Affrilachia is a term that refers to the people, the culture and the contributions of Black Southerner artists, writers, and musicians in the Appalachian region of the United States. The term "Affrilachia" is attributed to Kentucky-based writer Frank X. Walker, who began using it in the 1990s as a way to negate the stereotype of Appalachian culture, which portrays Appalachians as predominantly white and living in small mountain communities.
Etymology The appellation refers to an African American who is a native of, or resident in the Appalachian region.Spriggs, Bianca. "Frank X Walker: Exemplar of Affrilachia." Appalachian Heritage, vol. 39 no. 4, 2011, p. 21–25. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/aph.2011.0109. The word "Affrilachia" is included in the second edition of the Oxford American Dictionary.
History
Affrilachians have existed since the early origin of the United States and the establishment of colonial communities within Appalachia. They have resided there both as enslaved and free persons. Affrilachians are sometimes recognized as one of the three groups known for their significant role in the history of Southern Appalachia, the other two being the Cherokee and the white European settlers, mainly Anglo-Celtic or German.
Age of Discovery Affrilachians entered into Appalachia in waves; including those who arrived with white settlers, and those who arrived after 1880.
The earliest Africans who came to live in and around the southern Appalachian Mountains arrived during the Age of Discovery, often with explorers like Spanish conquistadors. Affrilachians and Native Americans have interacted at least since this era.
One of the earliest accounts of African people in Appalachia is seen in Hernando de Soto's expeditions. De Soto forced The Lady of Cofitachequi, whose paramountcy bordered the Appalachian Mountains, to be his guide in the Appalachian Mountains. When she escaped, was accompanied by her own Native American servants as well as enslaved people of Africa or Afro-Caribbean descent defecting from de Soto's expedition. One enslaved man returned to de Soto's party and reported that the lady had taken one of the escaped slaves as her lover and partner.
Colonial and Revolutionary eras Affrilachians and Native Americans, particularly the Cherokee, had extensive social interactions due to both groups being enslaved by white settlers; this began to decline after the Yamasee War, which lasted from 1715 to 1717. Theda Perdue of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recorded that "In 1763, whites agreed to pay Indians one musket and three blankets, the equivalent of thirty-five deerskins, for each black slave captured and returned."
Relationship with the Cherokee By the time of the American Revolution, the Cherokee had begun to participate in the slave economy of Southern America; they were known to capture Black enslaved people from one settler community and sell them to another. Slave raids perpetrated by Native Americans began to diminish after 1794; which was marked by the scalping of the Cherokee slave raider Chief Benge of the Chikamauga, who abducted 2 white women and 3 slaves in Southwest Virginia, before being killed by the Virginia militia under Colonel Arthur Campbell on behalf of Governor Henry Lee.
Colonists actively conspired to disrupt friendly relationships and cause hostilities between the Affrilachians and the Cherokee; Affrilachian soldiers participated in the Yamasee War against the Yamasee (among other Native Americans) and slaveholders were forbidden from bringing slaves into Cherokee towns to prevent any opportunity of cross-racial interactions.
Free Blacks and Maroons
In the colonial era, enslaved African-Americans were known to escape into the Backcountry in search of freedom.
In colonial and revolutionary era Virginia, there was a dichotomy between the Appalachian region, where refuge from slavery and discrimination could be found, and the Tidewater Region, with a plantation-heavy economy. Slaveholders feared that escaped slaves in the Appalachian territory of the Cherokee would form powerful maroon communities. In one effort to prevent this, the Treaty of Whitehall was formed between the English and Cherokee in 1730, which stated that the Cherokee must return escaped slaves in return for compensation.
Affrilachian settlements have been by recorded in western North Carolina since at least 1780 by local Appalachian historians. Texana, one of North Carolina's largest Affrilachian communities, was established at least as early as 1850 in Cherokee Country as an independent, non-slave settlement. It was established by the McClelland family, who migrated from Avery County. The community was named after the original McClelland family's daughter.
Other communities established by free Black people and Maroons in the Antebellum era include Free Hill, Tennessee, Junaluska, North Carolina, and Affrilachian communities at Entry Mountain and Moatstown in Pendleton County, West Virginia.
After the Civil War Liberia, South Carolina was founded immediately after the Civil War as a freedom colony in Pickens County, on the border with Western North Carolina.
Demographics Demographic history In the 1790 census, Affrilachians both free and enslaved totaled approximately 6% of Appalachian population (19,000 people out of a 307,000 total). This rose by the 1860 census, which saw Affrilachians comprising 10% of the overall Appalachian population of 5.4 million residents.
