U.S. Southerner who supported Reconstruction .
Opponents also applied the pejorative term to those who joined with carpetbagger s and freedmen to support Republican Party policies. The term, of unknown origin, was used from the 1840s to denote a worthless farm animal and later a worthless person. Scalawags included former Whigs and hill-country farmers with Unionist sympathies and constituted nearly 20% of the white electorate after the American Civil War . Many held government positions in the South and advocated moderate reforms.