The Upland South differs from the Lowland South in several significant ways. These include terrain, history and politics, economics, demographics, and settlement patterns.
Origins escorting settlers through the
Cumberland Gap", painted by
George Caleb Bingham, 1851–1852 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. The main ethnicities of these early settlers included
English,
Scots-Irish,
Scottish, and
German. 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. 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. 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. The differences between the Upland South and lowlands of the Southern
Atlantic Seaboard and
Cotton Belt, often resulted in regional tension and conflict within states. For example, during the late 18th century, the upland "backcountry" of North Carolina grew in population until the Upland Southerners there outnumbered the older, well-established, wealthier coastal populations. In some cases, the conflict between the two resulted in warfare, such as
War of the Regulation in North Carolina. The abundance of iron ore, coal, and
limestone in the mountains and hills of the
Birmingham District transformed a gritty boom town into the iron and steel city of
Birmingham. Birmingham would soon be known as the Pittsburgh of the South, as it became the leading industrial and transportation hub of the south during the early 20th century. Some of these early furnaces and forges were fueled with nearby deposits of
bituminous coal. This robust economy gave the city a tough blue collar culture of hardened iron workers, miners, and steel workers as well as a cosmopolitan class of bankers, lawyers, educators and politicians. Similar examples of early urban-industrial areas include Embree's Iron Works in East Tennessee (1808), the Red River iron region of
Estill County, Kentucky (1806–1808), and the Jackson Iron Works near
Morgantown, West Virginia (1830).
Wheeling, West Virginia was known as "Nail City" in the 1840s and 1850s. By 1860, Tennessee was the third-largest iron-producing state in the nation, after Pennsylvania and New York. The scale of mining, especially coal mining, increased dramatically after 1870. The importance of mining and metallurgy can be seen in the many towns with names such as
Pigeon Forge and
Bloomery (a
bloomery being a type of smelting furnace), scattered across the Upland South. Logging has also been an important part of the Upland South's economy. The region became the United States' primary source of timber after railroads allowed large-scale industrial logging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, the historic importance of the Upland South's forests can be seen in its many national forests, such as
Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee,
Nantahala National Forest in North Carolina, and
Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky, among many others. The Upland South's terrain and forests, as well as history and culture, occur in parts of states usually associated with the Midwest and Deep South. These areas are often associated with national forests. For example
Mark Twain National Forest in southern Missouri,
Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois,
Hoosier National Forest in southern Indiana,
Wayne National Forest in southeast Ohio,
William B. Bankhead National Forest in northern Alabama,
Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest in northern Georgia,
Sumter National Forest in South Carolina, and
Ouachita National Forest in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Textile mills and industry served as an important factor in the Upland South's economy from the late through the mid-20th century. Today the Upland South contains a diversity of people and economies. Some parts, like the
Shenandoah Valley, are famous for their rural qualities, while other parts, like the
Tennessee Valley, are heavily industrialized.
Knoxville and
Huntsville both serve as centers of industry and scientific research. ==Culture==