I've been reading about the origin of the "Scotch-Irish" settlers who came to live in N.C. in the 1700s. They were mainly Protestants (Presbyterians) from Ulster who over the years became fervent Americans, not "loyalists" — in other words, they didn't feel loyal to the British crown at the time of the war of independence. They weren't Irish, but Scots who lived in Northern Ireland for a few generations before continuing to move westward.
The Methodist church in Bath, North Carolina
A lot of people had left Scotland and settled in Northern Ireland in the late 1600s and early 1700s. England's king at the time was a Protestant and he encouraged Protestants to settle in Ireland. An economic depression and wars over the course of the 1700s led many of those settlers to leave Ulster and move to North America to seek a better life. I know that a number of my ancestors emigrated to America from Ulster in the late 1700s and ended up settling in North Carolina.
Great to know our roots
ReplyDeleteMost were settlers on lands seized from the native Irish. They lived surrounded by enemies and learned skills useful in American frontier conditions.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter is doing our genealogy ... All I know so far is they were Scottish and English and managed to have plenty of children and survive ... how hard times were then .. how strong all of those people were ..
ReplyDeleteAs for displacing the native Irish, blame King James. Here I am in Paris.
ReplyDeleteThose were my relatives also. I'm glad you are in Paris.
ReplyDeleteA number of the Scots displaced by the British, especially after the Highland clearances and Culloden, found their way as well to North Carolina and settled eventually in the Appalachians. Some of the Irish, too, and the hyphenated hybrids. The music carries the history, and even now there are strong musical similarities between the regions, in songs and fiddling. Some of the same kinds of people settled along the Maine coast and into the Maritimes.
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