Religious Origins: Militant Christianity

The borderers of North Britain were mixed in their religious beliefs. Those who came from Scotland and the north of Ireland tended to be Presbyterian, with a scattering of Roman Catholics among them. The English border folk were mostly Anglican, with a sprinkling of small Protestant sects. Border emigrants of the two leading denominations, Anglican and Presbyterian, both showed a strong tendency toward what was called New Light Christianity in the eighteenth century. Many Scottish and Irish Presbyterians called themselves People of the New Light before coming to America. They believed in “free grace,” and before emigrating they had formed the habit of gathering in “field meetings” and “prayer societies,” a custom which they carried to America and established in the backcountry. In Scotland, these New Light Presbyterians were specially numerous on the edges of the Irish Sea.⁷

In Protestant Ireland, similar religious tendencies also appeared—a deep interest in reformed religion, a settled hostility to the established church, a belief in “free grace,” a habit of field meetings and a bias toward New Light Christianity. An Anglo-Irish archbishop in 1714 wrote that “the people of the north have a particular aversion to curates and call them hirelings.”⁸

The same religious attitudes also existed among the English borderers. Though they were mostly Anglican, an increasing number had joined small Protestant sects, or were converted to more evangelical forms of Christianity by Methodist and Baptist missionaries. They also were hostile to the “hireling clergy” which the Church of England had settled upon them.

In Scotland some were of a militant sect called “Society People” or “Cameronians.” Their founder, Richard Cameron, was a field preacher who advocated a particularly uncompromising form of covenanted Christianity. The Cameronians grew very strong in the south and west of Scotland, where they engaged in a practice called “rabbling,” or forcibly removing “unregener-ate” clergy from their livings, sometimes with much violence. The authorities hunted the Cameronians like animals across the countryside, and hanged several of their leaders. But many survived, worshipping defiantly with a Bible in one hand and a weapon in the other, and slaughtering the forces that were sent to suppress them. After 1689, the authorities conceded defeat, and adopted the typically North British solution of recruiting these Protestant rebels to fight against Roman Catholic Jacobites in the Highlands. The result was the creation of a great fighting regiment in the British army called the Cameronians, the only regiment in the army list to bear the name of a religious leader. It appointed an Elder in every company of infantry, and required each enlisted man to carry a Bible in his kit. Even in the twentieth century this Presbyterian regiment carried arms to worship and posted sentries at the four corners of the church. It quickly became known for the ferocity of its fighting. In its first battle in 1689, 1,200 recruits of this regiment broke a veteran force of 5,000 Jacobites and burnt many in their fortifications.⁹

In 1743, the followers of Richard Cameron reorganized themselves as the Reformed Presbyterian Church. Many found their way to the American backcountry, with other North British sects. The Anglican missionary Charles Woodmason complained in 1765 that “Africk never more abounded with new Monsters, than Pennsylvania does with the New Sects, who are continually sending out their emissaries around. One of these Parties, known by the title of New Lights or Gifted Brethren (for they pretend to inspiration) now infest the whole Back Country.”¹⁰

Sectarian conflicts became commonplace in the backcountry. Many denominations were planted in the wilderness, but various groups of Presbyterians outnumbered all others, and outrivaled them in religious bigotry.¹¹ The journal of the English missionary Charles Woodmason was a running chronicle of religious strife. When Woodmason tried to conduct an Anglican sermon in the back settlements, Presbyterians disrupted his services, rioted while he preached, started a pack of dogs fighting outside the church, loosed his horse, stole his church key, refused him food and shelter, and gave two barrels of whiskey to his congregation before a service of communion. One Baptist tried to discredit the Anglican missionary by stealing a clerical dressing gown, climbing into bed with a woman in the dark, and “making her give out next day the Parson came to bed with her.”¹²

Their victim complained bitterly that “the perverse persecuting spirit of the Presbyterians displays itself much more here than in Scotland. … the sects are eternally jarring among themselves.” He quickly learned the border variant of the golden rule—do unto others as they threatened do unto you. He preached furiously against the Presbyterians, and tried to start legal actions against them, but all in vain. “As all the magistrates are Presbyterians, I could not get a warrant,” he wrote, and further, “if I got warrants, as the constables are Presbyterians likewise I could not get them served.”¹³

This sectarian strife continued for many generations in the backcountry. In the year 1846, Allen Wiley remembered, “the preachers and people of the present day can form no estimation of the asperity of feeling and language which prevailed in those days of bitter waters, even among good men and able ministers.”¹⁴ Military metaphors abounded in backcountry sermons and hymns. Prayers were invoked for vengeance and the destruction of enemies. When these Christian warriors were not battling among themselves they fell upon the Indians with the same inplacable fury. Their militant faith flourished in the environment of the back settlements, just as it had done on the borders of North Britain for many generations before.