BOOK NOTES by Dr. Joan Ruddiman
In our age of hyphenated Americans African-American, Irish-American, Chinese-American, German-American, etc., etc. one ethnic group does not even recognize their roots, let alone call themselves by name. They are America’s "invisible ethnicity," according to author James Webb, preferring to be identified by region and belief system rather than country of origin. However, Webb makes a fascinating case that where they came from and how they got to America literally stamped the image of "American."
"Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America" is a prototype title for what is an historical thesis. Author Webb, however, is not an historian. He is a retired Marine, Georgetown-educated lawyer, former Secretary of the Navy, and fiction writer. He is also the product of many generations of Scots-Irish from places like Big Moccasin Gap, Va. and White County, Ark. After a lifetime of stories of "his people," and observations of others that seemed to be just like them regardless of where they lived, Webb tackled the thesis that has percolated within him longer than 30 years.
This invisible people, these "Americans," literally "shaped America."
Many years ago, I chanced upon a book by Bil Gilbert, "Westerning Man: The Life of Joseph Walker," that is one of the best of its kind. Gilbert took the story of an exemplar early western explorer/trader to tell a larger story of how the tiny little 13 colonies clinging to the eastern coastline finally burst through the Appalachian Mountains to the California coast. For 200 years, English and other European settlers hugged the eastern edge fearing the "dark and bloody grounds" of the mountains to the west. Even after Lewis and Clark mapped the way and helped dispel fears of the unknown, the risks seem too great to venture westward.
Gilbert told the story of how Benjamin Franklin brought over the persecuted Germans with the intent that they would extend colonial civilization westward. We know these people as the Amish. Those first immigrants took one look at the lovely farmlands of the Lancaster area and settled in for a long run.
Webb clarifies that the mastermind who saw the advantages of importing Scot-Irish was James Logan, a Franklin contemporary. Logan and Franklin, who had come to know the Scots well in their travels to England, recognized that these were a hardy group of people who seemed perfectly suited to the task of pioneering tough terrain. First and foremost, the Scots-Irish were fierce fighters. When not fighting, they farmed. However, unlike the Germans, they were used to hardscrabble farming on rocky, thin soil in harsh climates.
Where Logan/Franklin and company intended these immigrants to go was into a brutal battle with the tribes of Appalachia, in order to create farms and settlements in as brutal a wilderness. There was nothing bucolic about the craggy ridges and dark valleys of what we now call Pittsburgh, Pa., Louisville, Ky., Gatlinburg, Tenn., and Asheville, N.C. The emerging America needed more space and really tough people to settle the lands it claimed to the west.
The third descriptor of these people proved to be their greatest asset and the bane of anyone who encountered them. They are and have always been clannish. For every fighting man you got a tough fighting and farming wife, a passel of children, parents, siblings and an entire contingent of in-laws. A Scots-Irish "family" was the basis for an entire settlement. And once they settled, it was their way or the highway for anyone outside their vision of what society should be.
Webb cites data from the early migration period that Scots-Irish migrated in groups of 600 to 800 at a time. Astounding! Over a period of about 50 years in the early 18th century, he cites estimates that 250,000 to 400,000 Scots-Irish immigrated to America. Given their penchant for welcoming others into their midst fight with us or marry one of us and you ARE us these statistics might include others than those coming from the contentious Ulster region or Scotland itself.
If you are among the legions that have some claim to Scots-Irish ancestry, this book will captivate and inspire you. For those who are observers of the state of America, Webb offers insights into current affairs. The book hooked me on both points.
When Webb described the route taken by thousands of Scots-Irish immigrants, the pattern perfectly fit my family’s story. The Gould side of my family absolutely English in origin somewhere along the line must have hooked up with or married into a "clan." We’ve traced Goulds from Vermont, through Brooklyn, to Kentucky from where my grandfather went to Texas.
Webb explains that the rough, uneducated, boisterous (to put it mildly) Scots-Irish though staunch Presbyterians were most unwelcome by the New England Puritans who pushed them right through to Vermont. Bennington, Vt., to be precise, which is a prominently mentioned "jumping off" point for many early immigrants as hosts of genealogists have discovered.
Just like with my Gould genealogy that uses birth and death records, a circuitous path to the west is traced as the Scots-Irish move south into Kentucky, Tennessee and ultimately other points west. Gilbert traced variations of this path years ago in "Westerning Man" with names like Carson, Houston, Boone, Bridger the great Tennessee contingent that tamed the West.
Scratch the surface and the majority of what we refer to as White Anglo Saxon Protestants are more accurately defined as Scots-Irish. Webb carefully traces the long history of a people over 1,000 years and significant migrations to explain who they are and why they behave as they do. As he develops the "born fighting" thesis, using respectable historical sources, Webb extends the understanding to "how the Scots-Irish shaped America."
Think red states and blue states. Has always been thus, Webb claims. The educated, elitist Puritans strongly encouraged the Scots-Irish to go to Vermont. The Virginia gentry welcomed them into their western regions to "clear the way" and then gladly watched them move out of their area, further into the wilderness. The Germans in Pennsylvania pushed them immediately out of Lancaster into the hell of unsettled frontier of Pittsburgh and beyond.
The "Eastern Establishment" today looks down the same patrician nose at these "rednecks," "crackers" and "trailer park trash" (thank you, James Carville, who should know better). These slurs existed in one form or another for longer than 300 years in America.
Ask them if they care. Gun control, states’ rights, small government, the war in Iraq, abortion, and the Christian right are hot-button issues that are grounded, claims Webb, in the very core of the Scots-Irish passion for independence, democracy, fidelity to God and family. As Webb puts it:
"Even today, an individual and issue at a time, the Scots-Irish refuse to accept the politics of group privilege that have been foisted on America by the paternalistic Ivy-League-centered, media-connected, politically correct power centers."
This book totally captivated my thoughts. Beyond my fascination with family history, Webb extended the political dialogue for me to encompass a totally plausible explanation for why we might look like "two Americas."
Though Webb makes far too much, I think, of the Andrew Jackson presidency (adopting an Indian child does not erase the Trail of Tears and other atrocities), his thesis rises above his own family history. He is a wonderful writer, weaving complex history with family anecdotes to build a bigger picture. He does what all good history should do answer the big "so what?"
Webb obviously has thought through his thesis as he has lived the life of a fighting man born of resilient Scots-Irish people. The world he sees does indeed seem to have been shaped by these quintessential Americans.
Joan Ruddiman, Ed.D., is a teacher and friend of the Allentown Public Library.