In the 1990 census, Appalachia racial diversity had shrunk to pre-Civil War levels, with 7% of its population now being Affrilachian, at approximately 1.6 million people within the Appalachian Regional Commission's (ARC) jurisdiction. Also at this time, ethnic minorities constituted approximately half of new births. From 1990 to 2000, Affrilachian continued to be the largest ethnic minority within the ARC's zone. Instead of rurality, Affrilachians today are more likely to be urban residents.Note: the above figures are sourced from the Appalachian Regional Council, whose jurisdiction and population demographics extends past cultural Appalachia.
Culture
Literature Frank X Walker wrote Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride (2010), Masked Man, Black: Pandemic and Protest Poems (2020), Black Box: Poems (2006), and Affrilachia: Poems by Frank X Walker (2000).
Crystal Wilkinson is the author of the books The Birds of Opulence (2016), Water Street (2011), Blackberries, Blackberries (2000), and Perfect Black (2021).
In 2018, Affrilachian poets celebrated 25 years since the term was created in the book, Black Bone: 25 Years of the Affrilachian Poets edited by Bianca Lynn Spriggs and Jeremy Paden, published by The University Press of Kentucky. This book had contributions from Frank X Walker himself along with other prominent members of the Affrilachian literary community.
Nikki Giovanni is another prominent Affrilachian poet from Knoxville, Tennessee.
Scholarship Scholar Jason Hockaday said that he noticed identity-centric works on Appalachian Studies he found not using self-indigenizing rhetoric related to Black Appalachian people, instead of white ones. He suggests these works offer a method of expressing Appalachian identity which does not self-indigenize. He writes that Western Carolina University obscures Black people from its public presence, instead elevating an individual African-American woman who worked for the university.
Religion
A number of Affrilachians belong to various Christian denominations, particularly those of the Methodist tradition (including those of the holiness movement), as well as those of the Baptist and Holiness Pentecostal faiths. Throughout the summer Methodists hold camp meetings during which the two works of grace—the new birth and entire sanctification—are preached; revival services are held throughout the year for the same purpose. Affrilachian Methodists are found in various Methodist denominations such as the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Bible Methodist Connection of Churches, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, and Free Methodist Church, among others.
Language
Many Affrilachians speak African-American Appalachian English (AAAE). In comparison to other groups speaking Black American English, Affrilachians have been reported as increasingly adopting an Appalachian or Southern dialect commonly associated with White Appalachians. These similarities include an accent that is rhotic, the categorical use of the grammatical construction "he works" or "she goes" (rather than the AAVE "he work" and "she go"), and Appalachian vocabulary (such as airish for "windy"). However, even African-American English in Appalachia is diverse, with African-American women linguistically divided along sociocultural lines.Wolfram, Walt. (2013). "African American speech in southern Appalachia ". In Talking Appalachian: Voice, Identity, and Community, edited by Nancy Hayward and Amy Clark. pp. 81–93.
Despite its distinctiveness, AAAE shares many features with other varieties of Appalachian English, including the use of nonstandard pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. AAAE also shares features with other varieties of African American English, particularly those spoken in the South. For instance, a study of African American communities in the Appalachian region of Virginia found that the dialects of these communities shared many features with both African American English and Southern White English. Features of AAAE include the interchangeable usage of "was" or "were"; the attachment or absence of the third person singular "-s" for verb forms; the use of habitual "be"; and the use of completive "done", among other features.
Visual arts Appalachia is also home to vibrant African American art communities. In 2011, artist, educator, and curator Marie Cochran started the western North Carolina–based Affrilachian Artist Project to combat the common perception of Appalachia as a racially homogeneous, white region. She co-curated the Affrilachian Artist Project's inaugural exhibition at the August Wilson Cultural Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A traveling version of the exhibit, which includes work by LaKeisha Blount, Victoria Casey-McDonald, and Rahkie Mateen, has been hosted by galleries throughout Appalachia.
Music
History African Americans, including those who identify as Affrilachian, have had a significant impact on the sound of Appalachian music over the years. The start of African American influence on Appalachian music began when individuals were forcefully brought from West Africa to the United States put into slavery. Along with West African enslaved musicians came various stringed instruments made from gourds, such as the ngoni, that would later become the banjo, an instrument that is common in Appalachian music. Often associated with Appalachian and Old-Time music, other iconic Affrilachian instruments include the washboard and the washtub bass.
African Americans continued to influence Appalachian music on plantations, where work songs and spirituals were frequently sung, and into the 19th and early 20th centuries. By this time, string music began to be associated with minstrelsy and black-face performances, so African American musicians distanced themselves from it. Some modern string bands, however, such as the now-disbanded Carolina Chocolate Drops, have worked to reclaim Appalachian music for the Affrilachian community. With members including Rhiannon Giddens and Dom Flemons, the Carolina Chocolate Drops won a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album in 2011.
The banjo