The culture of the Southern United States, Southern culture, or Southern heritage, is a subculture of the United States. From its many cultural influences, the South developed its own unique customs, dialects, arts, literature, cuisine, dance, and music.[3] The combination of its unique history and the fact that many Southerners maintain—and even nurture—an identity separate from the rest of the country has led to it being one of the most studied and written-about regions of the United States.
During the 1600s to mid-1800s, the central role of agriculture and slavery during the colonial period and antebellum era economies made society stratified according to land ownership. This landed gentry made culture in the early Southern United States differ from areas north of the Mason–Dixon line and west of the Appalachians. The upland areas of the South were characterized by yeoman farmers who worked on their small landed property with few or no slaves, while the lower-lying elevations and Deep South was a society of more plantations worked by African slave labor. Events such as the First Great Awakening (1730s–1750s) would strengthen Protestantism in the South and United States as a whole. Communities would often develop strong attachment to their churches as the primary community institution.
Starting in the early 1600s and lasting to the mid-1800s, slavery played an outsized role in shaping the culture, politics, and economy of the South. This included its agricultural practices, the outbreak of the American Civil War, and the imposition of racial segregation. Southern yeoman farmers, subsistence farmers who owned few or no slaves, comprised a large portion of the population during the colonial period and antebellum era, which settled largely in the back country and uplands. Their way of life and culture would differ sharply from that of the planter class. The climate of the region is conducive to growing tobacco, cotton, and other crops, and the red clay in many areas was used for the distinctive red-brick architecture of many commercial buildings.
The presence and practices of Native Americans, along with the region's landscape, also played a role in shaping Southern culture. Events such as the First Great Awakening (1730s–1750s) would help establish the growth of Protestantism in the South and United States as a whole.[4] Throughout much of the Southern United States history, the region was heavily rural. Not until during and after World War II did the region start to see larger scale urbanization of its cities and metropolitan areas. This would lead to social and economic transformation of the South in the years since the 1940s.[5]
In the time of their arrival, the predominant cultural influence on the Southern states was that of the English colonists who established the original English colonies in the region.[6] In the 17th century, most were of South West England and South East England origins, from regions such as Kent, Sussex and the West Country who settled mostly on the coastal regions of the South but pushed as far inland as the Appalachian mountains by the 18th century. In the 18th century, large groups of Scots lowlanders, Northern English and Ulster-Scots (later called the Scots-Irish) settled in Appalachia and the Piedmont. Following them were larger numbers of English indentured servants from across the English Midlands and Southern England; they would be the largest group to settle in the Southern Colonies during the colonial period.[7][8][9][10] They were often called "crackers", a derogatory epithet applied to rural, non-elite whites of south Georgia and north Florida.[11] Before the American Revolution, the term was applied by the English, as a derogatory epithet for the non-elite settlers of the southern backcountry. This usage can be found in a passage from a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth, "I should explain ... what is meant by Crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascals on the frontiers of Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change their places of abode."[11]
Most European Southerners today are of partial or majority English and Scots-Irish ancestry.[12] In previous censuses, over a third of Southern responders identified as being of English or partly English ancestry[8][9] with 19,618,370 self-identifying as "English" on the 1980 census, followed by 12,709,872 identifying as Irish, 11,054,127 as Afro-American, and 10,742,903 as German.[8][9][13] It should also be noted that those who did identify themselves of German ancestry were almost exclusively found in the northern border areas of the region which are adjacent to the American Mid-West. Those from the Tidewater area of Virginia and the Tidewater region of North Carolina identified themselves almost exclusively as of English origins, while those from the Piedmont areas were a mixture of English, Scotch-Irish, Scottish and Irish origins. South Georgia has a large Irish presence, the ancestors of whom were largely at one time Roman Catholic; however, many were converted to various Protestant sects due to the lack of a missionary presence of the Catholic Church in the 18th and 19th centuries. The predominance of Irish surnames in South Georgia has been noted by American historians for some time. Meanwhile, a community of Scottish highlanders settled around what is now Fayetteville in North Carolina. Gaelic was spoken in this region into the nineteenth century.[citation needed]
People of many nationalities established communities in the American South. Some examples are the German American population of the Edwards Plateau of Texas, whose ancestors arrived in the region in the 1840s. German cultural influence continues to be felt in cities like New Braunfels, Texas near Austin and San Antonio.[14] Much of the population of East Texas, Louisiana, coastal Mississippi and Alabama, and Florida traces its primary ancestry to French and/or Spanish colonists of the 18th century. Also important is the French community of New Orleans dating back to the 1880s.
