-
Early Settlers
The first inhabitants of the region were the Adena. Little is known about the Adena, who built extensive mounds thought to be fortifications. The Adena have recently been recognized as among the first peoples on the globe to cultivate grains.
Later migrations brought other peoples who were highly organized as nations and carried out extensive trade within the region, as well as with nations in the West. They fished and hunted in the most mountainous parts of the region and developed horticulture in their settlements in the wider valleys.
The first European settlers, beginning in the 1700s, forced the Indians west from their homelands. The white pioneer who entered the Southern Mountains tended to come from the poorer parts of Europe—the Celtic regions of the British Isles and rural Germany. Appalachian historian Cratis Williams describes him: “(H)e was part and parcel of the whole Westward Movement and settled in the mountains because he found fertile soil for his crops, good range for his cattle, delicious drinking water from permanent springs, and coverts for the wildlife that would afford him the pleasures and profits from hunting.”
Many of the early settlers were single men, who married native women, creating the beginnings of Appalachia’s unique ethnicity. In some areas of Appalachia, enslaved Africans became part of the population.
Neither the first inhabitants nor the early white settlers had much use for the abundant coal lying under the surface.
