White Southerners, historically called White Confederates or Southrons, are White Americans from the Southern United States, originating from the various waves of Northwestern European immigration to the region beginning in the 17th century. A uniform sense of identity among White Southerners emerged as part of a common Southern culture.

Academic John Shelton Reed argues that "Southerners' differences from the American mainstream have been similar in kind, if not degree, to those of the immigrant ethnic groups". Reed states that Southerners, as other ethnic groups, are marked by differences from the national norm, noting that they tend to be poorer, less educated, more rural, and specialize in job occupation. He argues that they tended to differ in cultural and political terms, and that their accents serve as an ethnic marker.

Upon white Southerners Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton being elected to the U.S. presidency during the late 20th century, it symbolized generations of change from an Old South to New South society. Journalist Hodding Carter and State Department spokesperson during the Carter administration stated: "The thing about the South is that it's finally multiple rather than singular in almost every respect." The transition from President Carter to President Clinton also mirrored the social and economic evolution of the South in the mid-to-late 20th century.

White Southern diaspora populations exist in Brazil and Belize, known respectively as the Confederados and Confederate Belizeans.

The Spanish were the first Europeans to explore the Southern United States and to contact Native Americans in the region. Juan Ponce de León discovered Florida. Hernando de Soto explored Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas.

Before European colonization, The Southern United States was originally inhabited by various Native American tribes. Europeans had wiped out their population by giving them diseases. During the early 1800s, Native Americans were forcibly displaced as part of a brutal initiative aimed at clearing land for white settlers. The introduction of Spanish and French explorers in the 1500s marked the onset of European influences and the marked the beginning of white settlement in the South, and subsequently, the establishment of the United States of America placed Native Americans in direct opposition to an increasing number of white settlers. By the early 1800s, the Indian Removal Act presented a harrowing dilemma for most tribes: either assimilate into white culture or migrate westward into an uncertain future. Under the leadership of president Andrew Jackson, the notorious Trail of Tears resulted in the forced removal of thousands of Native Americans from the South to Indian Territory, which is now known as Oklahoma.

The Plantations of Ireland took place before and during the earliest British colonization of the Americas, and a group known as the West Country Men were involved in both Irish and American colonization.

Spain, England and France colonized the region.