Talk:Scottish Americans

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 31 August 2020 and 19 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Haley89900.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 08:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Again with the 25 million figure..

Only about 5 million Americans report Scottish ancestry, and only about 4-5 million report Scotch-Irish ancestry. Jim Webb's "Born Fighting" is not a reliable source and isn't appropriate for this article. We're having the same problem on the Irish American page, where Scotch-Irish partisan editors are using dubious sources to make similar changes.Jonathan f1 (talk) 19:26, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Scratch that -- the latest census figures I could find state the Scottish American population to be about 5.3 million and the Scotch-Irish Americans are roughly 2.9 million. And I used the same reference in this article (US Census, but for the year 2013).Jonathan f1 (talk) 22:22, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

emigration mythology

The article states (in the lead) that: Large-scale emigration from Scotland to America began in the 1700s, accelerating after the Jacobite rising of 1745, the resulting breakup of the clan structures, and the Highland Clearances.

This seems to perpetuate the myth that those descended from migrants from Scotland are predominantly of Highland descent. The vast majority of emigrating Scots were Lowlanders. Yes, there were Highland emigrants, but the romantic vision tends to overcome historical accuracy. The actual history, as conveyed by one of Scotland's leading historians is:

Many third- and fourth-generation American Scots share the view that Scottish emigration across the Atlantic came from the Highlands and was initiated by force and coercion. The boring reality is that the vast majority left from the farms, towns and cities of the Lowlands and were mainly attracted to North America because they saw it as a fabled land of opportunity to achieve a better life. The mythology, however, has it that the ancestors were driven from their homeland by the collapse of the Jacobite Risings, post-Culloden ethnic cleansing and, above all, by ‘the clearances’.

— T M Devine, The Scottish Clearances: A History of the Dispossessed, 1600-1900 (2019) p.11

Furthermore, many more Scots emigrated in the years after the clearances, and certainly long after the Jacobite rebellion. There was an accelerating flow of emigrants from the middle of the 19th century, with a temporary pause for the First World War, which; large-scale Scottish emigration only ceased with the Great Depression. To look at some hard numbers, Marjory Harper in her Emigration from Scotland Between the Wars, in setting the general context of Scottish emigration (pg 2), gives the following background. In the century before the First World War almost 2,000,000 people left Scotland, which in 1911 had a population of 4,760,904. The population of the Highlands has never much exceeded 300,000. Furthermore, if you look at the number of Scottish emigrants as a percentage of the natural increase in population, you get:
27.6% 1855-60
rising to
54.1% 1881-90
and reaching
84.3% 1901-1910
and exceeding the natural population increase in 1907, 1910 and 1911-13.
So most of emigrating Scots left long after the days of the clearances, and the sheer numbers involved meant that only some of them could originate in the Highlands.

I suggest that some corrective rephrasing is needed.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 12:39, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

It may be worth pointing out that the article uses the word "Highland" 35 times, and "Lowland" 9 times. If these numbers were reversed, it would be closer to the respective proportions of migrants from each of these two regions of Scotland (though still over-representing the Highlands). It is disturbing to see a Wikipedia article which is a good example of the treatment of this subject that is ridiculed by the academic historians who study it. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 00:11, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

ThoughtIdRetired's contribution

I was invited to appear on talk by @ThoughtIdRetired in reference to a revert he made. My concern with your edit is that you are placing a rhetorical flourish that Devine uses to create interest for his work in the introduction at the expense of scholarship--scholarship elsewhere in the book. I appreciate the 'slap down' is attractive thing to do if you are disposed a certain way (re your comment 'Devine's ridicule of the beliefs of Scottish American's heritage may not be palatable to fans of this article'), but the introduction should be neutral and fact-based and reflect good scholarship not desire to attack a perceived opponent. The text I altered is I think misleading. He doesn't say the conception is common, even if he is implying that he is discussing popular media depictions, ones that are actually about Highlanders anyway and not attempting to do what Devine does, i.e. cover Scotland as a whole (or as professional reviewers have complained, Scotland from a Central Belt perspective). Also, the scholarship elsewhere in the book, in the pages I referenced, Devine emphasises that land clearance and poverty were factors in migration from the Lowlands too. The text here as it stands implies something that Devine doesn't say, that purely positive opportunities were the main reason (he only says 'better life' even at p. 11). EDIT I have tried to tweak the wording somewhat again so that you are less likely to think the article is downplaying dismissing Devine's intended purposes. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:33, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

I note the somewhat hasty return to editing the article text, before I have had a chance to respond to the above. We are not all in the same time zone.

