Our Scotch-Irish heritage

Aunt Dorothy, in writing about her maternal ancestors, stated that Samuel Henry Lufkin left his home in Massachusetts and went to Nova Scotia. While there “he met and married an Irish girl, Eleanor Johnson. She as born in Nova Scotia but both of her parents [James Johnson and Eleanor O’Brien] were born in Ireland.”

Contrary to the impression given by the above, Eleanor Johnson’s roots were NOT from the romanticized Irish of St. Patrick’s Day, with the color green, shamrocks, leprechauns, etc. Her parents were born in Northern Ireland and were of a people sometimes called “Ulster Scots” or Scotch-Irish.” The Scotch-Irish were Scotch transplants who came to Ireland sometime before 1700. They were “lowland Scots” which means that they were also NOT the romanticized highland Scotch, with their kilts, bagpipes, representative plaids, etc.

So, what were the Scotch-Irish? (This is an important question, because a number of our Lewis ancestors also had Scotch-Irish roots.)

1) Lowland Scotland was to the south and east of the Scottish highlands, situated between the former and England

2) The people came from a poor, peasant class, living in small villages, under a system of feudalism. The land was unproductive and made worse by centuries of poor conservation methods, and denuded of trees. Families might own a few animals. Heat sources were peat or coal.

3) Most were members of the Kirk of Scotland (the national church, Presbyterianism). Repudiation of Catholicism and establishment of the Kirk by a Scottish parliament in 1560, introduced cultural changes, including increased commitment to religion, and education (but not too much) and began to raise the people out of what some have defined as barbarianism. The tenants of the Kirk were Calvinist, strict, dour, and intolerant of sin (and other things).

4) Society in Scotland tended to be chaotic and lawless. Many people lived by thieving. People banded together for self-protection.

5) Additionally, lowland Scotland had a long history of wars and fighting off invaders, going back to the time of the Romans. After that, they continually fought with the English and also with the highland Scots.

The culture seemed to produce people who were survivors, tough fighters, risk-takers, individualistic, quick to take offense and defend themselves, suspicious of higher authority and elites, responsive to charismatic local leaders. They did not distinguish themselves in the arts or scholarly pursuits.

Two additional points in the history of the Scotch-Irish:
1) England had an “Irish problem” and tried to use the lowland Scots as a solution. They had tried for centuries to subdue the Irish, with limited success. It became more difficult with the Protestant reformation, as the Irish remained Catholic and threatened to become an outpost for Spanish and French territorial expansion. When war with the English depopulated the northern part of Ireland, England created the Ulster Plantation in about 1610 with plans to re-populate this area with Protestants. Because of the nearness of lowland Scotland to Ulster and because of the opportunities it presented to escape poverty, lowland Scots came to dominate the numbers who relocated to the Ulster Plantation. Numbers swelled by refugees during the wars between England and Scotland (1670s). The Scotch-Irish settlers also battled the Irish in the 1640s. And even though the English promoted Scotch-Irish populating of Ulster, their support was very inconsistent and sometimes hostile. Economic restrictions from both the British and Irish parliaments and market fluctuations for products of Ulster manufacturing, plus continuing religious interference from the English, made living in Ulster less attractive.

2) Starting in 1717 and continuing until the start of the Revolutionary War (about 1774), there was mass migration of the Ulster population to America, perhaps as many as a quarter of a million people. Paradoxically, the English elites in the colonies from Virginia southward had an “Indian problem” and tried to use the Scotch-Irish as a solution. The Scotch-Irish were not welcome in New England and the middle colonies because of their cultural dispositions, but the English elites living in the tidewater areas of the southern colonies perceived that placing Scotch-Irish settlers in the edge of the Appalachians would provide a buffer against Indian attacks on their homes. The Scotch-Irish typically de-ported in Philadelphia and made their way southwest on the Great Wagon Trail along the Piedmont through Virginia, and the Carolinas and then filtered west into the mountains. There they established subsistence farms not unlike lowland Scotland. They honed their fighting skills in encounters with Native Americans and became experts with the long rifle.

At first, they were not especially sympathetic to the Revolutionary War, hating and distrusting both the British and the American tidewater elites, but were eventually drawn into the battle by Cornwallis’ and Tarleton’s threats. The “Overmountain Boys” brought their long rifles and Indian fighting tactics to Kings Mountain and Cowpens and destroyed the British army as a fighting force, paving the way for their surrender at Yorktown and American independence.

Post Script 1: The descendants of the Scotch-Irish settlers constituted the backbone of the Confederate army during the Civil War. Although greatly outnumbered and with inferior resources, their toughness and fighting spirit (sadly) prolonged the war and left the ultimate victor in doubt for a long time. Ironically, these were poor, mountain boys most of whom were not slave owners and may not have even seen a black person in their lifetime. Why did they fight? For their community, as they saw it, their homes, family, etc., like their ancestors fought the Indians, the Irish, the English, the Highlanders, the Romans.

Post Script 2: There remains in the southern states a military culture. Military colleges are common. Various wars in the 20th century have seen higher numbers of volunteers and casualties from the south than from other regions.

Post Script 3: Religion-wise, the Scotch-Irish allegiance to the Presbyterian Church did not stand, partly because its tradition was to have university trained pastors and such schools did not exist in America. By the 1800s, many of the descendants of the Scotch-Irish settlers had gravitated to the Baptist church.

References: James G. Leyburn, THE SCOTCH-IRISH: A SOCIAL HISTORY, University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1962; Billy Kennedy, THE SCOTS-IRISH IN THE CAROLINAS, Ambassador House: Belfast, Ireland, 1997; James Webb, BORN FIGHTING: HOW THE SCOTS-IRISH SHAPED AMERICA, Broadway: NY, 2005.