Scalawag

In United States history, the term scalawag (sometimes spelled scallawag or scallywag) referred to white Southerners who supported Reconstruction policies and efforts after the conclusion of the American Civil War. As with the term carpetbagger, the word has a long history of use as a slur in Southern partisan debates. The post-Civil War opponents of the scalawags claimed they were disloyal to traditional values and white supremacy. Scalawags were particularly hated by 1860s–1870s Southern Democrats, who called Scalawags traitors to their region, which was long known for its widespread chattel slavery of Black people. Prior to the Civil War, most Scalawags had been opposed to the southern states' secession from the United States to form the Confederate States of America. The term is commonly used in historical studies as a descriptor of Reconstruction Era Southern white Republicans, although some historians have discarded the term due to its history of pejorative use. The term is a derogatory epithet, yet it is used by many historians in works by Sarah Woolfolk Wiggins (1991), James Alex Baggett (2003), Hyman Rubin (2006), and Frank J. Wetta (2012). The word scalawag has an uncertain origin. Its earliest attestation is from 1848 to mean a disreputable fellow, good-for-nothing, scapegrace, or blackguard. It has been speculated that "perhaps the original use of the word" referred to low-grade farm animals, but this meaning of the word is not attested until 1854. The term was later adopted by their opponents to refer to Southern whites who formed a Republican coalition with black freedmen and Northern newcomers (called carpetbaggers) to take control of their state and local governments. Among the earliest uses in this new meaning were references in Alabama and Georgia newspapers in the summer of 1867, first referring to all Southern Republicans, then later restricting it to only white ones. Historian Ted Tunnel writes: Reference works such as Joseph Emerson Worcester's 1860 Dictionary of the Caribbean Spanish Language defined scalawag as "A low worthless fellow; a scapegrace.