Cultural note: according to the wonderful cultural history
Albion's Seed, redneck was originally an
English term for
Presbyterians, who are mostly
Scottish and
Scotch-Irish. These are the same people who emigrated into the
backwoods of
Appalachia in the 1720s and 1730s. The
English prejudices against them translated into the prejudice of people from
New England and
Virginia against the
hillbillies.