The Scottish Migration to Ulster (Ireland)
Scotland was a very poor country in the years prior to the 1600s--most of its inhabitants lived at subsistence level, working small farms and keeping a few sheep or cows. An expanding population wanted more and better land, and was prepared to go wherever it could be found. Starting around 1600, Scots began to migrate to northern part of Ireland, where there was fertile land that was only sparsely settled. It is a short journey of just a few miles across the sea from the lowlands of Scotland, and thus an easy trip to make. This area was known as the Plantation of Ulster and was governed by the British.
Britain’s King James I encouraged his Scottish subjects to migrate across the Irish Sea to his Irish domain. The forces motivating this migration were mixed: Presbyterian James’s optimistic desire to convert and control his Irish Catholic subjects by planting loyal Protestants there; economic hard times in Scotland; the promise of a better life in Ireland.
The Scots-Irish Migration to America
Many changes took place in Ulster starting around the turn of the century. The 1704 Test Act required that all crown officials be of the Anglican faith; this regulation eventually included all those in the military, employed by civil service, municipal corporations, and educational institutions. The Scots-Irish, devoutly Presbyterian, were not only excluded from any sort of power, but even their clergy was stripped of its authority to perform marriages. Repressive
trade laws favored England at the expense of the Irish exporters. Rack-renting, a system whereby land rents were raised exorbitantly whenever a lease expired, began to bankrupt farmers. Although the early settlers had leased their land for 31 years, these leases began to expire starting about 1718. In the years from 1714 to 1718, drought, sheep diseases, and smallpox took their tolls on the population; by 1718 they had had enough. Coincidentally, at this time of growing suffering in Ulster, a new land of opportunity beckoned in North America. Many of the Ulster Scots migrants, or their descendants, decided that migration could once again be their salvation.
Although Scots-Irish immigrants arrived all along America’s Atlantic coast, the major flow of newcomers landed in Pennsylvania. That sea route was driven by the important trade that linked the port of Philadelphia with Ulster ports.
Land in America was abundant and cheap. For decades most immigrants could take up enough land to support a family through farming, often paying only minimal fees known as quitrents. The earliest arrivals filled the fertile soils of southeastern Pennsylvania. But as the flow continued, latecomers had to seek land claims further inland. The mountainous geography of Pennsylvania’s western interior, combined with its hostile Indian inhabitants, encouraged many of them to turn southwestward instead, into Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. That region of mild climate and fertile soils drew a steady influx of settlers from the 1720s on.
But eventually the backcountry of Pennsylvania and Virginia could not accommodate all of the immigrants who kept arriving. By the time of the Revolution, and in its immediate aftermath, the flow of settlers moved onward. By the 1780s it had pushed into the western Appalachian Mountain region of the
Carolinas and Tennessee. These settlers found a less favorable farming environment than their predecessors who had obtained land in the Shenandoah
Valley. The lands of western North Carolina were more mountainous and less easy to traverse. Nevertheless, by the outbreak of the Civil War, western North Carolina was well-settled. Some veterans of the American Revolution were given land there by the financially-strapped new federal government which could not afford to pay them in cash for their military service. Other immigrants bought extremely cheap land confiscated from the Cherokees through a series of one-sided treaties that culminated in the forced removal of the Cherokees to Oklahoma in 1838-39.
Scotland was a very poor country in the years prior to the 1600s--most of its inhabitants lived at subsistence level, working small farms and keeping a few sheep or cows. An expanding population wanted more and better land, and was prepared to go wherever it could be found. Starting around 1600, Scots began to migrate to northern part of Ireland, where there was fertile land that was only sparsely settled. It is a short journey of just a few miles across the sea from the lowlands of Scotland, and thus an easy trip to make. This area was known as the Plantation of Ulster and was governed by the British.
Britain’s King James I encouraged his Scottish subjects to migrate across the Irish Sea to his Irish domain. The forces motivating this migration were mixed: Presbyterian James’s optimistic desire to convert and control his Irish Catholic subjects by planting loyal Protestants there; economic hard times in Scotland; the promise of a better life in Ireland.
The Scots-Irish Migration to America
Many changes took place in Ulster starting around the turn of the century. The 1704 Test Act required that all crown officials be of the Anglican faith; this regulation eventually included all those in the military, employed by civil service, municipal corporations, and educational institutions. The Scots-Irish, devoutly Presbyterian, were not only excluded from any sort of power, but even their clergy was stripped of its authority to perform marriages. Repressive
trade laws favored England at the expense of the Irish exporters. Rack-renting, a system whereby land rents were raised exorbitantly whenever a lease expired, began to bankrupt farmers. Although the early settlers had leased their land for 31 years, these leases began to expire starting about 1718. In the years from 1714 to 1718, drought, sheep diseases, and smallpox took their tolls on the population; by 1718 they had had enough. Coincidentally, at this time of growing suffering in Ulster, a new land of opportunity beckoned in North America. Many of the Ulster Scots migrants, or their descendants, decided that migration could once again be their salvation.
Although Scots-Irish immigrants arrived all along America’s Atlantic coast, the major flow of newcomers landed in Pennsylvania. That sea route was driven by the important trade that linked the port of Philadelphia with Ulster ports.
Land in America was abundant and cheap. For decades most immigrants could take up enough land to support a family through farming, often paying only minimal fees known as quitrents. The earliest arrivals filled the fertile soils of southeastern Pennsylvania. But as the flow continued, latecomers had to seek land claims further inland. The mountainous geography of Pennsylvania’s western interior, combined with its hostile Indian inhabitants, encouraged many of them to turn southwestward instead, into Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. That region of mild climate and fertile soils drew a steady influx of settlers from the 1720s on.
But eventually the backcountry of Pennsylvania and Virginia could not accommodate all of the immigrants who kept arriving. By the time of the Revolution, and in its immediate aftermath, the flow of settlers moved onward. By the 1780s it had pushed into the western Appalachian Mountain region of the
Carolinas and Tennessee. These settlers found a less favorable farming environment than their predecessors who had obtained land in the Shenandoah
Valley. The lands of western North Carolina were more mountainous and less easy to traverse. Nevertheless, by the outbreak of the Civil War, western North Carolina was well-settled. Some veterans of the American Revolution were given land there by the financially-strapped new federal government which could not afford to pay them in cash for their military service. Other immigrants bought extremely cheap land confiscated from the Cherokees through a series of one-sided treaties that culminated in the forced removal of the Cherokees to Oklahoma in 1838-39.
By the Civil War, the migration of the Scots-Irish to western North Carolina was basically completed. Tens of thousands of them had arrived, in a
complex multi-generational movement of settlement and re-settlement. They brought with them their religion, folk traditions, and cultural traits which
contributed to the distinctive cultural mix that developed in Southern Appalachia out of the mingling of three very different ethnic groups—native
American, African, and European—in the region. The Scots-Irish influence still continues to impact the people of western North Carolina.
complex multi-generational movement of settlement and re-settlement. They brought with them their religion, folk traditions, and cultural traits which
contributed to the distinctive cultural mix that developed in Southern Appalachia out of the mingling of three very different ethnic groups—native
American, African, and European—in the region. The Scots-Irish influence still continues to impact the people of western North Carolina.