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89-555: Humes was born in Knoxville in 1815, the son of Thomas Humes (1767–1816) and Margaret Russell Cowan Humes (1777–1854), both of Scots-Irish descent. Humes's father, a native of Armagh , Ireland, began building the Lamar House Hotel in 1816, but died later that same year. Humes's mother oversaw the hotel's completion, however, and under her direction, it grew to become Knoxville's premier hotel. The younger Humes

178-611: A Presbyterian minister but left after deciding he could not take the Westminster Confession of Faith . After returning to Knoxville, Humes briefly worked for his half-brother's business before embarking on a career in journalism. During the late 1830s and early 1840s, he worked variously as editor of the Knoxville Times , the Knoxville Register , and a Whig Party paper, The Watch Tower . In

267-528: A dogg, or any Scotch Irish dogg". Leyburn cites the following as early American uses of the term before 1744. The Oxford English Dictionary says the first use of the term Scotch-Irish came in Pennsylvania in 1744: In Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America , historian David Hackett Fischer asserts: Some historians describe these immigrants as "Ulster Irish" or "Northern Irish". It

356-511: A funerary sermon for General Sanders, who had been mortally wounded by advancing Confederate forces in West Knoxville. Humes was named president of East Tennessee University in 1865, and almost immediately managed to secure an $ 18,500 (~$ 288,520 in 2023) federal grant to help restore the school's deteriorated campus, which had been occupied by both Union and Confederate armies during the war. In 1869, Tennessee's state government designated

445-532: A group they produced goods for themselves and for others. They generally were Patriots . Just prior to the Revolution, a second stream of immigrants came directly from Ireland via Charleston. This group was forced to move into an underdeveloped area because they could not afford expensive land. Most of this group remained loyal to the Crown or neutral when the war began. Prior to Charles Cornwallis 's march into

534-624: A name by which they are not known here. ... Here their name is Scotch-Irish; let us call them by it." From 1710 to 1775, over 200,000 people settled from Ulster to the original thirteen American colonies. The largest numbers went to Pennsylvania. From that base some went south into Virginia, the Carolinas and across the South, with a large concentration in the Appalachian region . Others headed west to western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and

623-523: A nobleman named Sorley Boy MacDonnell and others, who be of the Scotch-Irish race ... This term continued in usage for over a century before the earliest known American reference appeared in a Maryland affidavit in 1689–90. Scotch-Irish, according to James Leyburn, "is an Americanism, generally unknown in Scotland and Ireland, and rarely used by British historians". It became common in

712-655: A public school system. In 1873, Humes co-founded the St. John's Orphanage, which operated in Knoxville into the 20th century. In 1886, Humes was named the first librarian of the Lawson McGhee Library, which had been established the previous year. In 1888, Humes published Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee , an account of the Civil War in East Tennessee. While Humes attempted to provide a dispassionate view of

801-713: A residence hall on the campus of the University of Tennessee, is named for Humes. In 1983, Humes' Federal-style house in Knoxville, which had stood behind St. John's Episcopal Church for nearly 140 years, was torn down. Many of the house's fixtures were salvaged by preservationists, however, and the local group, Knox Heritage, has considered building a reproduced version of the house. Scotch-Irish American 977,075 (0.3%) "Scotch-Irish" alone 2021 estimates, self-reported Scotch-Irish Americans are American descendants of primarily Ulster Scots people who emigrated from Ulster ( Ireland 's northernmost province) to

890-834: A single monarch with the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when James VI , King of Scots, succeeded Elizabeth I as ruler of England and Ireland. In addition to the unstable border region, James also inherited Elizabeth's conflicts in Ireland. Following the end of the Irish Nine Years' War in 1603, and the Flight of the Earls in 1607, James embarked in 1609 on a systematic plantation of English and Scottish Protestant settlers to Ireland's northern province of Ulster. The Plantation of Ulster

979-553: A type of whiskey , etc., and in the term Scotch-Irish. Although referenced by Merriam-Webster dictionaries as having first appeared in 1744, the American term Scotch-Irish is undoubtedly older. An affidavit of William Patent, dated March 15, 1689, in a case against a Mr. Matthew Scarbrough in Somerset County, Maryland , quotes Mr. Patent as saying he was told by Scarbrough that "it was no more sin to kill me then to kill

