Immigration and Immigrants: Scots and Scots-Irish

The relationship of Scots and Scots-Irish immigrants to North America—the latter principally Presbyterians from Ulster in the north of Ireland, predominantly of Scottish background and connections—is among the most complex of migration stories. At one time it was common to treat migrants from those two places as a single people deriving from a common ethnic "stock." But in recent years, as historians came to shun the use of racialist characterizations, they began to emphasize instead the distinctions between migrants from Scotland and from Ulster, who had been separated by many miles of water and a century of divergent development before the transatlantic migrations of either group began in earnest in the early part of the eighteenth century.

That approach has proved no more satisfactory than the first. The more that is learned about the extensive movements of peoples within the Atlantic world during the early modern era, the more difficult it is to establish such clear separations. In the case of the inhabitants of Scotland and Ulster, there was simply too much movement back and forth between the locales, and too many persistent connections, to permit the rapid establishment of distinct identities among their populations. While Scots began moving to Ulster at the beginning of the seventeenth century, for most of that century the north of Ireland and the west of Scotland were less separate societies than alternate locations to which populations flocked at different times in the face of religious and political conflicts and economic woes. Thus, while twenty thousand or more Scots settled in Ulster during the early plantation years, a large portion of them fled to Scotland during the civil war years in Ireland at mid-century. Some then returned to Ireland with the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 and the return of Ireland to Protestant control. The greatest period of Scots migration to Ulster was undoubtedly during the famine years of the 1690s, a mere two decades before the start of substantial transatlantic migration from that province. Thus, Ulster's first migrants to America were hardly the products of a wholly separate society.

Several kinds of links continued to connect the inhabitants of Ulster and the west of Scotland thereafter. Ulster Presbyterians continued to travel to Scotland for their educations; in many respects, Glasgow served as their cultural capital. Moreover, they were linked by the process of migration itself; emigration vessels departing Scotland, for example, sometimes called at northern Irish ports along the way, and Scots traveling to America sometimes sailed from Ulster ports. It is often difficult to determine whether a particular group of immigrants had departed from Scotland or Ulster, or where they had lived before arriving at the point of departure.

early migration patterns

One feature common to the experiences of those settlers was a strong migratory tradition. For centuries, Scots—coming from an impoverished land on the outskirts of Europe with few natural resources—had been among the most mobile people on that continent. Long before they began moving to America, Scots had traveled extensively within Europe, to the Baltic and Scandinavia and the Low Countries in search of opportunity in the army or in trade; the seventeenth-century movement to Ulster was one manifestation of that tradition. Moreover, the necessity of finding opportunities abroad had meant that migration among the Scots affected an unusually broad spectrum of the population, extending well beyond the desperately poor to include merchants, scholars, and clergymen in substantial numbers.

Early Scots and Scots-Irish migration to America was influenced by those traditions. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, relatively few Scots traveled across the Atlantic, even though they continued to move abroad in large numbers. That was largely because they were too well connected in Europe to be interested in transatlantic migration. The frequency of out-migration, including the massive movement to Ireland during the famine years of the 1690s, left Scotland rather underpopulated at the outset of the eighteenth century, with numbers at a level not much different from the century before. Thus, the overall rate of out-migration from Scotland declined in the eighteenth century. By contrast, the north of Ireland, which had attracted so many migrants, became a fertile source of emigrants, and from the 1710s men and women from Ulster began crossing the Atlantic in ever-larger numbers.

The immigration of Scots and Scots-Irish falls into three distinct phases. The first, lasting until the outbreak of the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), saw modest Scots migration coupled with the beginning of substantial movement from Ulster. The second phase took place between the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution (1775–1783), during which time emigration from both Scotland and Ulster became increasingly prominent phenomena and closely connected movements. The final phase followed American independence and led once again to the development of distinct patterns in Scots and Scots-Irish migration.

While there had been occasional migrants from both Scotland and Ulster to North America from the beginning of English colonization, the movement began in earnest in the second decade of the eighteenth century, heading first to New England but then, increasingly, to Philadelphia. In the peak year of 1729, close to six thousand persons may have left Ulster for the Delaware Valley. That movement was a response to several forces: the relatively high population levels carried over from the Scots migrations of the late seventeenth century; fluctuations in the linen trade, a staple for Ulster Scots; and the disadvantaged position of Presbyterians as dissenters from the established Church of Ireland. Over four decades, as many as thirty thousand persons departed Ulster ports for North America, the great majority heading for the Delaware Valley towns of Philadelphia and Newcastle. As many as one-third of Ulster migrants during this period may have traveled as indentured servants. Migration from Scottish ports during this period was much less, owing in part to stagnant population levels resulting from the considerable migrations to Ireland and Europe the century before. The principal exception was a growing movement to the colonies of persons from the commercial and professional classes that included merchants, doctors, clergymen, and public officials of all sorts.

the revolutionary era

Scots-Irish migration continued and even accelerated in the second phase, as the end of the Seven Years' War opened up new lands to settlement and attracted new immigrants. At least thirty thousand and perhaps as many as fifty thousand emigrants headed to North America over the next fifteen years, still concentrating in the Delaware Valley, although increasing numbers moved west and south from there into the opening backcountry regions of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, and into the New York backcountry as well. What was new in the second phase was a dramatic increase in migration directly from Scotland, also amounting to upwards of thirty thousand persons. During this phase, migrations from the two places often overlapped, as ships from Ulster carried migrants from Scotland, while emigration promoters in Scotland advertised and enlisted agents in the north of Ireland as well.

