The origins of this term are Scottish and refer to supporters of the National Covenant and The Solemn League and Covenant, or Covenanters, largely Lowland Presbyterians, many of whom would flee Scotland for Ulster (Northern Ireland) during persecutions by the British Crown. The Covenanters of 1638 and 1641 signed the documents that stated that Scotland desired the Presbyterian form of church government and would not accept the Church of England as its official state church.
Many Covenanters signed in their own blood and wore red pieces of cloth around their necks as distinctive insignia; hence the term Red neck, which became slang for a Scottish dissenter. One Scottish immigrant, interviewed by the author, remembered a Presbyterian minister, one Dr. Coulter, in Glasgow in the 1940's wearing a red clerical collar - is this symbolic of the rednecks? Since many Ulster-Scottish settlers in America (especially in the South) were Presbyterian, the term was applied to them, and then, later, their Southern descendants. One of the earliest examples of its use comes from 1830, when an author noted that red-neck was a name bestowed upon the Presbyterians. It makes one wonder if the originators of the ever-present redneck jokes are aware of the term's origins?