The issue is really: what point is the article trying to make? The original text was trying to do what Devine is doing in the cited reference. That is to make clear that many Scottish Americans have an incorrect assumption about their own personal origins. The point made by Devine (on pg 11) relies on the knowledge that much of the emigration from Scotland occurred after both the Highland and Lowland clearances, with the greatest part of that in the first half of the 20th century (with a pause for WW1). Then take into account that the population of the Highlands never reached much about 300,000 (I think Eric Richards is the clearest source for this: The Highland Clearances People, Landlords and Rural Turmoil, pg 400). The simple demographic arithmetic is very much on the side of Devine's comment.

It is perfectly true that at the time of the Lowland Clearances, those who were cleared were left without a home or work. But Devine makes clear that unlike the Highland Clearances, they were not able to stay on the land because of the different system of land use in the Lowlands. This occurred at a time of much lower emigration from Scotland. Again, the numbers do not stack up for the "average" Scottish American being descended from people cleared from their land or driven out by persecution.

The problem with the new text is that if confuses the reader by mixing two different points. Saying ...Scottish migration was mostly from the Lowland regions and its pressures included poverty, land clearance and the variety of positive economic opportunities believed to be available. easily misleads the reader. (The problem words are in bold.)

First: poverty. To emigrate you needed money (excepting those Highlanders who had financial assistance to leave). This automatically rules out the totally destitute from emigration. Any of the historians that I can think of who discuss emigration from Scotland deal with this: Marjory Harper, Eric Richards, Devine.

Second: land clearance. The Lowland Clearances had an entire century between their occurrence and the majority of Lowland Scots emigration. We can find Devine mentioning emigration from, in this case, the Borders, (pg 93) but that is set alongside the quotation that talks about 10,000 tradesmen (from all of Scotland) travelling to London – then immediately going on to say there is no good evidence on what happened to those displaced from the Borders. In the larger (demographically) case of the Lowlands, Devine has an entire chapter on "Whatever Happened to the Cottars?" Emigration does not feature in it. Whilst acknowledging that people suffered anxiety from the disruption to their lives, the picture painted in this chapter is of the displaced population being relatively easily absorbed into new settlements where they had non-agricultural work.

Lastly: believed. This suggests that the benefits of emigration were illusory. What evidence is there for this? Whilst it is easy to find tales of hardship – for instance poor Highlanders taken advantage of by unscrupulous ship owners, we even find that writers with an agenda like David Craig (this characterisation is supported by Tindley, A. (2021). “This will always be a problem in Highland history”: A Review of the Historiography of the Highland Clearances1. Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, 41(2), 181–194. https://doi.org/10.3366/jshs.2021.0329) with evidence of the satisfaction of those who emigrated – in his On the Crofter's Trail. This book records the oral history of Scottish emigrants (mostly Highlanders) and has the uncomfortable discovery (for the author) of generally positive family memories of emigration. So it appears that the evidence of the absence of economic opportunities is not there.

