Scots-Irish American

Scots-Irish Americans are Americans of Ulster-Scots descent who formed distinctive communities in the New World and had distinctive social characteristics.

Known in the United States as the Scotch-Irish, most of the early migrants were Ulster Scots, those people of Scottish origin who spent a century or more in the northern counties of Ireland before moving to the New World.

This article deals with those who arrived before 1776 and formed distinctive communities; almost all were Protestant, usually Presbyterian. The early migrants had a historical opposition to Roman Catholicism due to relatively recent religious wars in Europe which had culminated in Ireland in the Battle of the Boyne.

History

The Scots-Irish are descendants of the Ulster Scots immigrants who travelled to North America from Ulster in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Historically, they had settled the major part of Ulster province in northern Ireland. Most had previously lived in Scotland, usually in the Lowlands and Scottish Border Country. The recent "Celtic Thesis" of Forrest McDonald and Grady McWhiney denies the history of their descent from Northumbrians of the Scottish Border Country and northern England; instead these authors maintain that they were basically Celtic (as opposed to Anglo-Saxon), and that all Celtic groups (Scots Irish, Scottish, Welsh and others) were warlike herdsmen, in contrast to the peaceful farmers who predominated in England. Author James H. Webb puts forth a thesis in his book Born Fighting to suggest that the character traits of the Scots-Irish, such as loyalty to kin, mistrust of governmental authority, and military readiness, helped shape the American identity.

Once settled as the dominant group in their section of Ireland, the Ulster-Scots suffered under the Penal Laws in Ireland, which discriminated against them because of their Presbyterian or other dissenting forms of Protestantism, and aggravated their historical grievances against England. This alleged anti-English sentiment may have encouraged some to join the patriotic cause, though most in the Carolinas were loyalists. Some historians suggest that their experience in Ulster of being a colonial minority surrounded by a hostile Catholic population, prepared them for life on America's frontier facing the Indians. The Scotch-Irish celebrated their military victories over the Irish Catholics, which had saved their community from annihilation. Of special symbolic importance was the Battle of the Boyne.

Migration from Scotland to Ulster, and vice-versa, had been ongoing since Ireland was first settled after the retreat of the ice sheets due to the close proximity of the islands of Britain and Ireland at the north-west of Ireland. Increased numbers of settlers was encouraged during the 17th and 18th centuries with the enforcement of Queen Anne's 1703 Test Act (as detailed in the article History of Scotland and Plantations of Ireland). In Ulster however, considerable numbers of Ulster-Scots migrated to the North American colonies throughout the 18th century (250,000 settled in the USA between 1717 and 1770 alone). According to Kerby Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (1988), Protestants were one-third the population of Ireland, but three-quarters of all emigrants from 1700 to 1776; 70% of these Protestants were Presbyterians. Other factors contributing to the mass exodus of Ulster Scots to America during the 18th century were a series of droughts and rising rents imposed by English landlords.

Finding the coast already heavily settled, most groups of the settlers from the north of Ireland went up into the "western mountains", where they populated the Appalachian regions and the Ohio Valley. Others settled in northern New England, The Carolinas, Georgia and north-central Nova Scotia.

Politics

Many American presidents have ancestral links to Ulster, including three whose parents were born in Ulster. Several hundred thousand descendants of settlers from Ulster also live in Canada today. See Orange Order section on the Orange Order in Canada. The Irish Protestant vote in the U.S. has not been studied nearly as much as have the Catholic Irish. (On the Catholic vote see Irish Americans). In the 1820s and 1830s supporters of Andrew Jackson emphasized his Irish background, as did James Knox Polk, but since the 1840s it has been uncommon for a Protestant politician in America to be identified as Irish, but rather as 'Scots-Irish'. In Canada, by contrast, Irish Protestants remained a cohesive political force well into the 20th century, identified with the Conservative Party of Canada (historical) and especially with the Orange Institution, although this is less evident in today's politics.

Scotch-Irish as a general term

Today, it is possible to hear both "Scotch-Irish" and "Scots-Irish" used generally in North America to refer to any person of mixed Celtic ancestry, regardless of their association with Ulster.

An example of the use of the term is found in The History of Ulster:

Ulster Presbyterians -- known as the 'Scotch Irish' -- were already accustomed to being on the move, and clearing and defending their land."A History of Ulster," Jonathan Bardon, The Blackstaff Press Limited, Northern Ireland, 1992. Emigration to United States and Scotch-Irish, ppgs. 208-210.

Other terms used to describe the descendents of Protestants from the border country of England and Scotland that first migrated to Ulster and later re-migrated to North America include "Northern Irish" or "Irish Presbyterians."

