McTag wrote:Coming from you George, I consider that a compliment. Your heart is in the right place, even though you're Irish.
:wink:
Seriously though, reading about the Scots in America, we were heavily involved in the tobacco plantations and I daresay also in the cotton plantations. Even east of the Mississippi I am sure we have done our share of bad things...judged with 21st Century eyes.
Well, I suppose Andrew Jackson could serve as the archtype - he's the one who at New Orleans defeated the British army that had achieved so much in the fight against Napoleon in Spain (the only land battle we really won in that war). He also drove the Seminole Indians (and the Spanish) out of Florida and suppressed the Cherokee in the Carolinas. Jacksonville Florida is named after him. An interesting figure who generally opposed what may be called the establishment aristocracy of the period, championing instead the more adventurous types on the frontier (as it then stood).
I read a book some time ago about the many contributions of the so-called Scots-Irish to America. Don't recall many of the details but a surprising fraction of the leaders of the industrial revolution and higher education here emerged from among them. Indeed a similar thing can be observed in the history of the UK during the period.
If these hearty folk were included with the Irish they would displace Walter's beloved Germans as the largest ethnic group in America. I, of course, would never suggest that.
