America's nations and their favorite war game

The United States of America is a diverse place with numerous people groups and points of origin. In which cultures is college football dominant?

During this last 2022 football season I read a book which had a profound impact on how I think about this country’s history and regional dynamics..

The book is called “American Nations” by Colin Woodard.

Even an elevator pitch of the book’s premise is a little complicated, but here goes.

America’s current dominant civilizations were founded at various times by different people for different reasons. Each initial settlement adapted and grew as its own nation with distinctive culture and values which later assimilated subsequent people groups who moved into the established communities.

Because of this sporadic settlement of the continent, the USA now contains what could be referred to as 11 different “nations” with nation referring to a particular area of land with a distinctive, dominant culture of its own. As you can see from the map above on the book cover, or from the following county-by-county map, these nations cross state lines and blur a lot of the regional nicknames we all like to bicker over. Such as “what’s the Midwest?” or “where does the South begin?”

Woodard then tells the story of how these different nations came to be and how their interactions have shaped American history. Obviously I recommend it, but for our own purposes I’ll go over the nations he lays out and the way their differences shape our nation so we can discuss the way these dynamics impact our favorite war game. Particularly at the collegiate level which is the only realm of football where football is a truly national game yet still distinctly regional (national recruiting be damned).

The nations

Looking at that map above, it’s really pretty stunning to consider if you’re willing to stipulate Woodard is onto something with regards to his particular taxonomy of American cultures.

It makes sense of common refrains you’ll hear from people like,

• Some of Oklahoma is basically the Midwest.

• Houston and Dallas are very different places.

• Southern Illinois is basically still “the south.”

• West Oregon wants to secede to get away from Portland.

I encourage you to read his book for yourself or find some of his shorter works explaining the notion. I will note that he built heavily from existing theories such as the main premise of “Albion’s seed” which argues that there were four different migrations from Great Britain into America which established four very different competing cultures. Woodard mostly accepts those four and adds a few others as well. Here are the main ones with as solid an overview as I can give.

Yankeedom: One of the four from Albion’s seed. Yankeedom was established by the Puritans, a middle class religious sect from England. Yankeedom prizes education and egalitarian values and seeks to enforce them with social engineering and communitarianism even as the worldview has evolved from Calvinism to a post-Christian progressivism.

The Midlands: Initially established by the highly tolerant Quakers before later becoming inundated with immigrants from all over Europe (especially Germany) and beyond (relatively early into the process, no less), the Midlands are similar to Yankeedom in values but with more of an emphasis on localism and distrust of top-down government action. Think working class European immigrants rather than the education and religious minded Puritans.

New Netherland: Established by Dutch traders as a materialistic and diverse trading center, New Netherland is now New York City minus Long Island but with some other areas incorporated such as parts of New Jersey.

Tidewater: Settled by English aristocrats fleeing political upheaval or lack of opportunities in England who largely established slavery as an unavoidable evil while trying to maintain the traditional culture of the hierarchical English system without the peasant class. Think Jane Austen or Downtown Abbey relocated to the American South. Most of the original famous southern founding fathers were from Tidewater (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison).

The Deep South: Similar to Tidewater but with a major difference. Instead of being settled by displaced gentry and 2nd born sons of English aristocrats, it was settled by English settlers in barbados who’d established an intentionally slave-based, hierarchical society. The Deep South prizes individual liberty as Tidewater does but from government action, not life circumstances (i.e., living in a lower caste). “Harsher Tidewater” is sort of an encapsulating description.

Greater Appalachia: Settled by Scots-Irish settlers from Ulster and the English/Scottish borderlands. These were America’s frontiersman who value individual liberty and have a clannish and less rigid social structure than Tidewater or the Deep South.

New France: Areas in Quebec or Louisiana settled initially by French, it’s much more liberal and social-minded than the rest of the southern areas.

El Norte: Woodard notes that the Northern Mexican and Southern United States hispanic regions are too far separated from Mexico City to share the same culture and ties and consequently have their own distinctive culture. Values include self-sufficiency, hard work, and independence.

