Scalawag
thumb|350px|An 1868 cartoon, threatening that the Ku Klux Klan (represented by a Democratic donkey) would lynch scalawags (left) and carpetbaggers (right) once [[Horatio Seymour won the presidency. (The winner was actually Ulysses S. Grant.)]] In United States history, scalawag (sometimes spelled scallawag or scallywag) was a pejorative term that referred to white Southerners who supported Reconstruction policies and efforts after the conclusion of the American Civil War.
Article
15 sectionsContents
- Origins of the term
- History
- Alabama
- South Carolina
- Louisiana
- Mississippi
- Mountains
- Outside the US
- Accusations of corruption
- <span class="anchor" id="Who were the scalawags?"></span>Composition
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Further reading
- Primary sources
thumb|350px|An 1868 cartoon, threatening that the Ku Klux Klan (represented by a Democratic donkey) would lynch scalawags (left) and carpetbaggers (right) once [[Horatio Seymour won the presidency. (The winner was actually Ulysses S. Grant.)]] In United States history, scalawag (sometimes spelled scallawag or scallywag) was a pejorative term that 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. Before the American Civil War, most Scalawags had opposed southern states' declared secession from the United States to form the Confederate States of America.