“Cotton Eye Joe” Sums Up Appalachia’s Blend of Celtic and African Influences
Song: “Cotton Eye Joe” by Hillary Klug
It’s rare that a video lasting less than one minute and 40 seconds can sum up the background, evolution, and transmission of a folk tune across hundreds of years and thousands of miles. But the above clip does exactly that. Better yet, it illuminates a woefully little-known era: the early colonization of- and Westward expansion through- the Southern Appalachians prior to the Civil War, mostly by Ulster Scots-Irish immigrants and freed/runaway African slaves or free-born Black settlers.
Colonial scholars can reliably tell you what Paul Revere ate for breakfast, but the details for this time, place, and demographic are devilishly, maddeningly obscure. Few written fragments survive; oral traditions, while helpful in some contexts, aren’t always comprehensive or definitive; archeology has been challenged by the area’s steep terrain, harsh climate, and low population density. So it’s nothing short of wondrous when we can explain a complex but poorly understood period with just a song.
“Cotton Eye Joe” is the perfect mix of Gaelic melody with African rhythm. The fiddle is pure Scottish trad: lively tempo, 4/4 time signature, energetic bowing, double stop. Its basic major chords, simple verse-chorus-verse structure, and sparse flourishes sound as primitive as a rustic pie safe or a tattered hand-sewn quilt. The notes stay within an octave, which could date this tune before 1800 (when the fingerboard was lengthened.)
But the percussion Klug taps out with her feet emphasizes the downbeat, which is distinctly African. (The Celtic tradition, popularized by acts such as Riverdance, does exactly the opposite.) Klug performs what’s called “buck dancing,” which is an African-influenced form of flat-foot dancing. It’s a little different from more “ornamental” group dances such as clogging; it’s usually performed solo, weight centered over the knees and feet close to the floor, with an emphasis on accompanying the melody with a complex syncopated polyrhythmic beat. There is very little upper body movement, which likely has a Celtic influence. Here’s a leading scholar explaining the style’s historical context and physical movements.
While buck dancing gained popularity in the early 19th century, it’s a hell of a lot older- most likely dating from the mid-17th century, when enslaved Africans and indentured Irish servants (most voluntary, some not) worked on West Indies tobacco and sugar plantations. White plantation owners strictly forbade traditional African drumming, so slaves found a way to preserve their musical culture by pairing their rhythms through dance to Celtic fiddle tunes. This fusion gradually traveled from the Caribbean to the mid-Atlantic over several decades. From 1675–1800, slave ships often used ports such as St. Domingue or Kingston as a first stop before transferring their brutalized, starving human cargo to other parts of the New World. A majority of slaves in 18th-century Virginia and Maryland were purchased from markets in the West Indies.
The mass emigration of Ulster Scots-Irish during the following century is slightly better understood- somewhat. Around 1600, rabid witch-hunter and genocidal maniac King James I (of Bible edition fame) decided to push all the Irish out of Northern Ireland and resettle the land with Scottish Presbyterian sharecroppers. Historians know from treatises and various writings that by the next century, James I’s tenant farmers squirmed uncomfortably under the boot of English rule. Ships’ passenger logs show long lists of Gaelic surnames between 1720–1770, when an estimated 250,000 settlers arrived from Ulster and mostly moved into the Appalachians. The area still preserves its fierce independence today.
The unique stylistic fusion of “Cotton Eye Joe” suggests it was likely composed in the 18th century, when Presbyterian Scots intermingled with isolated communities of freed Black and runaway African slaves in the Piedmont. Except there’s absolutely zero evidence. We don’t have memoirs or a census from this time; a few family genealogies survive, but they look like Swiss cheese. Appalachia’s isolation wasn’t just physical- the Colorado Rockies are twice as high- but sociopolitical. The English ruling class wanted nothing to do with this smelly rabble of inferiors, while the latter group was equally overjoyed not to feel the tyranny of a frilly buckled shoe on their throats.
Despite overwhelming evidence indicating an earlier date, the first written mentions of “Cotton Eye Joe” surface as a slave song that was ubiquitous across the Deep South just prior to the Civil War. By that time it had gained lyrics, a meaning, and a slightly more ornamented melody. Sometimes called the “South Texas National Anthem,” this tune evolved dozens of different verses over the years. Its final evolution (and the version you probably recognize) was the massive 1994 international hit by Swedish Eurodance group Rednex. It’s not often that a folk number with murky origins tops the global charts over 200 years later, but here we are.
This song is a stellar example of early Americana’s diverse influences, but you wouldn’t know it from the Internet or Virginia public schools. A Google AI query turned up information that was ludicrously inaccurate, including a claim that African slaves had chanted this in the cotton fields until the 1880s- 20 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Virginia’s AP African-American History course, which underwent over 100 revisions by Governor Glenn Youngkin’s right-wing nut job administration, unsurprisingly doesn’t reference it either.
Why does the background of “Cotton Eye Joe” matter, anyway? Because this isn’t a dusty museum relic or an obscure B-side from “Celtic Woman.” Earlier this year, a Danish TikToker’s goofy unintelligible rendition was sampled in viral shorts that have since amassed over 3 billion plays. It’s also turned into one of the most popular memes for Generation Alpha. Most importantly, it shines a light through the historical fog into our early identity as a cultural melting pot. And all in less than two minutes.
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