There are references to "Scotch-Irish" as early as 1573, and the term was probably initially mostly used to distinguish the Scots who had removed to Ireland from Scotland but retained their Scottish heritage for generations and still strongly identified with being Scots. Later it was also used to differentiate from either Irish Anglicans, Irish Catholics, or immigrants who came directly from Scotland.

It now tends to be used in the USA specifically in reference to waves of immigrants in the early to mid-1700's when many thousands of Scottish families emigrated from Ireland to Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Nova Scotia due to political unrest, famine, and the desire to own land. There were also attempts by the colonial governments to attract the clannish Scots warriors to help defend the frontiers against French and Native American territorial border disputes.

While there is some concern that the term Scotch-Irish may be taken as offensive by current people of Scottish or Irish origin the term is used proudly in the USA in a genealogical context and there is a historical association that has used the term Scotch-Irish as the name of the society for over 100 years.

The word "Scotch" was the favoured adjective as a designation — it literally means "... of Scotland". People in Scotland refer to themselves as Scots, or adjectivally/collectively as Scots rather than Scotch or as being Scottish.

In the seminal Albion's Seed : Four British Folkways in America (America: a cultural history) historian David Hackett Fischer asserts:

Some historians describe these immigrants as "Ulster Irish" or "Northern Irish." It is true that many sailed from the province of Ulster... part of much larger flow which drew from the lowlands of Scotland, the north of England, and every side of the Irish Sea. Many scholars call these people "Scotch-Irish." That expression is an Americanism, rarely used in Britain and much resented by the people to whom it was attached. ..."

Fischer prefers to speak of "borderers" (referring to the historically war-torn England-Scotland border) as the population ancestral to the "backcountry" "cultural stream" (one of the four major and persistent cultural streams he identifies in American history) and notes the borderers were not purely Celtic but also had substantial Anglo-Saxon and Viking roots, and were quite different from Celtic-speaking groups like the Scottish Highlanders or Irish.

Some claim that historically the term "Scotch-Irish" is an American neologism, used to refer to Ulster-Scots who emigrated to the colonies, mainly in the 18th century.

However, the earliest reference suggests the first to use the term was Queen Elizabeth, in 1573, when in a manifesto she said "....We are given to understand that a nobleman names "Sorely Boy," and others, who be of the Scotch-Irish race, and some of the wild Irish, at this time are content to acknowledge our true and mere right to the country of Ulster and the Crown of Ireland...."

In America the first to use the term was by Sir Thomas Laurence Secretary of Maryland when in June of 1695,he said; "In the counties of Dorchester and Somerest, where the Scotch-Irish are numerous, they clothe themselves by their linen and woolen manufactures."

And an Anglican minister named George Ross wrote in 1753: "They call themselves Scotch-Irish, and are the bitterest railers against the Church of England that ever trod on American ground."

George Washington said at Valley Forge, "If all else fails, I will retreat up the valley of Virginia, plant my flag on the Blue Ridge, rally around the Scotch-Irish of that region, and make my last stand for liberty amongst a people who will never submit to British tyranny whilst there is a man left to draw a trigger."

Geographical distribution

In the United States Census, 2000, 4.3 million Americans (1.5% of the population of the USA) claimed Scots-Irish ancestry, though estimates suggest that the true number of Scots-Irish in the USA is more in the region of 27 million.^* Two possible reasons have been suggested for the disparity of the figures of the census and the estimation. The first is that Scots-Irish may quite often regard themselves as simply having either Irish ancestry (which 10.8% of Americans reported) or Scottish ancestry (reported by 4.9 million or 1.7% of the total population). The other is that most of the descendants of this historical group have integrated themselves into American society to such an extent that they, like English-Americans or German-Americans, do not feel the need to identify with their ancestors as strongly as perhaps the more recent Roman Catholic Irish-Americans.

In fact, the areas where the most Americans reported themselves in the 2000 Census only as "American" with no further qualification (e.g. Kentucky, north-central Texas, and many other areas in the Southern US; overall 7% of Americans reported "American") are largely the areas where many Scots-Irish settled, and are in complementary distribution with the areas which most heavily report Scots-Irish ancestry, though still at a lower rate than "American" (e.g. western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, western Pennsylvania, northern New England, south-central and far northern Texas, westernmost Florida Panhandle, many rural areas in the Northwest); see Maps of American ancestries. Perhaps a combination of these factors results in the relatively low figures as reported in the census, though there does appear to be an increased interest in the U.S. in recent years in Scots-Irish ancestry.

Notable Americans of Scots-Irish Descent

See List of Scots-Irish Americans.

American Presidents from Scots-Irish Descent

More than one-third of all U.S. Presidents had substantial ancestral origins in the northern province of Ireland (Ulster). President Bill Clinton spoke proudly of that fact, and his own ancestral links with the province, during his two visits to Ulster. Like most US citizens, most US presidents are the result of a "melting pot" of ancestral origins.

