"No people so few in number have scored so deep a mark in the world's history as the Scots have done. No people have a greater right to be proud of their blood."—James Anthony Froude.
SCOTTISH EMIGRATION TO THE AMERICAN COLONIES
Scottish emigration to America came in two streams—one direct from the motherland and the other through the province of Ulster in the north of Ireland. Those who came by this second route are usually known as "Ulster Scots," or more commonly as "Scotch-Irish," and they have been claimed as Irishmen by Irish writers in the United States. This is perhaps excusable but hardly just. Throughout their residence in Ireland the Scots settlers preserved their distinctive Scottish characteristics, and generally described themselves as "the Scottish nation in the north of Ireland." They, of course, like the early pioneers in this country, experienced certain changes through the influence of their new surroundings, but, as one writer has remarked, they "remained as distinct from the native population as if they had never crossed the Channel. They were among the Irish but not of them." Their sons, too, when they attended the classes in the University of Glasgow, signed the matriculation register as "A Scot of Ireland." They did not intermarry with the native Irish, though they did intermarry to some extent with the English Puritans and with the French Huguenots. (These Huguenots were colonies driven out of France by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and induced to settle in the north of Ireland by William III. To this people Ireland is indebted for its lace industry, which they introduced into that country.)
Again many Irish-American writers on the Scots Plantation of Ulster have assumed that the Scots settlers were entirely or almost of Gaelic origin, ignoring the fact, if they were aware of it, that the people of the Scottish lowlands were "almost as English in racial derivation as if they had come from the North of England." Parker, the historian of Londonderry, New Hampshire, speaking of the early Scots settlers in New England, has well said: "Although they came to this land from Ireland, where their ancestors had a century before planted themselves, yet they retained unmixed the national Scotch character. Nothing sooner offended them than to be called Irish. Their antipathy to this appellation had its origin in the hostility then existing in Ireland between the Celtic race, the native Irish, and the English and Scotch colonists." Belknap, in his History of New Hampshire (Boston, 1791) quotes a letter from the Rev. James MacGregor (1677-1729) to Governor Shute in which the writer says: "We are surprised to hear ourselves termed Irish people, when we so frequently ventured our all for the British Crown and liberties against the Irish papists, and gave all tests, of our loyalty, which the government of Ireland required, and are always ready to do the same when demanded."
Down to the present day the descendants of these Ulster Scots settlers living in the United States who have maintained an interest in their origin, always insist that they are of Scottish and not of Irish origin. On this point it will be sufficient to quote the late Hon. Leonard Allison Morrison, of New Hampshire. Writing twenty-five years ago he said: "I am one of Scotch-Irish blood and my ancestor came with Rev. McGregor of Londonderry, and neither they nor any of their descendants were willing to be called 'merely Irish.' I have twice visited," he adds, "the parish of Aghadowney, Co. Londonderry, from which they came, in Ireland, and all that locality is filled, not with 'Irish' but with Scotch-Irish, and this is pure Scotch blood to-day, after more than 200 years." The mountaineers of Tennessee and Kentucky are largely the descendants of these same Ulster Scots, and their origin is conclusively shown by the phrase used by mothers to their unruly children: "If you don't behave, Clavers [i.e., Claverhouse] will get you."
If we must continue to use the hyphen when referring to these early immigrants it is preferable to use the term "Ulster Scot" instead of "Scotch-Irish," as was pointed out by the late Whitelaw Reid, because it does not confuse the race with the accident of birth, and because the people preferred it themselves. "If these Scottish and Presbyterian colonists," he says, "must be called Irish because they had been one or two generations in the north of Ireland, then the Pilgrim Fathers, who had been one generation or more in Holland, must by the same reasoning be called Dutch or at the very least English Dutch."
To understand the reasons for the Scots colonization of Ulster and the replantation in America it is necessary to look back three centuries in British history. On the crushing of the Irish rebellion under Sir Cahir O'Dogherty in 1607 about 500,000 acres of forfeited land in the province of Ulster were at the disposal of the crown. At the suggestion of King James the I. of England, Ulster was divided into lots and offered to colonists from England. Circumstances, however, turned what was mainly intended to be an English enterprise into a Scottish one. Scottish participation "which does not seem to have been originally regarded as important," became eventually, as Ford points out, the mainstay of the enterprise. "Although from the first there was an understanding between [Sir Arthur] Chichester and the English Privy Council that eventually the plantation would be opened to Scotch settlers, no steps were taken in that direction until the plan had been matured ... The first public announcement of any Scottish connection with the Ulster plantation appears in a letter of March 19, 1609, from Sir Alexander Hay, the Scottish secretary resident at the English Court, to the Scottish Privy Council at Edinburgh." In this communication Hay announced that the king "out of his unspeikable love and tindir affectioun" for his Scottish subjects had decided that they were to be allowed a share, and he adds, that here is a great opportunity for Scotland since "we haif greitt advantaige of transporting of our men and bestiall [i.e., live stock of a farm] in regairde we lye so neir to that coiste of Ulster." Immediately on receipt of this letter the Scottish Privy Council made public proclamation of the news and announced that those of them "quho ar disposit to tak ony land in Yreland" were to present their desires and petitions to the Council. The first application enrolled was by "James Andirsoun portionair of Litle Govane," and by the 14th of September seventy-seven Scots had come forward as purchasers. If their offers had been accepted, they would have possessed among them 141,000 acres of land. In 1611, in consequence of a rearrangement of applicants the number of favored Scots was reduced to fifty-nine, with eighty-one thousand acres of land at their disposal. Each of these "Undertakers," as they were called, was accompanied to his new home by kinsmen, friends, and tenants, as Lord Ochiltree, for instance, who is mentioned as having arrived "accompanied with thirty-three followers, a minister, some tenants, freeholders, [and] artificers." By the end of 1612 the emigration from Scotland is estimated to have reached 10,000. Indeed, before the end of this year so rapidly had the traffic increased between Scotland and Ireland that the passage between the southwest of Scotland and Ulster "is now become a commoun and are ordinarie ferrie," the boat-men of which were having a rare time of it by charging what they pleased for the passage or freight. In the selection of the settlers measures were carefully taken that they should be "from the inwards part of Scotland," and that they should be so located in Ulster that "they may not mix nor intermarry" with "the mere Irish." For the most part the settlers appear to have been selected from the shires of Dumbarton, Renfrew, Ayr, Galloway, and Dumfries. Emigration from Scotland to Ireland appears to have continued steadily and the English historian Carte estimated, after diligent documentary study, that by 1641 there were in Ulster 100,000 Scots and 20,000 English settlers. In 1656 it was proposed by the Irish government that persons "of the Scottish nation desiring to come into Ireland" should be prohibited from settling in Ulster or County Louth, but the scheme was not put into effect. Governmental opposition notwithstanding emigration from Scotland to Ireland appears to have continued steadily, and after the Revolution of 1688 there seems to have been a further increase. Archbishop Synge estimated that by 1715 not less than 50,000 Scottish families had settled in Ulster during these twenty-seven years. It should be also mentioned that "before the Ulster plantation began there was already a considerable Scottish occupation of the region nearest to Scotland. These Scottish settlements were confined to counties Down and Antrim, which were not included in the scheme of the plantation. Their existence facilitated Scottish emigration to the plantation and they were influential in giving the plantation the Scottish character which it promptly acquired. Although planned to be in the main an English settlement, with one whole county turned over to the city of London alone, it soon became in the main a Scottish settlement."