleague and with them ending it with how both of them being college educated teachers and I'm just some country bumpkin with no knowledge. Which is funny because when that subject isn't being raised I have utmost respect and attention on historical matters, from most of these people I can't help but laugh at the irony. But I always end it by asking them to walk outside and look at the architecture of the South, to go read our literature and to come tell me it has similarity to anything Scottish or Irish as its all heavily English influenced. I also like to say "You know during the Revolutionary War almost everyone of Scottish origin sided with the King. You really think they went back to they're homes after that War? You'll find the majority's decedents in Nova Scotia." But to more than a few I can't be taken seriously on that subject because I didn't go to some college, but when its another historical subject I'm listened too, the dynamic amuses me.
 
Interesting subject, I frequently get into arguments about the South's origins, it still goes on, they are adamant that white Southerners are descended from Scots-Irish ancestry, I'm adamant that while around, the vast majority is English decent. I point out that people immigrate to areas similar to where they come from, and outside of the Appalachians the South is nothing like where they came from, and I point out that most of Southern accents, or dialect, share more in common with Northern English than anything Scottish or Irish, and to top it all off I say look at our cultures, again more similarities with the English than anything "Celtic".

The arguments always end with insults to me, one time it was with a friend and some colleague and with them ending it with how both of them being college educated teachers and I'm just some country bumpkin with no knowledge. Which is funny because when that subject isn't being raised I have utmost respect and attention on historical matters, from most of these people I can't help but laugh at the irony. But I always end it by asking them to walk outside and look at the architecture of the South, to go read our literature and to come tell me it has similarity to anything Scottish or Irish as its all heavily English influenced. I also like to say "You know during the Revolutionary War almost everyone of Scottish origin sided with the King. You really think they went back to they're homes after that War? You'll find the majority's decedents in Nova Scotia." But to more than a few I can't be taken seriously on that subject because I didn't go to some college, but when its another historical subject I'm listened too, the dynamic amuses me.
Interesting. Smarts aren't always handed out with a diploma.

Of course there are many folks in the South who can trace part of their ancestry back to Scotland or Ulster, but it was not anywhere near a majority. And, by the 1860s, nearly 90% of Irish and Scottish immigration for the previous three or four decades had been going to the North.
 
Good points. I think it would be interesting for a grad student to look at how the idea that the South was Celtic and the North was English came about. Seemed to be a late 20th Century thing rather than something that Americans North or South thought about in 1860.

You do see some Southerners describe themselves as Cavaliers as opposed to New England Roundheads. But that is a distinction between rival groups of English.

As a 7th-generation Southerner with Welsh and Irish roots (DNA confirmed), ancestors who arrived prior to the Revolution, I was researching, and read that in the 1600-1700's the exchequer of each port city determined which country of origin to admit, through a strict though subjective vetting process, and New England historically preferred English well into the 19th Century. Also, I learned that there was a great out-migration of Scot-Irish from the North into the Southern Wilderness, because of disparate treatment by English-born citizens in the North. I have relatives of one line, who still live in New York and who arrived on the North American Continent before the Revolution, when dumped off an English ship onto Nova Scotia, likely for their religious beliefs. Today, no doubt those of my New England relatives unwittingly claim to be blue blood British.

As for the vetting, for example, it was not until the 1760-1770's that people from the British Isles of Scotland and Ireland, and Wales, were allowed into the Port of Charles Town, South Carolina. Before that era, they arrived in droves into the South through out-migration from the North. That leniency in South Carolina only happened when it did, because the Exchequer was himself from Wales.

Those Welshmen arriving in Charles Town were pushed out of the city to live along the Pee Dee River among other societal misfits: the Quakers, French Huguenots, Creole, Melungeon, mixed-breed Native Americans, and free blacks. Later generations were pushed further away from the coast, by economic, political, religious, societal pressures, including torching their farms and "running them into the wilderness like dogs"... their words, not mine. Today, travel to that area in northeast South Carolina just off the Atlantic coast, and you'll find their remnants in historical museums, cemeteries, and town names.

I learned that this strict vetting of immigrants continued after the Revolution too, but not that the degree it had previously. A Civil War was coming, even a fool knew this fact, and soldiers were needed.

To understand this vetting dynamic and social conflict, go back in time to Europe. There was a great power shuffle among the classes in the melting pot of the world's immigrants because, before arriving on our shores those same groups were looked down upon in Europe (Irish, Scots, Welsh... who during the Reformation had been forced out of England, and some dumped off ships in Canada) were demeaned here in America too, relegated to menial positions, were servants of the "blue blood" British, worked in mills, mines.

Of course, the Southern elite claimed the be blue blood British, whether true or not, and could because they did not have DNA testing. They had money which bought power, and they also relegated the poorer classes, first into the wilderness and then into mills and mines, where most never had a chance to better themselves, until their descendants did after WWII.
 
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