While Lars is off celebrating the history of one people, let me offer you some history of another people. One tenth of American colonists were from Scottish families who had moved to northern Ireland as pioneer farmers under the British Crown, an effort to quell “the wild Irish.” That effort worked, and Scottish Presbyterians found a measure of freedom and productivity they enjoyed. Then, as Britain has a tendency to do, the ruling class ruined it by raising taxes and trying to quell the Irish even more. The pioneer farmers felt the pressure from these measures and came to America, a place that many were told was free and like paradise.
They came to Pennsylvania first and later to all of the colonies, coloring the culture everywhere. Dr. James G. Leyburn writes, “In many ways the Scotch-Irish pioneers were indeed an augury of Americans-to-be. They were probably the first settlers to identify themselves as Americans—not as Pennsylvanians or Virginians” or any ethnic group. As such, these were colonists most vigorously in favor of rebelling against the British Crown.
“A Hessian captain wrote in 1778, ‘Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American rebellion; it is nothing more or less than a Scotch Irish Presbyterian rebellion.’ King George was reported to have characterized the Revolution as ‘a Presbyterian war’ …” Leyburn says. These British officials saw the American Revolution as a Scottish Presbyterian uprising, which is not one of many characterizations of it, according to Leyburn. No other group of immigrants was accused of fueling the war like these Ulstermen.
Maybe these characterizations were made because it put the American conflict in familiar British terms. England had wrestled against Scottish and Irish independence for generations. Scottish Presbyterians, in particular, had been a torn beneath the crown for a long time because they wouldn’t conform to Anglican unification efforts.
But maybe Leyburn’s depiction of Scotch-Irish influence in America is accurate. He says, “Their daily experience of living on the outer fringe of settlement, of making small farms in the forests, of facing the danger of Indian attack and fighting back, called for qualities of self-reliance, ingenuity, and improvisation that Americans have ranked high as virtues. They were inaugurators of the heroic myth of the winning of the West that was to dominate our nineteenth century history.” They blended with another immigrants, pushing everyone into losing their immigrant labels and becoming simply American. Those labels would return 50-100 years later as people tried to distinguish themselves from new immigrants.
There’s a lot more to the story, which you can read in this American Heritage article taken from Leyburn’s book on the topic.
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