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1068-711: Is roughly 4,000 deaths. In one notorious incident, the Protestant inhabitants of Portadown were taken captive and then massacred on the bridge in the town. The settlers responded in kind, as did the Dublin Castle administration , with attacks on the Irish civilian population. Massacres of native civilians occurred at Rathlin Island and elsewhere. In early 1642, the Covenanters sent an army to Ulster to defend

1157-633: Is that over 200,000 Scotch-Irish migrated to the Americas between 1717 and 1775. As a late-arriving group, they found that land in the coastal areas of the British colonies was either already owned or too expensive, so they quickly left for the more mountainous interior where land could be obtained less expensively. Here they lived on the first frontier of America. Early frontier life was challenging, but poverty and hardship were familiar to them. The term hillbilly has often been applied to their descendants in

1246-592: Is true that many sailed from the province of Ulster ... part of much larger flow which drew from the lowlands of Scotland, the north of England, and every side of the Irish Sea. Many scholars call these people Scotch-Irish . That expression is an Americanism, rarely used in Britain and much resented by the people to whom it was attached. "We're no Eerish bot Scoatch," one of them was heard to say in Pennsylvania. Fischer prefers to speak of "borderers" (referring to

1335-640: Is used primarily in the United States, with people in Great Britain or Ireland who are of a similar ancestry identifying as Ulster Scots people . Many left for North America, but over 100,000 Scottish Presbyterians still lived in Ulster in 1700. Many English-born settlers of this period were also Presbyterians. When King Charles I attempted to force these Presbyterians into the Church of England in

1424-539: The Alleghenies , as well as into Virginia , North Carolina , South Carolina , Georgia , Kentucky , and Tennessee . The typical migration involved small networks of related families who settled together, worshipped together, and intermarried, avoiding outsiders. Most Scotch-Irish landed in Philadelphia. Without much cash, they moved to free lands on the frontier, becoming the typical western "squatters",

1513-531: The Anglo-Scottish border , a region that had seen centuries of conflict. In the near constant state of war between England and Scotland during the Middle Ages, the livelihood of the people on the borders was devastated by the contending armies. Even when the countries were not at war, tension remained high, and royal authority in one or the other kingdom was often weak. The uncertainty of existence led

1602-741: The Cherokee , and being outside the claims of any colony, established the Watauga Association to provide basic government functions. The lease and the subsequent purchase of these lands in 1775 were considered illegal by the British Crown, and were vehemently opposed by a growing faction of the Cherokee led by the young chief Dragging Canoe . With the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War (April 1775),

1691-774: The German Palatinate , and France (such as the French Huguenot ancestors of Davy Crockett ). What united these different national groups was a base of Calvinist religious beliefs, and their separation from the established church (the Church of England and Church of Ireland in this case). That said, the large ethnic Scottish element in the Plantation of Ulster gave the settlements a Scottish character. Upon arrival in North America, these migrants at first usually identified simply as Irish, without

1780-967: The Lenape (Delaware), Shawnee , Seneca , and others tribes of western Pennsylvania and the Ohio Country . Indigenous attacks occurred within 60 miles of Philadelphia, and in July 1763 the Pennsylvania Assembly authorized the raising of a 700-strong militia to be used only for defense. Formed into two units of rangers, the Cumberland Boys and the Paxton Boys , the militia soon exceeded their mandate and began offensive forays against Lenape villages. The Paxton Boys' leaders received information, which they believed credible, that "hostile" tribes were receiving information and support from

1869-537: The Republic of Watauga ) was a semi-autonomous government created in 1772 by frontier settlers living along the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee . Although it lasted only a few years, the Watauga Association provided a basis for what later developed into the state of Tennessee and likely influenced other western frontier governments in the trans-Appalachian region. North Carolina annexed

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1958-810: The Ulster Protestants as British (a description many Ulster Protestants have preferred themselves to Irish , at least since the Irish Free State broke free from the United Kingdom, although Ulstermen has been adopted in order to maintain a distinction from the native Irish Gaels while retaining a claim to the North of Ireland). However, as one scholar observed in 1944, "in this country [the US], where they have been called Scotch-Irish for over two hundred years, it would be absurd to give them

