Southern Appalachian Cultures: Their Pursuit for Prosperity and the Environmental Outturn

Where there are various regions there are bound to be a variety of people with alternate cultures, beliefs, and ways of life. The cultures found with the Appalachia are unique in their own ways and represent a body of individuals who found their way to such an area. Land that is included within the Southern Appalachia can be best described by Horace Kephart as he does so in his book The Southern Highlander and His Homeland to include: “the four western counties of Maryland; the Blue Ridge Valley, and Allegheny Ridge counties of Virginia; all of West Virginia; eastern Tennessee; eastern Kentucky; western North Carolina; the four northwestern counties of South Carolina; northern Georgia; and northeastern Alabama.” (22-24) With so much area to be had there are a few prominent cultures and occurrences that need to be discussed. Native Indians, European settlers, Industrialists, and the present economy will be referred to in the process of identifying the cultures within Southern Appalachia. Cultures of the Southern Appalachia that will be discussed will display the lifestyles of many, religion of the areas focused on, and the values individuals held towards the environment.

The Cherokee and Shawnee Indians were the more prominent groups found within the Southern Appalachian region. The Cherokee Indians were believed to have come to parts of southern Appalachia during prehistoric times. ("Cherokee Nation-Indian Territory.") They remained in areas such as southwest Virginia, the Carolinas, northern Alabama and Georgia, and the Cumberland Basin of Tennessee and Kentucky. (“Native American, the Cherokee”) The Cherokee Indians who had settled in Southern Appalachia were an Iroquoian-speaking people, they built their homes from ...

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...the factories, loss of timber within the Appalachian forests, and the amount of CO2 releasing into the atmosphere constantly. Presently the damage we have caused to occur upon the environment in the Southern Appalachia is vast and incomprehensible. The greatest environmental challenge facing Southern Appalachia today is the loss of such prized and beautiful “native forests” of Southern Appalachia. (19) Although much of the timber within the forests has come back after being utilized as lumber, there are extreme consequences for taking away such an important aspect of Appalachian Nature and culture. What’s lost cannot be gained, but we can surely do what little we can to impact of culture and world on matters of the need for preservation of nature, so that the environment may prosper for many years to come. Can you make a sacrifice for your area, for your world?