I'd argue the best way would be to travel there and read actual histories from local sources. While it's nice to imagine a simple root cause to everything - it'

I'd argue the best way would be to travel there and read actual histories from local sources. While it's nice to imagine a simple root cause to everything - it's not enough. When my great-grandparents settled in Appalachia about 100 years ago, they did it to find opportunity and escape the terrible working conditions of cotton mills. That side of the family are religious democrats who support unions and new-deal style economic reform and public education. They and their kids integrated culturally, most of them never left and never plan to. Their story is not an uncommon one, their desire for better government support is not out of the norm, and it does nobody any good to propagate a myth saying their culture of self-sufficency was decided 300 years ago when it was actually developed as a necessity after continuously being ignored. Cultures grow and Appalachian culture is no exception - we need to get past this shallow type of categorization based on original settlers.