2047-641: The Watauga , Nolichucky , and Holston river valleys in the late 1760s and early 1770s, most migrating from Virginia via the Great Valley , although a few were believed to have been Regulators fleeing North Carolina after their defeat at the Battle of Alamance . These settlers mistakenly believed (or at least claimed to have believed) the Watauga and Nolichucky valleys were part of lands ceded to Virginia by

2136-795: The elite of 17th and 18th century Ireland. For this reason, up until the 19th century, and despite their common fear of Irish Catholics, there was considerable disharmony between the Presbyterians and the Protestant Ascendancy in Ulster. As a result of this, many Ulster-Scots, along with Catholic native Irish, ignored religious differences to join the United Irishmen and participate in the Irish Rebellion of 1798 , in support of Age of Enlightenment -inspired egalitarian and republican goals. Scholarly estimate

2225-683: The "friendly" tribe of Susquehannock (Conestoga) settled in Lancaster County, who were under the protection of the Pennsylvania government. On December 14, 1763, about fifty Paxton Boys rode to Conestoga Town, near Millersville, Pennsylvania, and murdered six Conestogas. Pennsylvanian authorities placed the remaining fourteen Conestogas in protective custody in the Lancaster workhouse, but the Paxton Boys broke in, killing and mutilating all fourteen on December 27, 1763. In February 1764,

2314-581: The 1630s, many chose to immigrate to North America, where religious liberty was greater. Later attempts to force the Church of England's control over dissident Protestants in Ireland led to further waves of immigration to the transatlantic colonies. The term is first known to have been used for Scottish Catholics in Ireland. In a letter of April 14, 1573, in reference to descendants of " gallowglass " mercenaries from Scotland who had settled in Ireland, Elizabeth I of England wrote: We are given to understand that

2403-548: The 1770s. In Pennsylvania, Virginia, and most of the Carolinas, support for the revolution was "practically unanimous". One Hessian officer said, "Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American rebellion; it is nothing more or less than a Scotch Irish Presbyterian rebellion." A British major general testified to the House of Commons that "half the rebel Continental Army were from Ireland". Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, with its large Scotch-Irish population,

2492-534: The 18th century (between 1717 and 1770 alone, about 250,000 settled in what would become the United States ). According to Kerby Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (1988), Protestants were one-third the population of Ireland, but three-quarters of all emigrants leaving from 1700 to 1776; 70% of these Protestants were Presbyterians. Other factors contributing to

2581-573: The Appalachian Mountains and defeated an army of British loyalists at the Battle of Kings Mountain —mustered at Sycamore Shoals, and included 240 Wataugans under the command of Cols. John Sevier and Isaac Shelby. After the battle, Sevier led a second punitive expedition against the Cherokee in which he destroyed the Chickamauga Cherokee villages near modern Chattanooga . At least one Wataugan, William Tatham,

2670-595: The Battle of Fort Sanders and the aftermath of the East Tennessee bridge burnings . Humes died on January 16, 1892, shortly after collapsing while working in the Lawson McGhee Library. His funeral was held at the Second Presbyterian Church, and his funeral procession was accompanied by University of Tennessee faculty and students. He is buried in Knoxville's Old Gray Cemetery . Humes Hall,

2759-479: The Cherokee in the 1770 Treaty of Lochaber , but a subsequent survey by Colonel John Donelson confirmed that these lands were still part of the Cherokee domain. As settlement on lands west of colonial boundaries violated the Royal Proclamation of 1763 , the Watauga and Nolichucky settlers were ordered to leave. In May 1772, the Watauga and Nolichucky settlers negotiated a 10-year lease directly with

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2848-755: The Cherokee signed the Treaty of Long Island, ceding control of the Watauga and Nolichucky valleys to the American colonies. Since no copy of the Articles of the Watauga Association has ever been found, most of what is known about it comes from other sources, primarily the 1776 Petition of the Inhabitants of the Washington District , commonly called the "Watauga Petition," in which the Wataugans requested annexation by North Carolina. According to

2937-595: The Covenanter movement in Scotland, the Parliament of Scotland had threatened to invade Ireland in order to achieve "the extirpation of Popery out of Ireland" (according to the interpretation of Richard Bellings , a leading Irish politician of the time). The fear this caused in Ireland unleashed a wave of massacres against Protestant English and Scottish settlers, mostly in Ulster, once the rebellion had broken out. All sides displayed extreme cruelty in this phase of

