The Upland South and Upper South are two overlapping cultural and geographic subregions in the inland part of the Southern United States. They differ from the Deep South and Atlantic coastal plain by terrain, history, economics, demographics, and settlement patterns.
The term Upper South is a geographic term, generally consisting of the Southern states that are geographically north of the Lower or Deep South, primarily Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Oklahoma and to a lesser extent the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Delaware.The Upper South. tulane.edu. Retrieved February 15, 2021.. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
The Upland South does not neatly conform to state boundaries. Combining boundaries of the region proposed by several scholars, Jordan-Bychkov describes the Upland South as a region which "stretches from the Fall Line, at the inner margin of the Atlantic coastal plain, through southern Appalachia, across the Ohio River into southern Indiana and Illinois, where it is very nearly severed in two at the isthmus of the Shawnee Hills, and then southwestward through the Ozarks, Ouchitas, and the Hill Country of Texas."
The Upland South is partially defined by elevation above sea level; it is west of the population centers on the East Coast. It has its own history and culture, originating in Appalachia.Peres, M. Tanya. (2008). Foodways, Economic Status, and the Antebellum Upland South in Central Kentucky. Historical Archaeology, Vol. 42, No. 4, pp. 88–104. Retrieved February 15, 2021. It includes West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas (Ozarks and Ouachitas), Missouri (Ozarks), North Carolina (Piedmont and mountains), South Carolina (upstate), Georgia (northern), Alabama (northern), Mississippi (northern hill country), Indiana (southern), Ohio (southern and Appalachian Ohio), and Illinois (Shawnee Hills). Parts of Pennsylvania (southwestern Appalachia), Oklahoma (eastern hill region), Texas (northeast) are also often included. Upland South outposts were settled along the shores of the Ohio River.
Geography
There is a slight difference in usage between the two terms "Upland South" and "Upper South." The "Upland South" is usually defined based on landforms. This generally refers to the southern Appalachian Mountains or Appalachia region (although not the full region as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission), the Ozarks and Ouachita Mountains. Also included in the Upland South are the plateaus, hills, and basins between the Appalachians and Ozarks, such as the Cumberland Plateau, part of the Allegheny Plateau, the Nashville Basin, the Shawnee Hills, and the Bluegrass Basin, among others. The southern Piedmont region is often considered part of the Upland South, while the Atlantic Coastal Plain (the Chesapeake region and South Carolina's Lowcountry) are not.The origin and evolution of the Upland South is explored in Meinig (1986), pp. 158, 386, 449
In contrast, the term "Upper South" tends to be defined politically by state boundaries. The term dates to the early 19th century and the rise of the Lower South, which became noted for its differences from the more northerly parts of the American South. In antebellum times, the term Upper South generally referred to the slave states north of the Lower or Deep South.Meinig (1993), pg. 293. During the American Civil War era, the term Upper South was often used to refer specifically to the Confederate states that did not secede until after the attack on Fort Sumter—Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. This can also include the southern border states of Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware as Upper South.Davidson, James West. Nation of Nations: a History of the American Republic. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2008. Print. (according to the glossary of the textbook) Today, although many definitions are still based on Civil War–era politics, the term Upper South is often used for all of the American South north of the Deep South region.
The Encyclopædia Britannica defines the Upper South as the states of North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The Upper/Upland South is also described in the Encyclopædia Britannica as the "Yeoman South," in contrast to the "Plantation South."
The Upland South, being defined by landforms, also includes parts of Lower South states, such as northwestern South Carolina (the Upstate), North Georgia, North Alabama, and northeastern Mississippi. It also includes parts of some Northern states, such as Southern Illinois (generally the Shawnee Hills region), Southern Indiana, Southern Ohio, and extreme southwestern Pennsylvania. Eastern Oklahoma, North Texas, and Western Maryland are generally included as well.
In the same way, the Upland South usually does not include parts of some Upper South states. This includes areas such as eastern Arkansas, the Missouri Bootheel, the Purchase area of Kentucky, and West Tennessee, which are part of a region called the Mid-South. The Arkansas Delta and West Tennessee area are sometimes considered part of the Deep South or Deep South adjacent. The Upland South also does not include the coastal lowlands of North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, located in the Tidewater region.
Despite these differences, the two terms, Upland South and Upper South, refer to the same general region—the northern part of the American South—and are frequently used synonymously. The corresponding terms, Lower South and Deep South, similarly refer to the same general region that is south of and lower in elevation, than the Upland or Upper South. Likewise, the terms Lower South and Deep South are often used interchangeably.
History The Upland South differs from the Lowland South in several significant ways. These include terrain, history and politics, economics, demographics, and settlement patterns.
