In my last post I called myself a redneck. Well I decided to look this term up on
wikipedia just to see what I was getting myself into. Very Interesting.
Possible Covenanter etymologyThe
National Covenant and
The Solemn League and Covenant (also known as
Covenanters) signed documents stating that
Scotland desired a
Presbyterian Church government, and rejected the
Church of England as their official church (no
Anglican congregation was ever accepted as the official church in Scotland). In doing so, the Covenanters rejected episcopacy—rule by bishops—the preferred form of church government in
England. Many of the Covenanters signed these documents using their own blood, and many in the movement began wearing red pieces of cloth around their neck to signify their position to the public. They were referred to as rednecks.
[1]Large numbers of Scottish Presbyterians migrated from their lowland Scottish home to
Ulster (the northern
province of Ireland) during the plantation era. In the mid to late 18th century, they emigrated again to
North America in considerable numbers, comprising the largest group of immigrants to the American colonies from the
British Isles before the
American Revolution.
[2] This etymological theory holds that since many
Scots-Irish Americans and
Scottish Americans who settled in Appalachia and the South were Presbyterian, the term redneck was used for them and their descendants.
Possible American etymologies
Another possible contributing source of the term redneck comes from The West Virginia Coal Miners March or the Battle of Blair Mountain when coal miners wore red bandanas around their necks to identify themselves as seeking the opportunity to unionize.
Another contributing theory derives the term from such individuals having a red neck caused by working outdoors in the sunlight over the course of their lifetime. The effect of decades of direct sunlight on the exposed skin of the back of the neck not only reddens fair skin, but renders it leathery and tough, and typically very wrinkled and spotted by late middle age. Similarly, some historians claim that the term redneck originated in 17th century Virginia, because fair-skinned unfree labourers were sunburnt while tending plantation crops.
Much more here