The second phase of migration included a significantly broader spectrum of the population than had traveled before, especially from Scotland. Where earlier immigrants had come disproportionately from the educated classes, almost all from the Scottish Lowlands, they were joined after 1763 by increasing numbers of farmers and artisans. Where earlier movements had originated predominantly in the Scottish Lowlands, in the second phase nearly half of the migrants were Highlanders, and the proportion increased until the outbreak of hostilities between Britain and the colonies in 1775. Rather than concentrating in the eastern cities, as earlier migrants had done, they fanned out into the backcountry and into the underdeveloped but rapidly growing colonies of North Carolina and New York. Especially among the Highlanders, the great majority came in families and traveled as free passengers, with only a few single migrants or indentured servants among them.

Another new feature of the second phase of Scots and Scots-Irish emigration was the place it attained in public discussion. During this period Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) and James Boswell (1740–1795), touring the western islands of Scotland, saw the rising "emigration mania" wherever they went. During that time also, panicked Highland landlords asked the British government to place controls on emigration, fearing the depopulation of their estates. On the other side, political and religious dissenters cited a rising level of emigration as evidence of the need for the reform of Britain's economic and political systems, and they played leading roles in the creation of Scotland's first organized emigration companies. All of that encouraged writers and newspapers to publicize and quite probably exaggerate the movements to the point that it is difficult to separate fact from fiction in their accounts or to gauge the numbers involved.

In addition to those newcomers, the American colonies continued to attract more than their share of Scots with professional educations during this period. Among those were two who would be members of the Continental Congress and signers of the Declaration of Independence: John Witherspoon (1723–1794), minister of the Church of Scotland, who became president of the Presbyterian College of New Jersey at Princeton and de facto head of the Presbyterian Church in America, and James Wilson (1742–1798), Pennsylvania lawyer and leading political thinker, an influential member of the Constitutional Convention, and a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

after independence

The outbreak of war between America and Britain in 1775 halted the migration flow; when it resumed the following decade, there was a new United States. One result was to divert many migrants to the remaining British colonies in Upper Canada and the Maritime provinces, which in succeeding years became the principal destination for Scottish emigrants, especially from the Highlands, in numbers that sometimes exceeded the peak years of 1774–1775. Montreal and Quebec and Halifax now succeeded New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston as trading points for Scots merchants.

Migration from Ulster was less affected by American independence. By the third phase of emigration, the migration histories of Scotland and Ulster were less intertwined than they had been before, possibly because by this time the Ulster community had established a more stable identity than previously. As was the case with Scots migrants, movement from Ulster to North America resumed and even accelerated during the 1780s, in their case much of it to the new United States—as many as 5,000 arrivals per year. Migration declined during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), but accelerated afterward. Overall, perhaps 200,000 people moved from the north of Ireland to North America between 1783 and 1835, some to the Canadian provinces, some directly to the United States, and some to the new nation by way of the northern provinces.

Among Scots, the one kind of migration that continued in earnest after American independence was that of merchants and professionals. Clergymen continued to migrate, as would physicians and educators. One group of Scots who were increasingly noticeable in particular were those with industrial and technical skills in mining and textiles who would play a considerable role in transferring the technology of industrialization to the United States. They would include Robert Dale Owen (1771–1858), son of the pioneer of the model industrial community of New Lanark in Scotland and founder of the utopian community of New Harmony in Indiana; in his utopianism, Owen would be matched by his partner, Frances Wright (1795–1852). Technicians and inventors and engineers would be followed by entrepreneurs investing in all facets of American development, of whom the most renowned would be Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919).

Another kind of immigrant who arrived in the new nation from both Scotland and Ulster was the political refugee. The 1790s was a decade of political reaction in Britain and Ireland, and those who supported political reform in Britain or the campaign of the United Irishmen—led first by Ulster Presbyterians—found themselves confronting prison and exile. Among those who fled to America were political journalists, such as the Scotsman James Thomson Callender (1758–?), and the future ornithologist Alexander Wilson (1766–1813). Most would support the Jeffersonian party or later democratic movements.

One thing that particularly distinguished Scots and Scots-Irish immigration from that of most ethnic groups was their relatively easy adjustment into American society as white, English-speaking Protestants from the United Kingdom—despite occasional outbursts against the allegedly uncivilized Scots-Irish of the backcountry or "Scotch mercenaries" at the time of the American Revolution. Thus, they never faced the discrimination encountered by Catholic migrants from southern Ireland. They have been called invisible immigrants for their ability to fit in. Moreover, the Presbyterianism of the largest number of these migrants was often more in keeping with the American religious mainstream even than the predominant Anglicanism of the majority of newcomers from England.

Their relatively easy adaptation was facilitated also by their migratory traditions. From early on, both Ulster Scots and Scots Highlanders were regarded as a valuable resource for settling backcountry lands, where they could serve as a buffer for eastern settlers against Indian attacks. Their history of venturing abroad in search of commercial opportunities also made them well suited to promoting the commercial development of the backcountry, where Scots traders established a powerful and disproportionate presence. And, having established some of the Western world's leading programs in the sciences and technology during the eighteenth century, and as a result of the long-standing willingness of trained and educated Scots to travel, Scots, along with the Ulster natives who flocked to their universities, played critical roles in bringing technical expertise and inventiveness to the new nation.

See alsoDemography; Denominationalism; Frontier; Frontier Religion; Frontiersmen; Presbyterians .

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Ned C. Landsman