Clinton is one of at least 17 Chief Executives descended from emigrants to the United States from the north of Ireland. While many of the Presidents have typically Ulster-Scots surnames--Jackson, Johnson, McKinley, Wilson--others, such as Bush, Roosevelt and Cleveland, have links which are less obvious.

Andrew Jackson
7th President, 1829-37: He was born in the predominantly Ulster-Scots Waxshaws area of South Carolina two years after his parents left Boneybefore, near Carrickfergus in County Antrim. A heritage centre in the village pays tribute to the legacy of 'Old Hickory', the People's President.

James Knox Polk
11th President, 1845-49: His ancestors were among the first Ulster-Scots settlers, emigrating from Coleraine in 1680 to become a powerful political family in Mecklenberg County, North Carolina. He moved to Tennessee and became its Governor before winning the Presidency.

James Buchanan
15th President, 1857-61: Born in a log-cabin (which has been relocated to his old school in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania), 'Old Buck' cherished his origins: "My Ulster blood is a priceless heritage". The Buchanans were originally from Deroran, near Omagh in County Tyrone where the ancestral home still stands.

Andrew Johnson
17th President, 1865-69: His grandfather left Mounthill, near Larne in County Antrim around 1750 and settled in North Carolina. Andrew worked there as a tailor and ran a successful business in Greeneville, Tennessee, before being elected Vice-President. He became President following Abraham Lincoln's assassination.

Ulysses Simpson Grant
18th President, 1869-77: The home of his maternal great-grandfather, John Simpson, at Dergenagh, County Tyrone, is the location for an exhibition on the eventful life of the victorious Civil War commander who served two terms as President. Grant visited his ancestral homeland in 1878.

Chester Alan Arthur
21st President, 1881-85: His election was the start of a quarter-century in which the White House was occupied by men of Ulster-Scots origins. His family left Dreen, near Cullybackey, County Antrim, in 1815. There is now an interpretive centre, alongside the Arthur Ancestral Home, devoted to his life and times.

Grover Cleveland
22nd and 24th President, 1885-89 and 1893-97: Born in New Jersey, he was the maternal grandson of merchant Abner Neal, who emigrated from County Antrim in the 1790s. He is the only President to have served two terms with a break between.

Benjamin Harrison
23rd President, 1889-93: His mother, Elizabeth Irwin, had Ulster-Scots roots through her two great-grandfathers, James Irwin and William McDowell. Harrison was born in Ohio and served as a Brigadier General in the Union Army before embarking on a career in Indiana politics which led to the White House.

William McKinley
25th President, 1897-1901: Born in Ohio, the descendant of a farmer from Conagher, near Ballymoney, County Antrim, he was proud of his ancestry and addressed one of the national Scotch-Irish Congresses held in the late 19th century. His second term as President was cut short by an assassin's bullet.

Theodore Roosevelt
26th President, 1901-04: His mother, Martha Bulloch, had Ulster Scots ancestors who emigrated from Glenoe, County Antrim, in May 1729. Teddy Roosevelt's oft-repeated praise of his "bold and hardy race" is evidence of the pride he had in his Scotch-Irish connections.

Woodrow Wilson
28th President, 1913-21: Of Ulster-Scot descent on both sides of the family, his roots were very strong and dear to him. He was grandson of a printer from Dergalt, near Strabane, County Tyrone, whose former home is open to visitors. Throughout his career he reflected on the influence of his ancestral values on his constant quest for knowledge and fulfilment.

Richard Milhous Nixon
37th President, 1969-74: The Nixon ancestors left Ulster in the mid-18th Century; the Quaker Milhous family ties were with County Antrim and County Kildare.

Ronald Reagan
40th President, 1981-88: Reagan was the second of two sons to John "Jack" Reagan, a Catholic of Irish American ancestry, and Nelle Wilson, who was of Scots-Irish and English descent. Prior to his immigration, the family name was spelled Regan. His maternal great-grandfather, John Wilson, also immigrated to the United States from Paisley, Scotland in the early 1800s.

George Herbert Walker Bush
41st President, 1989-93: His Ulster Scots links are through William Gault and Jonathan Weir, his great-great-great-great grandfathers who both settled in Blount County, Tennessee, around the Revolutionary War period. President Bush was made aware of this ancestry during a visit to Knoxville, where Gault is buried in nearby Baker's Creek United Presbyterian Church cemetery.

Bill Clinton
42nd President, 1993-01: President Clinton, whose connection is through his Blythe and Ayer ancestors, is of Scots Irish and Irish ancestry.

George W. Bush
43rd President, 2001-present: See George Herbert Walker Bush

Other occupants of the White House said to have some family ties with Northern Ireland include Presidents Adams, Monroe, Eisenhower, Truman and Carter.