3026-631: The Kingdom of Dál Riata , eventually mixing with the native Pictish culture throughout Scotland. The Irish Gaels had previously been named Scoti by the Romans , and eventually their name was applied to the entire Kingdom of Scotland . The origins of the Scotch-Irish lie primarily in the Lowlands of Scotland and in northern England , particularly in the Border Country on either side of

3115-626: The Midwest. Transatlantic flows were halted by the American Revolution , but resumed after 1783, with total of 100,000 arriving in America between 1783 and 1812. By that point few were young servants and more were mature craftsmen, and they settled in industrial centers, including Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and New York, where many became skilled workers, foremen and entrepreneurs as the Industrial Revolution took off in

3204-401: The North Carolina Assembly to annex the district. In November of that year, North Carolina granted the petition and formally annexed the area. The Washington District was finally admitted to North Carolina as Washington County in November 1777. The Cherokee, who were aligned with the British, launched an all-out invasion against the settlements in July 1776, but were soundly defeated. In 1777,

3293-464: The Paxton Boys with a few hundred backcountry settlers, primarily Scotch-Irish, marched on Philadelphia with the intent of killing the Moravian Indians who had been given shelter there. Benjamin Franklin led a delegation that met the marchers at Germantown, Philadelphia . Following negotiations the Paxton Boys agreed to disperse and submit their grievances in writing. The United States Declaration of Independence contained 56 delegate signatures. Of

3382-399: The Petition, the Articles were fashioned after the laws of Virginia and were enacted by unanimous consent of the settlers. The primary reason given for the establishment of the Watauga Association was to prevent the Watauga and Nolichucky regions from becoming a haven for debtors and felons, and for conducting "public business" such as the recording of deeds and wills. Other sources, such as

3471-456: The Protestant settlers in the province of Ulster. However, the Presbyterians and other dissenters, along with Catholics, were not members of the established church and were consequently legally disadvantaged by the Penal Laws , which gave full rights only to members of the Church of England or Church of Ireland . Members of the Church of Ireland mostly consisted of the Protestant Ascendancy , Protestant settlers of English descent who formed

3560-448: The Scottish settlers there from the Irish rebels who had attacked them after the outbreak of the rebellion. The original intention of the Scottish army was to re-conquer Ireland, but due to logistical and supply problems, it was never in a position to advance far beyond its base in eastern Ulster. The Covenanter force remained in Ireland until the end of the civil wars but was confined to its garrison around Carrickfergus after its defeat by

3649-448: The Spring and Summer of 1776, the Wataugans heeded a call to arms and dispatched a company of riflemen under Felix Walker to aide in the defense of Charleston in South Carolina. In August 1780, a small contingent led by Col. Isaac Shelby fought in the American Patriot victory at the Battle of Musgrove Mill near present-day Clinton, South Carolina . In late September 1780, the Overmountain Men —the frontier militia that crossed

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3738-414: The U.S. Another half million came to America 1815 to 1845; another 900,000 came in 1851–99. While settling in the new world evolved Scotch-Irish culture, what the settlers brought is the basis of what has been and is referred to as American culture. According to the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups , there were 400,000 U.S. residents of Irish birth or ancestry in 1790 and half of this group

3827-473: The United States after 1850. The term is somewhat ambiguous because some of the Scotch-Irish have little or no Scottish or Irish ancestry at all: numerous dissenter families had also been transplanted to Ulster from northern England, in particular the border counties of Northumberland and Cumberland . Smaller numbers of migrants also came from Wales , the Isle of Man , and the southeast of England, and others were Protestant religious refugees from Flanders ,

3916-517: The United States during the 18th and 19th centuries. Their ancestors had originally migrated to Ulster, mainly from the Scottish Lowlands and Northern England in the 17th century. In the 2017 American Community Survey , 5.39 million (1.7% of the population) reported Scottish ancestry, an additional 3 million (0.9% of the population) identified more specifically with Scotch-Irish ancestry, and many people who claim " American ancestry " may actually be of Scotch-Irish ancestry. The term Scotch-Irish

