In the

Colony of Virginia The Colony of Virginia was a British Empire, British colonial settlement in North America from 1606 to 1776. The first effort to create an English settlement in the area was chartered in 1584 and established in 1585; the resulting Roanoke Colo ...

, Anglican planters of eastern Virginia were called Tuckahoes, to differentiate them from Cohees—German, Irish and Scotch-Irish immigrants that settled in the

Shenandoah Valley The Shenandoah Valley () is a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia in the United States. The Valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the east ...

, west of the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the United States, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Highlands range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States and extends 550 miles southwest from southern ...

in what is now Western

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

and

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

. The Cohees were the first Europeans to settle in what are now Amherst County and Nelson County, Virginia. Tuckahoes were considered to be "of the Lowland old Virginians". A particular Tuckahoe culture was created when Algonquin-speaking Native Americans, English, other Europeans, and West Africans in the

brought customs and traditions from each of their home countries and the "loosely-knit customs began to crystallize into what later became known as Tuckahoe culture". It began to develop in James River plantations and spread throughout the Tidewater and then other areas of Virginia. Cohee was a name that Irish, Scotch-Irish and German immigrants to the colonial-era

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, Dixieland, or simply the South) is List of regions of the United States, census regions defined by the United States Cens ...

gave themselves. The word comes from the Scots and Ulster Scots phrase "quo he", which corresponds to "quoth he" in standard English. It has come to mean "a backwoods settler of Scots or northern Irish origin". The term Cohee also applied to German, Scottish, or Irish people in Pennsylvania. The creation of West Virginia marked the end of the "Cohee-Tuckahoe binary", with many Cohees migrating west.

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References

{{Reflist American regional nicknames Pre-statehood history of Virginia History of the Southern United States Virginia society Culture of the United States Pre-statehood history of West Virginia Scotch-Irish American culture in Virginia Scotch-Irish American culture in West Virginia Scotch-Irish American history West Virginia society

See also

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References