References

Secondary sources

Bailyn, Bernard and Philip D. Morgan, eds. Strangers Within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (1991), scholars analyze colonial migrations. excerpts online
Blethen, Tyler. ed. Ulster and North America: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Scotch-Irish (1997; ISBN 0817308237), scholarly essays.
Carroll, Michael P. "How the Irish Became Protestant in America," Religion and American Culture Winter 2006, Vol. 16, No. 1, Pages 25-54
Dunaway, Wayland F. The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania (1944; reprinted 1997; ISBN 0806308508), solid older scholarly history.
Fischer, David Hackett. Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (1991), major scholarly study tracing colonial roots of four groups of immigrants, Irish, English Puritans, English Cavaliers, and Quakers.
Glazier, Michael, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Irish in America, (1999), the best place to start--the most authoritative source, with essays by over 200 experts, covering both Catholic and Protestants.
Griffin, Patrick. The People with No Name: Ireland's Ulster Scots, America's Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World: 1689-1764 (2001; ISBN 0691074623) solid academic monograph.
Leyburn, James G. Scotch-Irish: A Social History (1999; ISBN 0807842591) written by academic but out of touch with scholarly literature after 1940
McDonald, Forrest, and Grady McWhinney, "The Antebellum Southern Herdsman: A Reinterpretation," Journal of Southern History 41 (1975) 147-66; highly influential economic interpretation; online at JSTOR through most academic libraries. Their Celtic interpretation says Scots-Irish resembled all other Celtic groups; they were warlike herders (as opposed to peaceful farmers in England), and brought this tradition to America. James Webb has popularized this thesis.
- Berthoff, Rowland. "Celtic Mist over the South," Journal of Southern History 52 (1986): 523-46 is a strong attack; rejoinder on 547-50
McWhiney, Grady. Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (1984).
McWhiney, Grady. Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South (1988). Major exploration of cultural folkways.
Meagher, Timothy J. The Columbia Guide to Irish American History. (2005), overview and bibliographies; includes the Catholics.
Miller, Kerby. Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (1988). Highly influential study.
Miller, Kerby, et al eds. Journey of Hope: The Story of Irish Immigration to America (2001), major source of primary documents.
Porter, Lorle. A People Set Apart: The Scotch-Irish in Eastern Ohio (1999; ISBN 1887932755) highly detailed chronicle.
Quinlan, Kieran. Strange Kin: Ireland and the American South (2004), critical analysis of Celtic thesis.
Sletcher, Michael, ‘Scotch-Irish’, in Stanley I. Kutler, ed., Dictionary of American History, (10 vols., New York, 2002).

partly online

Popular History and Literature

Baxter, Nancy M. Movers: A Saga of the Scotch-Irish (The Heartland Chronicles) (1986; ISBN 0961736712) Novelistic.
Chepesiuk, Ron. The Scotch-Irish: From the North of Ireland to the Making of America (ISBN 0786406143)
Glasgow, Maude. The Scotch-Irish in Northern Ireland and in the American Colonies (1998; ISBN 078840945X)
Greeley, Andrew. Encyclopedia of the Irish in America
Johnson, James E. Scots and Scotch-Irish in America (1985, ISBN 0822510227) short overview for middle schools
Kennedy, Billy. Faith & Freedom: The Scots-Irish in America (1999; ISBN 1840300612) Short, popular chronicle; he has several similar books on geographical regions
- Kennedy, Billy. The Scots-Irish in the Carolinas (1997; ISBN 1840300116)
- Kennedy, Billy. The Scots-Irish in the Shenandoah Valley (1996; ISBN 1898787794)
Lewis, Thomas A. West From Shenandoah: A Scotch-Irish Family Fights for America, 1729-1781, A Journal of Discovery (2003; ISBN 0471315788)
Webb, James. Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America (2004; ISBN 0767916883) novelistic approach; special attention to his people's war with English in America.
Webb, James. Why You Need to Know the Scots-Irish (10-3-2004; Parade magazine). Article recognizes the great Scots-Irish people and their accomplishments.

Quotes

The gentle terms of republican race, mixed rabble of Scotch, Irish and foreign vagabonds, descendants of convicts, ungrateful rebels, &c. are some of the sweet flowers of English rhetorick, with which our colonists have of late been regaled. ^* (Benjamin Franklin, 1765)

This cartoon, circulated after the 1763 Conestoga massacre, criticizes the Quakers for their support of Native Americans at the expense of German and Scots-Irish backcountry settlers. Here, a "broad brim'd" Quaker and Native American each ride as a burden on the backs of "Hibernians." Historical Society of Pennsylvania

The Quakers did not appreciate their interference in politics and were especially unhappy with them when the Scot-Irish gained control of the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1756. Who were the Scot-Irish?

External links

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