They had held onto their homeland in the Great Smoky Mountains. By nothing more than the thin grip of desperate determination, they had held on, and they would remain. Reinforced by General Scott’s promise, scattered friends in the East, and Thomas’ political negotiations with Washington and North Carolina, the Cherokee remnant soon became the Eastern Band. Their homeland would now be known as the Qualla Reservation. So the Cherokees East, along with the white pioneers of the Great Smokies, turned together to brace the mountainous challenge of the 19th century.
Aaron Swaniger was an individualist who occasionally stayed in Cades Cove. To some “mountaineers” he was a “hillbilly.”
Edouard E. Exline
From Pioneer to Mountaineer
While events of the early 19th century in the surrounding southland and the nation were moving inexorably toward conflict on bloody battlefields to decide issues which could not or would not be resolved in the political arena, people in the Great Smokies were pursuing their struggle to survive and adapt to their stern and splendid surroundings.
The early explorers, the long hunters, the initial homesteaders, the trailblazers and the groundbreakers—these had forever set a human seal upon the wilderness. Now it was the time of pioneer becoming mountaineer. Henceforth, as new settlers or curious travelers or specialized seekers in a dozen fields made their way into the mountains, they would find someone already there to welcome them.
That “someone” was becoming known by terms which might alternately serve as a source of description, derision, or definition. Highlander. Hillbilly. Mountaineer. The least offensive word was “highlander,” with its overtones of the misty Scottish landscape and fierce clan loyalties from which many of the Smokies’ family lines had recently descended. “Mountaineer” varied. Used to denote the proud individualism that characterized many of the stalwart men and women whose roots held deep and fast in this isolated place, “mountaineer” was a strong, acceptable name. But turned into a catchword for some picturesque, inadequate character who divided his time between the homemade dulcimer and the home-run distillery, “mountaineer” was suspect. “Hillbilly” came to verge on insult, as it conjured up cartoons of lanky, sub-human creatures who were quick to feud, slow to work, and often indifferent to the “progress” by which helpful visitors would like to transform mountain lives and attitudes.
Of course, the trouble with any single word that tried to summarize these complex and distinctive lives was its limited ability to convey more than a stereotype or a single facet. Yet the 19th and early 20th centuries saw the rise and wide adoption of such terms, with an accompanying unease—sometimes outrage—on the part of those described. This tension has persisted into the present day, for Southern Appalachian natives often have felt they have been misunderstood, or exploited, by the curious outlanders.
