| The Scottish
Presbyterians who settled Ulster (Northern Ireland) in the 1600's
became known as Ulster-Scots. Those Ulster-Scots who left the north
of Ireland to settle America a century later became known as the
Scots-Irish (or Scotch-Irish). |
| Northern
Irish Presbyterian families had been sailing from Ulster to America
since the 1690's, but in the year 1717 the trickle became a torrent.
In a fifty year period in excess of 250,000 Scots-Irish Presbyterians
had left Ulster to make a new home in America. |
| The reason
so many left their homeland in the north of Ireland is due both
to religious persecution and economic hardship. The Scots-Irish
Presbyterians were often viewed by the Anglican landowners in Ireland
as more of a threat than the local Irish Catholic population |
| The Test
Act of 1704 was particularly hard on Presbyterians. Marriages conducted
by Presbyterian ministers were invalid and they were unable to worship
in churches or hold public office. In addition tariffs were imposed
on the north of Ireland linen industry to stop the Ulster-Scots
from competing on an equal footing with the linen industry in England.
In this climate it is no surprise that over a quarter of the north
of Ireland's Scots-Irish Presbyterian population opted for a new
life in the new world. |
| It was a
Scots-Irish Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Francis Makemie who
organized the first Presbyterian Church in America in 1693. The
Scots-Irish are credited with the spread of Presbyterianism across
the US. The fact that Presbyterian ministers were required to be
university educated and bible school trained meant there was a shortage
of Presbyterian clergy for the growing population. |
| As Baptist
pastors at the time did not need the same degree of formal training,
they were more readily available and this led to the Baptist Church
eventually overtaking the Presbyterian Church as the main Protestant
denomination in America. |
| The Scots-Irish
settlers made superb frontiersmen in early Colonial America. Their
experiences over the previous few centuries, first in the Scottish
Borders and then fighting the Irish Catholics in the north of Ireland
had created a race of hardy unyielding people who were ideally suited
to clearing the forests to build farms and pushing the borders further
and further west. |
 |
Their
experience of religious discrimination in Ulster by their
Episcopal English landlords meant the Scots-Irish had no
hesitation in taking the side of the rebels in the War of
Independence. In the words of Professor James G. Leyburn
"They provided some of the best fighters in the American
army. Indeed there were those who held the Scots-Irish responsible
for the war itself".
No
less a figure than George Washington once said "If defeated
everywhere else I will make my last stand for liberty among
the Scots-Irish of my native Virginia".
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| The Scots-Irish
provided 25 Generals and about a third of the revolutionary army.
The Pennsylvania Line was made up entirely of Ulster-Scots emigrants
and their sons. The Battle of Kings Mountain was a Scots-Irish battle
where a militia of mainly Scots-Irish Presbyterians defeated an
English army twice its size. |
| President
Theodore Roosevelt said of the Scots-Irish "in the Revolutionary
war, the fiercest and most ardent Americans of all were the Presbyterian
Irish settlers and their descendants" |
| The Declaration
of Independence was printed by an Ulster-Scot, John Dunlop, read
in public by a first generation Scots-Irish American Colonel John
Nixon and the first signature came from another Scots-Irish Presbyterian,
John Hancock. |
| The Scots-Irish
embraced America and gradually lost their distinct Scotch-Irish
identity to be Americans period. The name Scotch-Irish fell out
of use for a period of time until the arrival of the Catholic Irish
almost a century later following the potato famine. In order to
differentiate themselves from the famine refugees who were Catholic
Gaelic Irish, the term Scots-Irish was reintroduced. |
| The Irish
tended to congregate in Catholic Irish communities in cities such
as New York, Chicago and Boston and maintained their Irish identity,
while the Scots-Irish population was spread throughout America,
particularly in the American Mid West and the Southern States. Today
there are approximately 27 million Protestant Scots-Irish Americans
and 17 million Catholic Irish Americans (although a fair percentage
of those from Protestant backgrounds and bearing Scottish surnames
wrongly regard themselves to be Irish-Americans). |
| Famous Scots-Irish
Americans including Andrew Jackson, Davy Crocket, Sam Houston, Stonewall
Jackson, Woodrow Wilson and John Wayne are testament to the great
influence of the Scots-Irish in the formation and development of
the United States. |
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