4005-479: The Watauga Association ever claimed to be outside the sovereign territory of the British Crown, historians have often cited the Association as the earliest attempt by American-born colonists to form an independent democratic government. In 1774, Virginia governor Lord Dunmore called the Watauga Association a "dangerous example" of Americans forming a government "distinct from and independent of his majesty's authority." President Theodore Roosevelt later wrote that

4094-399: The Watauga settlement area, by then known as the Washington District , in November 1776. Within a year, the area was placed under a county government, becoming Washington County, North Carolina, in November 1777. This area covers the present day Washington County , Carter County , and other areas now located in the northeast part of the state of Tennessee . While there is no evidence that

4183-458: The Watauga settlers were the "first men of American birth to establish a free and independent community on the continent." While no copy of the settlers' compact, known as the Articles of the Watauga Association , has ever been found, related documents tend to imply that the Watauga settlers still considered themselves British subjects, even after the initial hostilities of the American Revolution had commenced. European settlers began arriving in

4272-403: The West , Theodore Roosevelt treated the Watauga Association as a microcosm of the subsequent American Revolution, writing, "the Watauga settlers outlined in advance the nation's work. They tamed the rugged and shaggy wilderness, they bid defiance to outside foes, and they successfully solved the difficult problem of self-government." Recent historians point out that while the Watauga Association

4361-421: The backcountry in 1780, two-thirds of the men among the Waxhaw settlement had declined to serve in the army. The British massacre of American prisoners at the Battle of Waxhaws resulted in anti-British sentiment in a bitterly divided region. While many individuals chose to take up arms against the British, the British themselves forced the people to choose sides. In the 1790s, the new American government assumed

4450-475: The backcountry of the Appalachian region. The new wave of Catholic Irish settled primarily in port cities such as Boston, New York, Charleston, Chicago, Memphis and New Orleans, where large immigrant communities formed and there were an increasing number of jobs. Many of the new Irish migrants also went to the interior in the 19th century, attracted to jobs on large-scale infrastructure projects such as canals and railroads . The usage Scots-Irish developed in

4539-499: The character of Northern New Englanders reflect this fact. The Scotch-Irish brought the potato with them from Ireland (although the potato originated in South America, it was not known in North America until brought over from Europe). In Maine it became a staple crop as well as an economic base. From 1717 for the next thirty or so years, the primary points of entry for the Ulster immigrants were Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New Castle, Delaware. The Scotch-Irish radiated westward across

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4628-444: The city by General William P. Sanders . When General Ambrose Burnside 's Union forces occupied Knoxville in September 1863, the general asked Humes to resume his position as rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, which Humes accepted. Confederate diarist Ellen Renshaw House, a member of the St. John's congregation, boycotted Humes's opening sermon, calling Humes "the grandest old rascal that ever was." In November 1863, Humes performed

4717-402: The construction of Fort Watauga (initially named Fort Caswell and located at present day Elizabethton, Tennessee ), where they thwarted one wing of the Cherokee invasion of July 1776. Wataugans took part in William Christian 's punitive expedition and the Rutherford Light Horse expedition against the Overhill towns in the latter half of 1776. Even at the height of the Cherokee threat in

4806-492: The court, although most agree that it included John Carter, James Robertson , Charles Robertson, and Zachariah Isbell. The fifth member was probably Jacob Brown. Later court members included Andrew Greer, John Roddye, and John Sevier . James Smith was probably the court's first clerk, replaced by Sevier in 1775. When Sevier was elected to the court, Felix Walker took over as clerk, with Tatham serving in his absence. Wataugan militiamen were present at multiple engagements on

4895-670: The debts the individual states had amassed during the American Revolutionary War , and the Congress placed a tax on whiskey (among other things) to help repay those debts. Large producers were assessed a tax of six cents a gallon. Smaller producers, many of whom were Scottish (often Scotch-Irish) descent and located in the more remote areas, were taxed at a higher rate of nine cents a gallon. These rural settlers were short of cash to begin with, and lacked any practical means to get their grain to market, other than fermenting and distilling it into relatively potable spirits. Watauga Association The Watauga Association (sometimes referred to as

4984-407: The early 19th century, when it was replaced by the word "Scottish". People in Scotland refer to themselves as Scots, as a noun, or adjectivally/collectively as Scots or Scottish . The use of "Scotch" as an adjective has been dropped in the UK and Ireland where it is now more commonly regarded as offensive, but remains in use in the U.S. in place names, names of plants, breeds of dog, a type of tape,

