The Southern United States —commonly referred to as the American South , Dixie , Down South , or simply the South —constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States. Because of the region's unique cultural and historic heritage, including Native Americans; early European settlements of English, Scots-Irish, Scottish, French, and German heritage; importation of hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans; growth of a large proportion of African Americans in the population, reliance on slave labor, and legacy of the Confederacy after the American Civil War, the South developed its own customs, literature, musical styles, and varied cuisines, that have profoundly shaped traditional American culture.
In the last few decades, the South has become more industrialized and urban, attracting numerous internal and international migrants. The American South is among the fastest-growing areas in the United States. Despite economic growth, the South still has persistent poverty, and every Southern state with the exceptions of Virginia and Florida have a higher poverty rate than the American average. .
Geography
(See Cultural Variations for more about the complexity of southern states).
As defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states and the District of Columbia (with a total 2006 estimated population of 109,083,752.) Thirty-six percent of all U.S. residents lived in the South, the nation's most populous region. The Census Bureau defined three smaller units, or divisions:
- The South Atlantic States: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Delaware
- The East South Central States: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee
- The West South Central States: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas
Other terms related to the South include:
- The Old South: usually the original Southern colonies: Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
- The New South: usually including the South Atlantic States.
- The Solid South: region controlled by the U.S. Democratic Party from 1877 to 1964. Includes at least all the 11 former Confederate States.
- Southern Appalachia: mainly refers to areas situated in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, namely Eastern Kentucky, East Tennessee, Western North Carolina, Western Maryland, West Virginia, Southwest Virginia, North Georgia, and Northwestern South Carolina.
- Southeastern United States: usually including the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida
- The Deep South: various definitions, usually including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina. Occasionally, parts of adjoining states are included (sections of East Texas, delta areas of Arkansas and Tennessee, and parts of Florida such as the panhandle and north central part of the state).
- The Gulf South: various definitions, usually including Gulf coasts of Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Alabama.
- The Upper South: Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
- Dixie: various definitions, but most commonly associated with the 11 states of the Old Confederacy.
- The Mid-South: also known as the South Central United States.
- Border South: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware were states on the outer rim of the Confederacy that did not secede from the United States but did have significant numbers of residents who joined the Confederate armed forces. Kentucky and Missouri had such important pro-Confederate regions that they were represented by stars on the Confederate battle flag. West Virginia was formed by western Virginians who opposed the secession of their state from the Union.
The popular definition of the "South" is more informal and is generally associated with those states that seceded during the Civil War to form the Confederate States of America. Those states share commonalities of history and culture that carry on to the present day.
Biologically, the South is a vast, diverse region, having numerous climatic zones, including temperate, sub-tropical, tropical, and arid – though the South is generally regarded as being hot and humid, with long summers and short mild winters, being significantly warmer than the regions to its north (and generally exhibiting the nation's highest heat indices). Many crops grow easily in its soils and can be grown without frost for at least six months of the year. Some parts of the South, particularly the Southeast, have landscapes characterized by the presence of live oaks, magnolia trees, yellow jessamine vines, Spanish moss, cabbage palms and flowering dogwoods. Another common environment is the bayous and swampland of the Gulf Coast, especially in Louisiana and Texas. The South is a victim of kudzu, an invasive fast-growing vine which covers large amounts of land and kills indigenous plant life. Kudzu is a particularly big problem in the piedmont regions of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.
History
Main article: History of the Southern United StatesThe first well-dated evidence of human occupation in the south United States occurs around 9500 BC with the appearance of the earliest documented Americans, who are now referred to as Paleo-Indians. Paleoindians were hunter-gathers that roamed in bands and frequently hunted megafauna. Several cultural stages, such as Archaic (ca. 8000 -1000 BC) and the Woodland (ca. 1000 BC-AD 1000), preceded what the Europeans found at the end of the 15th century — the Mississippian culture.
The Mississippian culture was a complex, mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the southeastern United States from approximately 800 AD to 1500 AD. Natives had elaborate and lengthy trading routes connecting their main residential and ceremonial centers extending through the river valleys and from the East Coast to the Great Lakes. Some noted explorers who encountered and described the Mississippian culture, by then in decline, included Pánfilo de Narváez (1528), Hernando de Soto (1540), and Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville (1699).
Native American descendants of the mound-builders include Alabama, Apalachee, Caddo, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Guale, Hitchiti, Houma, and Seminole peoples, many of whom still reside in the South.
European colonization
The predominant culture of the South was rooted in the settlement of the region by British colonists. In the seventeenth century, most voluntary immigrants were of English origins who settled chiefly along the coastal regions of the Eastern seaboard. The majority of early British settlers were indentured servants, who gained freedom after enough work to pay off their passage. The wealthier men who paid their way received land grants known as headrights, to encourage settlement.
The French and Spanish established colonies in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. The Spanish colonized Florida in the 1500s, with their communities reaching a peak in the late 1600s. In the British and French colonies, most immigrants arrived after 1700. They cleared land, built houses and outbuildings, and worked on the large plantations that dominated export agriculture. Many were involved in the labor-intensive cultivation of tobacco, the first cash crop of Virginia. With a decrease in the number of British willing to go to the colonies in the eighteenth century, planters began importing more enslaved Africans, who became the predominant labor force on the plantations. Tobacco exhausted the soil quickly, requiring new fields to be cleared on a regular basis. Old fields were used as pasture and for crops such as corn and wheat, or allowed to grow into woodlots.
Also in the seventeenth century, colonists started importing African laborers. In the coastal and other settlements, early workers lived closely together in a multiracial society. Europeans married and made unions with Africans and Native Americans. The colonies gradually passed laws that hardened early conditions of indenture into lifelong racial slavery attached to African descent. Africans contributed to the economy of rice and indigo cultivation with their skilled knowledge, technology and labor, as well as to all the commodity crops; and to every aspect of culture (food, music, stories and religion).
Rice cultivation in South Carolina became another major commodity crop. Some historians have argued that slaves from the lowlands of western Africa, where rice was a basic crop, provided key skills, knowledge and technology for irrigation and construction of earthworks to support rice cultivation. The early methods and tools used in South Carolina were congrue
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