1857 painting by George Inness of the Delaware Water Gap, where the Delaware River cuts through the Appalachian Mountains between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. A river in the foreground that has cut through a line of hills in the background.
20 July 2022
The Appalachian Mountains are an ancient highland region running along the east coast of North America, from Labrador to Alabama. The hills once rivaled the Rockies or the Alps in height, but as they are older than those ranges, erosion has weathered them down significantly. The highest point is Attakulla (Mount Mitchell) in North Carolina, at 6,684 feet (2,037 m) above sea level. The Appalachian Trail is a hiking trail that runs continuously along the range, from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine.
The geographic region of Appalachia, however, is more restricted, limited to the central and southern portions of the range. The region has no definitive boundaries but is generally taken to stretch from the Catskill Mountains in south-central New York to Alabama, and sometimes even more restrictively from West Virginia to Tennessee.
The name comes from that of the Apalachee, a Muskogean people. The name is from a Muskogean language, probably either the Apalachee abalahci (other side of the river) or from the Hitchiti apalwahči (dwelling on the other side). The traditional lands of the Apalachee are in the Florida panhandle. The name entered European languages through contact with the Spanish, and it was the Spanish who dubbed the mountains as Apalache and extended the region northward, well beyond the traditional lands of the Apalachee people. The English name comes via translation from French writing, which in turn acquired the name from the Spanish.
The name first appears in English as the name of a Spanish province in Florida in a 1568 translation of André Thevet’s The New Founde Worlde, or Antarctike:
There resteth now only to describe the third parte, the which shall begin at Noua Espania, or new Spaine, comprehending all the prouinces of Anauac, Ucatan, Eulhuacan, Xalixa, Thalco, Mixtecapan, Tezeuco, Guzanes Apalachen, Pancho, Aute, and the kingdome of Micuacan, from Florida vnto the land of Bacalles, which is a great Region, vnder the which also is comprehended the land of Canada, and the prouince of Chicora, (which is .33. degrées on this side the line) the land of Labrodor, newe found land, compassed with the frostie Sea on the Northe side.
English use of the name in reference to the mountains occurs by 1587, when it appears in Richard Hakluyt’s translation of René Goulaine de Laudonnière’s A Notable Historie Containing Foure Voyages Made by Certayne French Captaynes unto Florida:
There is found among the Sauages good quantitie of Gold and Siluer, which is gotten out of the Ships that are lost vpon the cost, as I haue vnderstood by the sauages themselues. They vse traffick therof one with another. And that which maketh me the rather beleeue it, is, that on the cost toward the Cape, where commonly the Ships are cast away, there is more store of siluer, then toward the North. Neuerthelesse they say that in the Mountaynes of Appalatcy there are mines of Copper, which I thinke to be golde.
And ironically, considering it is the original sense, the use of the name to refer to the people comes later, by 1666 in a translation of César de Rochefort’s The History of the Caribby-Islands:
The Caribbians were originary Inhabitants of the Septentrional part of America, of that Country which is now called Florida: They came to Inhabit the Islands after they had departed from amidst the Apalachites, among whom they lived a long time; and they left there some of their people, who to this day go under the name of Caribbians: But their first origine is from the Cofachites, who only chang’d their denomination, and were called Caribbians in the Country of the Apalachites, as we shall see anon.
De Rochefort may have been the first to write about the Apalachee people in English, but his history is not correct. The Taino people, who originally populated the Caribbean, came from South America, not North America. It’s a good example of why one should not rely on old sources for historical facts (as opposed to evidence of linguistic usage). Being closer to the events in question does not necessarily make the source more reliable; the opposite is usually the case.
Sources:
Bright, William. Native American Placenames of the United States. Norman: U of Oklahoma Press, 2004, s.v. Appalachian, Apalache.
Laudonnière, René Goulaine de. A Notable Historie Containing Foure Voyages Made by Certayne French Captaynes unto Florida. Richard Hakluyt, trans. London: Thomas Dawson, 1587. 2r–v. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Merriam-Webster.com, s.v. Appalachia, geographic name.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. Appalachian, adj. and n.
Rochefort, César de. The History of the Caribby-Islands. John Davies, trans. London: J.M. for Thomas Dring and John Starkey, 1666, 210. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Thevet, André. The New Founde Worlde, or Antarctike. London: Henry Bynneman for Thomas Hacket, 1568, 106v. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Image credit: George Inness, 1857. Montclair Art Museum. Public domain image.