Origin Of The Expressions “Cracker” and “Redneck”

-1 Posted by - May 20, 2023 - DID YOU KNOW, Photo Gallery, SLAVERY

Most of us have heard the words ‘cacker”  and “redneck” or even used them a time or two. Here is how those expressions originated…

 

6 Comments

  • Cal October 10, 2016 - 11:55 pm

    Interesting idea but not actually true. The there are a couple of origins of the word cracker. The first, and most widely used worldwide, is a jokester or braggart. Used all the way back to Shakespeare times. The second is someone who uses a whip, but saying that it has to do with slavery is pure conjecture. It is just as likely to describe a southern rancher or farmer.
    Redneck simply referred to the sunburn that the poor farmers would generally get as they worked in the field.
    The interesting part is that someone who would be called a redneck or a cracker would be to poor to own a slave. They’d have to work the fields themselves.

    • Truth Teller November 23, 2019 - 9:27 am

      “Cracker” is also a term used to identify poor folks that shucked oysters and performef other minenial jobs cleaning seafood.

  • Raggs December 18, 2016 - 1:01 pm

    I find it interesting that information can be attributed to other parts of history but when it comes to the decades of chattel slavery phrases, events, letters (Willie Lynch) etc. can be so easily discounted,
    Could it be that the truth hurts?

  • Sunni ali September 6, 2017 - 9:00 am

    I guess this is why POOR WHITE TRASH snd TRAILOR PARK TRASH are referred to as crackers and red necks, becausee they are toooo poor to own a slave?

  • David October 7, 2017 - 7:53 pm

    Th term red neck came from west virginia coal miners. They would wear their red handkerchiefs to keep the coal dust out of their lungs and turned it around backwards when not in use. When the coal miners tried to uionize they walked from all over the state to be together and the people they walked by called them red necks because of the bandannas

  • Patricia Lane September 19, 2020 - 8:08 pm

    Poor white people may have been too poor (overall) to own slaves but they certainly were hired to oversee them and crack the proverbial whip. In addition, it is known that a small amount of poor whites did own slaves. They treated their slaves very poorly and forced them to live in horrific conditions.