The National Covenant and The Solemn League and Covenant (also known as Covenanters) signed documents stating that Scotland desired a Presbyterian Church government, and rejected the Church of England as their official church (no Anglican congregation was ever accepted as the official church in Scotland). In doing so, the Covenanters rejected episcopacy—rule by bishops—the preferred form of church government in England. Many of the Covenanters signed these documents using their own blood, and many in the movement began wearing red pieces of cloth around their neck to signify their position to the public. They were referred to as rednecks.[1]
Large numbers of Scottish Presbyterians migrated from their lowland Scottish home to Ulster (the northern province of Ireland) during the plantation era. In the mid to late 18th century, they emigrated again to North America in considerable numbers, comprising the largest group of immigrants to the American colonies from the British Isles before the American Revolution.[2] This etymological theory holds that since many Scots-Irish Americans and Scottish Americans who settled in Appalachia and the South were Presbyterian, the term redneck was used for them and their descendants.
Possible American etymologies
Another possible contributing source of the term redneck comes from The West Virginia Coal Miners March or the Battle of Blair Mountain when coal miners wore red bandanas around their necks to identify themselves as seeking the opportunity to unionize.
Another contributing theory derives the term from such individuals having a red neck caused by working outdoors in the sunlight over the course of their lifetime. The effect of decades of direct sunlight on the exposed skin of the back of the neck not only reddens fair skin, but renders it leathery and tough, and typically very wrinkled and spotted by late middle age. Similarly, some historians claim that the term redneck originated in 17th century Virginia, because fair-skinned unfree labourers were sunburnt while tending plantation crops.
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i heard that after the civil war when plantation owners no longer had slaves to work in the fields they had to work the fields themselves from bending down to plant and harvest their necks would be come red.since they no longer were rich they were looked down on for having to do this labor themselves.But since your scotish i would go with the scotish version it sounds very heroic.linda
I grew up in Montana and have lived in South Carolina for almost 30 years. I know rednecks, and you, Father, are no redneck (thanks be to God).