Overall, it is important for the article to clearly and promptly state the reality of Scottish American's origins – because this is one of the basic facts of the subject. Conflating that with other aspects, whether they are supportable or not, does the reader no service. There are many Americans with Scottish heritage who are disappointed to discover the genealogy – as Devine makes clear and is known to me (and many others) from close examination of their own family history (we have a former president of a clan association in a major US city who is descended from a London hotelier with a Scottish sounding surname, with emigration to the USA happening post WW1). Do you have any arguments to suggest that making this clear in the article from the outset is not important? ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 09:27, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

ThoughtIdRetired you've written a lot of stuff that really has no relevance to the issue, or at least I cannot understand from the post what problem you have with anything I've said or any edit. I understand the urge to slap down 'myths' and that sort of thing, but this is an encyclopedia not a tabloid. Per WP:LEAD the intro is supposed to reflect the body of the article, 'Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article', and be 'written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view', and this part of the intro doesn't meet the criteria... but I left it largely in tact. If this article had a higher editor count that sort of rhetorical point would never stay anywhere near the intro, but I actually left it for you, I only adjusted what I felt necessary so that Devine's work was not misrepresented. I provided references where Devine talks about poverty and dispossession as driving forces of migration. Does earlier post not make that clear?

Btw, your information about the population of the Highlands isn't accurate. Unfortunately Devine and certain others have a habit of concentrating on the western Highlands and conflate that with Highlands generally, and you often get population surveys that count 'purely Highland' counties as 'Highland population' total, but actually the Highlands included large chunks of the counties of Dumbarton, Banff, Aberdeen, Perth, Angus, Stirling too, so the real pop is something like double what you are saying today, about 600,000. Also large sections of cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh had 'Highland' populations, even Devine's own precious Motherwell, lord Dalrymple says for instance that most of Glasgow's population in the mid 18th century were migrants from the western Highlands, so things aren't as simple as you think. Whether you find what you're looking for in genealogies often depends where you stop. Also, the Lowland-Highland thing means a lot more to 20th century Central Belt socialists like Devine than it did to 19th century Scots, many of the 'Lowland' migrants of the 19th century had a 'Highland identity', they thought of present Highlanders as bearers of their own ancient traditions, which were seen as pan-Scottish, they would celebrate 'Highland games' at home, joined 'Highland' regiments, etc; if you want to include something about the mythology of the Scottish diaspora, you can't really be relying on an uncited rant in an introduction to a general book, there is plenty of more relevant research out there that would be better. But it should be in the body of the article....I refer you again to my point about WP:LEAD. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:00, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll take another go at this.

But first, I totally agree that the lead should, unless it is providing some basic facts to get the article going, should summarise the rest of the article. In the bits of the article that does address where in Scotland immigrants came from, and when, it does so in a very fragmentary and meagre way. Perhaps that is where attention should be addressed.

Devine, in his The Scottish Clearances, is making a real point that there are misconceptions about the origins of Scottish Americans. I hesitate to throw Wikipedia jargon at this, but isn't it WP:OR to suggest that he didn't really mean it when he made the comment about the "boring reality" on page 11? The language may be a bit "un-academic", but that does not alter the fact that Devine is addressing the failure of the popular view to match the academic view.

Then there is the increase in quantity of emigrants over time. With the sheer numbers of Scots emigrating to the USA in the first part of the 20th century, a time when the Lowlands/Central Belt (or whatever you want to label the non-Highland areas) held by far the largest part of the population, there is going to be a big impact on the overall demographic situation. It's just a matter of arithmetic. Lots of people leaving the Lowlands who will dilute the previous mix of Highlander and Lowlander. Not every reader will immediately grasp the numbers, even if they are laid out for them (the total number of emigrants in one year in the 18th century are a fraction of the quantity carried in just one ship in the 20th century). So it is easier to simply say that most Scottish Americans are descended from Lowlanders.

Incidentally, do you have a reference for your maximum population figure for the Highlands? The number I work with is broadly supported by both Devine and Richards. I place some value on Devine's highly acclaimed (and very precise) work on the Highland Potato Famine. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 15:31, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

isn't it WP:OR to suggest that he didn't really mean it when he made the comment about the "boring reality" on page 11

