Many a runaway slave turned up in that area and they were just always part of the community. The Native Americans were also accepted although some of my ancestors died at their hands. Others became my ancestors. History is so complicated but as you said, slavery was a rich person's game - everyone else got pulled into it for one reason or another. If I could have a wish, I'd wish for the opportunity to hear the real truth from those that lived it.
There's an amusing tale I was told while visiting. One winter, there was a really bad snowstorm that piled the snow up to the point that everyone living in the mountains was snowed in for quite a while. The government decided they needed to go up into those mountains and bring provisions to all those poor mountain folk trapped in their homes. Helicopters flew in and the government people went door to door offering help. Most wouldn't answer the door and the few that did, shooed them away. Up there, there's a healthy distrust of government and an equally healthy sense of personal responsibility in those mountains.
Same here with my relatives and ancestors. My original ancestor came here from Scotland in the mid-1700’s. My grandmother’s ancestors came here from Ireland. My Scottish ancestors landed in N.C. and migrated South to TN and GA from there. They were all very self-sufficient and clannish. The first thing my Scottish ancestors did was set up a moonshine still and start making whisky the way they had always done in Scotland.
A friend of mine from Wisconsin came to visit several years ago and wanted to see some real mountain hillbillies. I had a hard time finding any. I took them way back in the mountains to some small, isolated communities. One thing they noticed was that although the mountain people were friendly enough, they felt like the only reason they were friendly was because I was there. Still, they weren’t exactly what my Wisconsin friends thought they would be.
Other things they noticed was that few women here wear a lot of makeup or have tattoos. LOL I explained that in the extremely conservative religious areas, both of those were frowned on. They were also amazed at how well whites and blacks get along together. The only trouble they had with a lot of our black people was that they couldn’t understand their manner of speech. I had to translate a lot. They went on and on about the local radio stations that gave out the addresses of people that were arrested. They were amazed at the religious things they saw. Our local Wal-Mart was hosting a tent revival in the parking lot at the time and had hung a Jesus Saves over the Wal-Mart Saves sign on the front of the store. There were loud speakers blasting out gospel music that could be heard all over town.
They went home with a heavy load of culture shock.