The Left Coast: Settled by two distinctive groups, Yankeedom and Greater Appalachia, and subsequently with a culture blending some of each. They have the emphasis on education and social reform of Yankeedom but with more of a value for independence and individualism courtesy of the Appalachian influence.

The Far West: Settled mostly by Appalachians but still run largely as colonies due to the geography of the region and the necessity for its communities to rely on corporate investment. Think Las Vegas.

Spanish Caribbean: South Florida, basically, which Woodard argues is really more an extension of the Caribbean and Spanish empire.

Which nation do you belong to?

I had two questions reading this book. The first was, “which of these nations did my family originate in?” and “which of these nations am I living in now?” Obviously the map on the cover ostensibly gave me the answers but I was curious to read for myself how these cultures were generated and whether they mapped onto my own experiences.

Recognizing my own heritage and background as being Appalachian and Scots-Irish was the easiest part. It was unmistakable even if both of my parents didn’t have Scots-Irish last names. Recognizing Michigan as “Yankeedom” took me a second because you’re generally trained to think of Michigan as being primarily “Rust Belt” or “Midwest.” To think of it as being akin to say, Connecticut (where I lived briefly as a kid) was initially an adjustment but began to make a lot of sense.

The education and communitarian nature of Yankeedom is unmistakably dominant in Michigan. The last election cycle has also lead me to believe Woodard’s current events interpretations of the Donald Trump and populist-right phenomenon as being less of a reshaping of American coalitions on class lines and more of a temporary schism Trump was able to draw between rural/working class Northerners and the managerial class. He did so with communitarian policies like protectionism.

With Joe Biden’s economically populist policies and the reshoring of a lot of American industrial base back in the Midwest, I tend to doubt the Republican inroads in places like Michigan or Pennsylvania can last even though those are largely bipartisan issues now with even traditional GOP figures now supporting those ideas after previously pushing for free trade and outsourcing. Michigan in particular is clearly going to be a blue state for the foreseeable future.

We’ll see how things go, but it seems the shock of COVID reset a lot of political lines back to Woodard’s lines on the map. The communitarian-minded Northern states pushed for harder social conformity in the pandemic response while the more independent-minded Southern states bucked against those measures and employed more “choose your own adventure” policies.

The central plot of American history

Woodard sets out much of America’s major historical events as being about a clash between two distinct nations on the map. I’m betting you can guess which two.

Yankeedom and the Deep South both have a strong will to power. Yankee culture is inherently about wanting to reshape the world and to be a “city on a hill.” The Deep South is inherently guided by a conservative and hierarchal system (no longer based in slavery but still featuring the powerful class free to rule without heavy regulation or oversight) which has to rule and cannot be ruled over. They both value being in charge over others, so naturally they clash.

Obviously they’ve already had a literal war and a glance at any presidential election map will tell you that they are still competing power centers.

The Big 10 vs SEC clashes also fit somewhat along these same fault lines, although much of the Big 10 is “Midlands” whereas the SEC is heavily “Deep South” but with a heavy dose of “Greater Appalachia” and more on the way (Texas and Oklahoma). Ditto the Pac-12 with its “Left Coast” institutions who have always been closely tied to the Big 10.

The Midlands and Appalachia have traditionally been “swing” groups which could swing power back and forth between the two main antagonists with the Midlands often preferring Yankeedom due to a shared value for government intervention while Appalachia has often sided with the Deep South due to a shared value for no government intervention.

Implications for College Football’s squabbles and cultural differences abound, there’s a few I’d like to dissect in future posts. For now I’ll leave you with this: the Woodard nations map with some of America’s major football programs included.

For anyone curious about the finer details since the logos sometimes obscure the county lines:

• Notre Dame and Pitt are in the Midlands with Penn State and Nebraska.

• Ohio State and Clemson are in Appalachia.

• Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M are juuuust within the borders of the Deep South.

• LSU is technically in New France.

• USC and fellow Pac-12 secession partner UCLA are in El Norte.

The bulk of the major programs are in the Deep South or Appalachia with some older powers in the Midlands, a few in western Yankeedom, and then the smattering over in the Left Coast.

Initial thoughts?