Origins
The Upland South emerged as a distinct region in the late 18th century and early 19th century. Migration and settlement patterns from colonial coastal regions into the interior had been established for many decades, but the scale grew dramatically toward the end of the 18th century. The general pattern was a westward migration from the Lowcountry and Piedmont regions of Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland, as well as a southwestern migration from Pennsylvania. Large numbers of European immigrants arrived in Philadelphia and followed the Great Wagon Road west and south into the Appalachian Highlands, via the Great Appalachian Valley. These migration streams from Virginia and Pennsylvania resulted in the Shenandoah Valley becoming well-settled as early as 1750. The early settlers of the Ohio Valley were mainly Upland Southerners. Much of the culture of the Upland South originated in southeastern Pennsylvania and spread down the Shenandoah Valley.
These migration streams eventually spread through Appalachia and westward through the Appalachian Plateau region into the Ozarks and Ouachitas, and ultimately contributed to the settlement of the Texas Hill Country.Meinig (1998), pg. 224 The main ethnicities of these early settlers included English, Scots-Irish, Scottish, and German.Drake (2001), pp. 36–38, describes these early pioneer ethnic groups and notes that the term "Scotch-Irish" (Scots-Irish), while predominantly Presbyterian northern Irish, also included a significant number of Catholic southern Irish; and that the term "English" was a general catch-all term including ancestries such as French Huguenot (John Sevier's family, for example). On the topic of colonial Catholic Irish immigration, see also Williams (2002), pp. 43–44. The early culture of the Upland South was influenced by other European ethnicities. For example, the Swedes and Finns of New Sweden—relatively few in number but pioneers in Pennsylvania before the Germans and Irish arrived—contributed techniques of forest pioneering such as the log cabin, the "zig-zag" split-rail fence, and frontier methods of shifting cultivation, such as girdling trees and using slash and burn methods to convert forest into temporary crop and pasture land.Williams (2002), pg. 104
The pattern of settlement that had begun in the Appalachian foothills was continued and extended through the mountains and highlands to the west and across the Mississippi River into the Ozark highland region. Where there was the danger of Indian attacks, people settled at first in clustered "stations," but as danger lessened, settlement tended to be in a rural, dispersed, kin-structured pattern, with relatively few cities and towns. These early settlers of the Upland South tended to practice small-scale farming, stock raising, and hunting. This settlement pattern of the Upland South was markedly different from that of the Deep South and the Midwest.
A significant portion of 19th-century settlers of the Midwest was from the Upland South. The southern Midwest was most heavily settled by Upland Southerners, especially in Missouri, southern Indiana, and southern Illinois. This early migration to the southern Midwest included many African Americans. They were mainly freed slaves, but slavery was permitted in some places such as St. Louis, under the Missouri Compromise of 1820. In the mid-19th century, there were concentrations of African Americans in east-central Indiana, southwest Michigan, and elsewhere. Due to their early settlement of the Midwest, Upland Southerners initially controlled territorial and state governments, and played a major role in establishing the political and social culture, such as the Black Laws of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Throughout the 19th century, the population percentage of Upland Southerners fell, especially as large numbers of native-born Midwesterners joined the population.
Distinct from neighboring regions
The Deep South is generally associated historically with cotton production. By 1850, the term "Cotton States" was in common use, and the differences between the Deep South (lower) and Upland South (upper) were recognized. A key difference was the Deep South's plantation-style cash crop agriculture (mainly cotton, rice and sugar), using African American slaves working large farms while plantation owners tended to live in towns and cities. This system of plantation farming was originally developed in the West Indies and introduced to the United States in South Carolina and Louisiana, from where it spread throughout the Deep South, although there were local exceptions wherever conditions did not support the system. The sharp division between town and country, the intensive use of a few cash crops, and the high proportion of slaves, all differed from the Upland South.
Virginia and the surrounding Tidewater region stand out as different from both the Upland South and the Deep South. Its history of slavery predates the West Indian plantation model, relying on tobacco as a cash crop from the start. Tidewater had few urban centers, instead establishing multiple markets along tributaries. Cotton and rice operations were large and factory-like, while tobacco profits hinged on skilled, careful, and efficient labor units.For Antebellum differences between the Upper South and Lower South, see Meinig (1998) pp. 222–224
In addition, the Cotton Belt of the Deep South was controlled by Indians (mainly the Five Civilized Tribes of the Cherokee, Creek (Muscogee), Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole) who were powerful enough to keep pioneering settlers from moving into the region. The Deep South's cotton boom did not occur until after the Indians were forced west in the early 19th century. In contrast, the Upland South, Kentucky, and Tennessee especially, were the scene of Indian resistance and pioneering settlement during the late 18th century. Thus the Upland South colonized earlier and had established its particular settlement patterns before most of the Deep South was opened to general colonization.