Another primary population group in the South is made up of the African American descendants of enslaved Africans brought into the South.[15][16] African Americans comprise the United States' largest ethnic group and simultaneously second largest racial minority, accounting for 14 percent of the total population according to the 2010 census. They accounted for nearly 45% of the Southern population during the Antebellum period through the early 20th century.[17] Despite Jim Crow era outflow to the North and Midwest (see Great Migration), the majority of the black population has remained concentrated in the southern states from Virginia to Texas. Since the end of formal segregation, blacks have been returning to the South in large numbers (see New Great Migration).[18]
A sizable fraction of the Southern population is also made of Hispanic Americans, especially immigrants from Central American countries which border on the US's southernmost states. The Hispanic population of the South has expanded considerably in recent years, both due to natural population growth and immigration. It is concentrated mainly in the Southern states of Texas and Florida, due to their proximity to Latin America.[19]
Part of the South is known as the "Bible Belt", because of the prevalence there of evangelical Protestantism. South Florida has a large Jewish element that migrated from New York. Immigrants from Southeast Asia and South Asia have brought Buddhism and Hinduism to the region as well.[20] In the colonial period and early 19th century the First Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening transformed Southern religion. The evangelical religion was spread by religious revivals led by local lay Baptist ministers or itinerant Methodist ministers. They fashioned the nation's "Bible Belt."[21]
After the Revolution, the Anglican Church of England was disestablished (meaning it no longer received local tax money) and was reorganized as the nationalised Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA. The Revolution turned more people toward Methodist and Baptist preachers in the South. The Cane Ridge Revival and subsequent "camp-meetings" on the Kentucky and Tennessee frontiers were the impetus behind the Restoration Movement. Traveling preachers used music and song to convert new members. Shape-note singing became a fundamental part of camp meetings in frontier regions. In the early decades of the 18th century, the Baptists in the South reduced their challenge to class and race. Rather than pressing for freedom for slaves, they encouraged planters to improve treatment of them, and ultimately used the Bible to justify slavery.[22]
In 1845, the Southern Baptist Convention separated from other regions. Baptist and Methodist churches proliferated across the Tidewater region, usually attracting common planters, artisans and workers. The wealthiest planters continued to be affiliated with the Episcopal Church.[citation needed] By the beginning of the Civil War, the Baptist and Methodist churches had attracted the most members in the South, and their churches were most numerous in the region.[22]
Historically Catholic colonists were primarily those from Spain and France who settled in coastal areas of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.[citation needed] Today,[when?] there are significant Catholic populations along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico (especially the port cities of New Orleans, Biloxi, Pensacola and Mobile), which preserve the continuing Catholic traditions of Carnival at the beginning of Lent in Mardi Gras parades and related customs. Elsewhere in the region, Catholics are typically a minority and of mainly Irish, German and French or modern Hispanic ancestry.[citation needed] As of 2013, Catholics comprised 42% of the population in the New Orleans Metropolitan area based on numbers presented by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans.
Atlanta, in comparison to some other Southern cities, had a relatively small Catholic population prior to the 1990s. Catholics comprised 1.7% of the population in 1960, and 3.1% of the population in 1980. The population has been growing rapidly since then. The number of Catholics grew from 292,300 members in 1998 to 900,000 members in 2010, an increase of 207 percent. The population was expected to top 1 million by 2011.[23][24][needs update] The increase is fueled by Catholics moving to Atlanta from other parts of the U.S. and the world, and from newcomers to the church.[24] About 16 percent of all metropolitan Atlanta residents are Catholic, comparable to many Midwestern metropolitan areas.[25]
Raleigh, North Carolina also has a rapidly growing number of Catholics, with Catholicism having the largest number of affiliates out of any other religious group (11.3%) and the second largest number in Wake County (22%).[26][27]
Maryland, which was settled by the British, is historically Catholic[28] as well and many historians believe it was named after the Queen Henrietta Maria by Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron of Baltimore.[29] Maryland was the only Roman Catholic British colony in the Americas, and was considered a refuge for England's Roman Catholic minority which was being persecuted by the Church of England.[30] When William of Orange rose to power in England, Catholicism was outlawed in Maryland, causing a decrease in the number of practicing Catholics. In the 1840s, the Catholic population rebounded with the mass immigration of Irish due to the Great Famine of Ireland.[31] Maryland also became home to many Polish and