white Southerner supporting Reconstruction policies after the Civil War usually for self-interest
If you call a boy or a man a scallywag, you mean that he behaves badly but you like him, so you find it difficult to be really angry with him. It's his idea of a joke, I suppose, the scallywag. = rascal. scalawag a child who causes trouble but not in a serious way - used when you are not angry with them