OR takes more effort than that, it's just being a good reader and editor & not a robot. The book itself is about the forced displacement of peasants because of economic changes, & at several points he discusses in a scholarly manner the resulting lack of options and poverty as push factors in emigration. To ignore that is favour of a passing rhetorical flourish clearly designed not to deny that but to deflate swollen collective narratives of victimhood centred on defeated Jacobite rebels is materially misleading the reader about Devine's overall position--though I admit he would have himself to blame. In intros like that you are supposed to say stuff that will get people interested, & he does a good job, it's lit a fire in yourself for instance. Collective memory is a big topic, it's not about being dumb and following movies, it's probably more to do with the role of Jacobite songs & popular cultural nationalism across Scotland itself where the former were a proxy for anxieties about industrialisation and assimilation into the British state, there's a lot of work on this kind of thing that could be useful for the body of the article. Anyway, I've had my say here, we're TL:DRing people here, I'll be honest I don't care enough to try to prevent you reinserting something similar but I since I've spent the time it would be nice if you could take some of my points on board & if you a re able ever try to make it match some more fully cited section in the article per WP:LEAD. Perhaps you can use Ewan Cameron's Impaled on a Thistle to balance, 'There may, however, be a tendency to exaggerate the number of emigrants from urban areas as it is possible that people migrated to towns prior to emigration' (pp. 15-16).

Re Highland pop, I probably have a reference somewhere with an estimate I've certainly heard people talk about it, check the Highlands wikipedia article it gives 600,000 as the rough pop today. Murray Pittock, Inventing and Resisting Britain: Cultural Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1685–1789, p. 45, says 1/4 of Scotland's population in 1700 when the 'Highlands' and 'Gaelic speaking Scotland' were the same; I had a search for the 19th century, everyone I've come across is using the flawed western Highland-only counties methodology (it's not what anyone ever meant by Highlands!)... but see the following for an overview:

*This map

*This map

I don't know if anyone has ever attempted to calculate the real population, the truth is that 'highland' and 'lowland' don't have much administrative significance, you'd have to calculate parish by parish based on what parishes were Gaelic-speaking or described as 'highland' in the early 18th century. That's why they're all using the western counties only modfel. Later you have recorded numbers of Gaelic speakers, but Gaelic had collapsed across from the later 18th century to become a minority language across much of the Highlands. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:53, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

All I am interested in is getting the article right. Do you disagree that the majority of the original immigrants that we are discussing departed from the Lowlands in the period after the Highland and Lowland clearances? Do you disagree that these later migrants paid for their own passage (and so could not be destitute)? Do you take the view that the economic benefits of emigration were, in the main, not real? (If so, in an age of widespread literacy and letter writing, why did anyone follow the first wave of emigrants?) You don't seem to be addressing the overwhelming maths of this – the sheer numbers who left Scotland after the years of clearance, conflict, religious discrimination, famine etc. (I note, though, that some who left were unemployed weavers during recessionary years in that industry.) I fully accept that there were emigrants who left as a result of clearance, picking the wrong side in the Jacobite rebellions, poverty (with passages paid for by others), etc. – but these people are substantially outnumbered by the later migrants.

Yes, I will look at adding something to the main body of the article, but not until I am clear that I have not got this wrong. Looking at what I have written in the paragraph above, there are some basic facts to pick out of that to explain the range of origins of emigrants with, hopefully, some mechanism for explaining the relative numbers in each group. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 09:27, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I can't really do anything other than direct you to what I've said before. I agree that most came from the Lowlands, that's never been disputed and is already in the article, I don't think you can pre- or post-date 'clearances' since those still happen today (albeit in reduced numbers) due to the incredible power landowners have in Scotland. I don't think your other questions are relevant, at least not to the issues around the disputed edit as far as I can see. To be honest I don't know if most migrants were rural or urban, it's not something I've concerned myself with in this article. I don't think you should worry about economic benefits, Scottish Canadians and Americans are generally a lot richer than modern Scots, so I don't think you can argue their descendants are/were worse off economically but it's untestable as a proposition generally, poverty & displacement can be traumatic experiences accompanied with mental illness alcoholism, violence & abuse, even if your descendants end up richer, then of course there is what the loss of population might or might not have done to the country, it's probably way beyond the limits of the historian's ability to assess and more relevantly not something we need to worry about for a lead in an article like this. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 22:02, 3 August 2024 (UTC)