Social Origins: Poverty and Pride

On the question of social origins in this migration, contemporary opinion was divided. Some observers believed that most emigrants came from the middling ranks of their society. Reports from three different Irish ports in 1774, for example, agreed that the majority were “paying passengers of the middle class.”¹ Others, however, formed a different impression. One writer unkindly described the Scots-Irish emigrants as “the scum of two nations.” An outspoken Anglican clergyman, not to be outdone, called them, “the scum of the universe.” Another estimated that no more than “one man in ten is a man of substance.” A fourth remarked that most seemed “very poor.”²

All of these observers accurately described some parts of the North British migration, but none of them comprehended the whole of it. This large flow was very mixed in its social composition. A small but important minority of Irish and North British migrants were gentry who came from the ruling order of this region. This narrow elite was destined to become eminent in American affairs. But in quantitative terms it accounted for no more than 1 or 2 percent of all emigrants.

A somewhat larger group were independent yeomen who had achieved a measure of independence from the great landlords who dominated the border region. In Cumberland and Westmorland these yeomen were called the “statesman” class. Their numbers were comparatively small throughout this area, and even smaller in the emigrant stream.

Most emigrants came from ranks below that of the gentry and statesmen. In the border counties of England and Scotland and northern Ireland as well, the majority were farmers and farm laborers who owned no land of their own, but worked as tenants and undertenants. A large minority were semiskilled craftsmen and petty traders. In northern Ireland, many had worked in the linen trade—impoverished handloom weavers, unemployed agents, traders and entrepreneurs. This was especially the case in the period from 1772 to 1774, when the linen industry suffered a contraction of great severity.³

Remarkably few came in bondage. From 1773 to 1776, indentured servants were only 1 percent of Scottish border emigrants, and less than 20 percent of those who had left the six northern counties of England.⁴ Among emigrants from northern Ireland, the proportion of servants was somewhat higher, but even there a majority were free. This was so in part because Irish servants were not much wanted in America. They were thought to be violent, ungovernable and very apt to assault their masters. Buyers were discouraged by lurid accounts of Irish servants who rioted in Barbados, “straggled” in Bermuda or ran away on the mainland, sometimes with their masters’ wives and daughters in tow. In the Leeward Islands, 125 unruly Irish servants were deliberately marooned on the desolate Isle of Crabs. Throughout British America, purchasers complained of the “proud” and “haughty” spirit of these people.⁵

The social origins of these emigrants were more humble than those of New England Puritans or Delaware Quakers. But they did not come from the bottom of British society. Only a minority were unskilled laborers. As always in a voluntary migration, desperately poor people were excluded by the fact of poverty itself. The cost of a family’s passage to America was high enough to keep the poorest people at home. An even greater obstacle was an impoverished spirit which robbed the poor of their hope, their pride and even their dreams of betterment.

The Scots-Irish who came to America in the eighteenth century were not poor in any of these senses. Their pride was a source of irritation to their English neighbors, who could not understand what they had to feel proud about. It was said of one Scots-Irishman that “his looks spoke out that he would not fear the devil, should he meet him face to face. … He loved to talk of himself, and spoke as freely and encomiastically as enthusiastic youths do of Alexander and Caesar. … Qualities united in him which are never found in one person except an Irishman.”⁶

This combination of poverty and pride set the North Britons squarely apart from other English-speaking people in the American colonies. Border emigrants demanded to be treated with respect even when dressed in rags. Their humble origins did not create the spirit of subordination which others expected of “lower ranks.” This fierce and stubborn pride would be a cultural fact of high importance in the American region which they came to dominate.