5073-420: The fighting on the frontier from New Hampshire to the Carolinas. The Scots-Irish also became the middlemen who handled trade and negotiations between indigenous tribes and the colonial governments. Especially in Pennsylvania, whose pacifist Quaker leaders had made no provision for a militia, Scotch-Irish settlements were frequently destroyed and the settlers killed, captured or forced to flee after attacks by

5162-542: The frontier and throughout the American Revolution. A company of 20 Wataugans took part in the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774 during Lord Dunmore's War , and another contingent aided in the defense of Boonesborough and Harrodsburg later in the decade. The Washington District Committee of Safety, created in 1775, consisted of John Carter, Zachariah Isbell, Jacob Brown, John Sevier, James Smith, James and Charles Robertson, William Bean , John Jones, George Russell, and Robert Lucas. The Committee acquired arms and oversaw

5251-531: The frontier guard of the colony, and what the historian Frederick Jackson Turner described as "the cutting-edge of the frontier". The Scotch-Irish moved up the Delaware River to Bucks County , and then up the Susquehanna and Cumberland valleys, finding flat lands along the rivers and creeks to set up their log cabins , their grist mills , and their Presbyterian churches. Chester, Lancaster, and Dauphin counties became their strongholds, and they built towns such as Chambersburg, Gettysburg, Carlisle, and York;

5340-406: The high level of patriotism was the Waxhaw settlement on the lower Catawba River along the North Carolina-South Carolina boundary, where Loyalism was strong. The area experienced two main settlement periods of Scotch-Irish. During the 1750s–1760s, second- and third-generation Scotch-Irish Americans moved from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. This particular group had large families, and as

5429-504: The historically war-torn England-Scotland border) as the population ancestral to the "backcountry" "cultural stream" (one of the four major and persistent cultural streams from Ireland and Britain which he identifies in American history). He notes the borderers had substantial English and Scandinavian roots. He describes them as being quite different from Gaelic-speaking groups such as the Scottish Highlanders or Irish (that is, Gaelic-speaking and predominantly Roman Catholic). An example of

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5518-460: The history of the U.S. Constitution, wrote of the Wataugans, "one can find no more striking fact in American history, nor one more typical, than the simple ease with which those frontiersmen ... formed an association and extended the rights and privileges of self-government." McLaughlin's colleague Claude Van Tyne wrote of the Wataugans, "like the Pilgrim Fathers they were without formal laws and institutions, and they made them." In The Winning of

5607-481: The late 19th century as a relatively recent version of the term. Two early citations include: 1) "a grave, elderly man of the race known in America as 'Scots-Irish ' " (1870); and 2) "Dr. Cochran was of stately presence, of fair and florid complexion, features which testified his Scots-Irish descent" (1884). In Ulster-Scots (or "Ullans"), Scotch-Irish Americans are referred to as the Scotch Airish o' Amerikey . Twentieth-century English author Kingsley Amis endorsed

5696-419: The later writings of Washington District Committee of Safety clerk pro tem William Tatham (1752–1819) and documents collected by historian J. G. M. Ramsey in the mid-19th century, reveal that the Articles established a five-member court (the members of which were elected), and that the Wataugans erected a courthouse and jail at Sycamore Shoals . Historians disagree over the first five magistrates of

5785-488: The laws of Virginia, even though the settlement was clearly within the territory of North Carolina). In the mid-1780s, some former Wataugans (especially John Sevier) played a key role in the establishment of the failed State of Franklin . Numerous historians in the 19th and early 20th centuries romanticized the Watauga Association as the first democratic or constitutional government formed by American-born colonists. Historian Andrew C. McLaughlin , in his first major work on

5874-405: The mass exodus of Ulster Scots to America during the 18th century were a series of droughts and rising rents imposed by their landlords. During the course of the 17th century, the number of settlers belonging to Calvinist dissenting sects, including Scottish and Northumbrian Presbyterians , English Baptists , French and Flemish Huguenots , and German Palatines , became the majority among

5963-448: The mid-1840s, Humes began studying under the authority of Tennessee's Episcopal Bishop James Otey (1800–1863). He initially served as Sunday lay reader for Knoxville's St. John's Episcopal Church congregation, and after being ordained a deacon in March 1845, he served as assistant to the church's rector. In July 1845, Humes was ordained a priest by Bishop Otey, and in September 1846, the congregation elected him rector. Although he

6052-488: The mountains, carrying connotations of poverty, backwardness and violence. The first trickle of Scotch-Irish settlers arrived in New England. Valued for their fighting prowess as well as for their Protestant dogma, they were invited by Cotton Mather and other leaders to come over to help settle and secure the frontier. In this capacity, many of the first permanent settlements in Maine and New Hampshire , especially after 1718, were Scotch-Irish and many place names as well as

6141-433: The native Ulster Army at the Battle of Benburb in 1646. After the war was over, many of the soldiers settled permanently in Ulster. Another major influx of Scots into Ulster occurred in the 1690s, when tens of thousands of people fled a famine in Scotland to come to Ireland. A few generations after arriving in Ireland, considerable numbers of Ulster-Scots emigrated to the North American colonies of Great Britain throughout

6230-462: The next generation moved into western Pennsylvania. With large numbers of children who needed their own inexpensive farms, the Scotch-Irish avoided areas already settled by Germans and Quakers and moved south, through the Shenandoah Valley , and through the Blue Ridge Mountains into Virginia. These migrants followed the Great Wagon Road from Lancaster, through Gettysburg, and down through Staunton, Virginia, to Big Lick (now Roanoke), Virginia. Here

6319-404: The pathway split, with the Wilderness Road taking settlers west into Tennessee and Kentucky, while the main road continued south into the Carolinas. Because the Scotch-Irish settled the frontier of Pennsylvania and western Virginia, they were greatly affected by the French and Indian War and Pontiac's War . The Scotch-Irish were frequently in conflict with indigenous tribes, and did most of

6408-571: The people of the borders to seek security through a system of family ties, similar to the clan system in the Scottish Highlands . Known as the Border Reivers , these families relied on their own strength and cunning to survive, and a culture of cattle raiding and thievery developed. Though remaining politically distinct, Scotland, England (considered at the time to include Wales, annexed in 1535), and Ireland came to be ruled by

6497-583: The qualifier Scotch . It was not until a century later, following the surge in Irish immigration after the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s, that the descendants of the earlier arrivals began to commonly call themselves "Scotch-Irish" to distinguish themselves from the newer, poor, predominantly Catholic immigrants. At first, the two groups had little interaction in America, as the Scots-Irish had become settled many decades earlier, primarily in

6586-501: The school the recipient of the state's Morrill Act (land-grant) funds. This amounted to $ 400,000, which generated for the school $ 24,000 in annual interest. As required by the Morrill Act, the school established colleges of agriculture, engineering, and military science. East Tennessee University changed its name to the University of Tennessee in 1879 in hopes of obtaining more state funding. Humes resigned as president in 1883, and

6675-571: The settlers organized themselves into the "Washington District," loyal to the "united colonies," and formed a Committee of Safety to govern it, marking the end of the so-called "Watauga Republic". In Spring of 1776, the Washington District Committee of Safety drafted a petition asking the colony of Virginia to annex the district. After Virginia refused, the Committee drafted a similar petition (dated July 5, 1776) asking

6764-539: The signers, eight were of Irish descent. Two signers, George Taylor and James Smith , were born in Ulster. The remaining five Irish-Americans, George Read , Thomas McKean , Thomas Lynch, Jr. , Edward Rutledge and Charles Carroll , were the sons or grandsons of Irish immigrants, and at least McKean had Ulster heritage. In contrast to the Scottish Highlanders, the Scotch-Irish were generally ardent supporters of American independence from Britain in

6853-444: The traditional Scotch-Irish usage implicitly in noting that "nobody talks about butterscottish or hopscots , ... or Scottish pine ", and that while Scots or Scottish is how people of Scots origin refer to themselves in Scotland, the traditional English usage Scotch continues to be appropriate in "compounds and set phrases". The word " Scotch " was the favored adjective for things " of Scotland ", including people, until

6942-461: The use of the term is found in A History of Ulster : "Ulster Presbyterians – known as the 'Scotch Irish' – were already accustomed to being on the move, and clearing and defending their land." Many have claimed that such a distinction should not be used, and that those called Scotch-Irish are simply Irish, despite having previously come from Scotland or England. Other Irish limit the term Irish to those of native Gaelic stock, and prefer to describe

7031-541: The war, he also hoped to justify the largely pro-Union sentiments of East Tennessee. He considered these sentiments a manifestation of the region's Revolutionary War patriotism, linking them to the penchant for independence the region had shown during the Watauga and State of Franklin periods. He criticized the actions of Confederate military leaders as tyrannical, while praising the actions of Union leaders such as Ambrose Burnside as just. The book includes Humes' eyewitness accounts of key wartime events in Knoxville, including

7120-402: The war. Around 4000 settlers were massacred and a further 12,000 may have died of privation after being driven from their homes. This, along with Irish Catholic refugees fleeing, caused Ireland's population to drop by 25%. William Petty 's figure of 37,000 Protestants massacred is far too high, perhaps by a factor of ten; certainly more recent research suggests that a much more realistic figure

7209-514: Was a half-brother of James Cowan (1801–1871), a co-founder of the wholesaling firm, Cowan, McClung and Company , and a stepbrother of historian J. G. M. Ramsey (1797–1884). Humes graduated from East Tennessee College (the forerunner of the University of Tennessee) in 1831, and obtained his master's degree from the school two years later. He then entered the Princeton Theological Seminary intending to become

7298-525: Was a slave owner, Humes helped several slaves in Knoxville purchase their freedom during the late 1840s and 1850s. He also opened a school for Knoxville's free blacks and freed slaves. During the secession crisis of 1860 and 1861, Humes remained fervently loyal to the Union, even though many of his relatives and most of his congregation supported secession. After he refused to acknowledge Confederate president Jefferson Davis 's National Day of Prayer in mid-1861, he

7387-648: Was accelerated with James's official plantation in 1609, and further augmented during the subsequent Irish Confederate Wars . The first of the Stuart Kingdoms to collapse into civil war was Ireland where, prompted in part by the anti-Catholic rhetoric of the Covenanters in Scotland, Irish Catholics launched a rebellion in October , 1641. In reaction to the proposal by Charles I and Thomas Wentworth to raise an army manned by Irish Catholics to put down

7476-454: Was descended from Ulster, and half from the other three provinces of Ireland. A separate migration brought many to Canada , where they are most numerous in rural Ontario and Nova Scotia . Because of the proximity of the islands of Britain and Ireland, migrations in both directions had been occurring since Ireland was first settled after the retreat of the ice sheets . Gaels from Ireland colonized current southwestern Scotland as part of

7565-594: Was finally forced to resign. After Tennessee seceded in June 1861, Humes wanted to move to the North, but a broken leg prevented him from doing so. Humes dubbed the Confederate occupation of Knoxville a "reign of terror," but remained in the city throughout the war, protected in part by his blood and marriage ties to many of the city's Confederate leaders. In June 1863, Humes prayed with dying Confederate Pleasant McClung, who had been mortally wounded in an attempted raid on

7654-713: Was present at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. The Articles of the Watauga Association likely influenced the Cumberland Compact (drafted in 1780), the main link between the two pacts being James Robertson, who in 1779 led a group of colonists into what is now the Nashville area. The Clarksville Compact, drafted for the Clarksville settlement in 1785, may have also been inspired by the Watauga Association (the Clarksville Compact even adopted

7743-533: Was seen as a way to relocate the Border Reiver families to Ireland to bring peace to the Anglo-Scottish border country, and also to provide fighting men who could suppress the native Irish in Ireland. The first major influx of Scots and English into Ulster had come in 1606 during the settlement of east Down onto land cleared of native Irish by private landlords chartered by James. This process

7832-564: Was succeeded by Charles Dabney. Throughout his later years, Humes used his influence to raise money for educational and economic development in East Tennessee. In 1864, he was elected chairman of the East Tennessee Relief Association, which raised money to help East Tennessee Unionists impoverished by the Civil War. During the late 1860s, he helped Knoxville obtain Peabody funding, which the city used to establish

7921-599: Was to make the first declaration for independence from Britain in the Mecklenburg Declaration of 1775. The Scots-Irish " Overmountain Men " of Virginia and North Carolina formed a militia which won the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780, resulting in the British abandonment of a southern campaign, and for some historians "marked the turning point of the American Revolution". One exception to

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