Black populations of the southern Appalachian Mountains

The Black population of southern Appalachia has been over-looked by most of the people who have studied the region. Although several studies have dealt with the rapidly growing White popula-tion of the pre-Civil War period, little has been written about the size and diversity of the region’s Black population. Black persons began to arrive in the mountain region about the same time as Whites. Before the first federal census in 1790, there was very little information about the Black Appalachian population. In the 1790s, as local records became more formalized, free Black people made their presence evident by being counted, buying property, making wills, and getting hanged. Free Black persons soon began to play a significant role in a number of mountain communities. Only four states are included in this survey of free Black popu-lations in southern Appalachia: Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennes