Native Scots vs the scottish diaspora

[ThistleDown]

Correct me here if I am wrong but my impression of the Scots diaspora is that they energetically worked to disappear into the population of their new country as quickly as possible. Existing populations have a habit of discriminating against 'newcomers' and they would have seen this and recognised the vital importance of losing their 'foreign-ness' (is that a word?) as quickly as possible. The fact that they spoke English and had a similar appearance to the majority would have helped and parents would take care that their children did not pick up any of the tainted expressions from their homeland which would immediately set them apart. I have met second generation immigrants who have no knowledge whatever of many words that their parents must have used without thinking and which would have given away their roots. Even the use of a simple 'outwith' by Jock betrays his Scottish background.
In this way they quickly became successful citizens, unencumbered by the prejudices suffered by other immigrant groups such as the Irish, Italians, Chinese to name but a few. I have no doubt too that it is not so long, and may even be the case today, that many with Scottish surnames believed themselves to be Irish and, knowing no better, turned out on St Paddy's day with the best of them.
So what has caused this re-awakening of a long-lost heritage I wonder? And what changes in society have allowed what was once regarded as a stigma to become a symbol of pride and honour, to be flaunted at every opprtunity.

I won't pretend to speak for other parts of the "new" world, Phil, but that deliberate merging and setting aside of their culture by Scots immigrants you refer to certainly was not/is not the way of it in Canada. Many communities across this country were founded by Scots and given names reminiscent of their homeland: Calgary, Elgin, Fort Macleod, Fort Mcpherson, Glengarry, Mackenzie, Carberry, Arisaig, Kildonan, Invermere, Aberdeen, Dundas -- well, you get the idea. Those who arrived here second to our First Nations folk were, most often, people of Scotland (both Lowland and Highland) and of France -- and they greatly influenced even where they were not themselves the majority. If you could spend time here you would find, just beneath the surface, a culture quite familiar to you.

Three hundred years has resulted in change, I'll grant you, but not more than those that have caused Scotland to see itself as one culture with several vibrant sub-cultures after the same evolutionary period.

[Phil]

I won't pretend to speak for other parts of the "new" world, Phil, but that deliberate merging and setting aside of their culture by Scots immigrants you refer to certainly was not/is not the way of it in Canada. Many communities across this country were founded by Scots and given names reminiscent of their homeland: Calgary, Elgin, Fort Macleod, Fort Mcpherson, Glengarry, Mackenzie, Carberry, Arisaig, Kildonan, Invermere, Aberdeen, Dundas -- well, you get the idea. Those who arrived here second to our First Nations folk were, most often, people of Scotland (both Lowland and Highland) and of France -- and they greatly influenced even where they were not themselves the majority. If you could spend time here you would find, just beneath the surface, a culture quite familiar to you.

Three hundred years has resulted in change, I'll grant you, but not more than those that have caused Scotland to see itself as one culture with several vibrant sub-cultures after the same evolutionary period.

I speak from talking to a couple of people from Canada holidaying in Florida whose parents had immigrated from Scotland. We dropped a few Scots words, expecting them to recognise them but the reaction was strange, almost hostile as if we had said something obscene and so we dropped it.
I wonder if the fact that the 'colonies' as they then were were dominated by Episcopalian English people meant that anyone of another religious persuasion and background was discriminated against. After all, this was the reason many left their homes in Ulster to escape the institutionalised persecution so prevalent there. It was not only Catholics who suffered, Presbyterians were equally discriminated against.

[macwilkin]

I speak from talking to a couple of people from Canada holidaying in Florida whose parents had immigrated from Scotland. We dropped a few Scots words, expecting them to recognise them but the reaction was strange, almost hostile as if we had said something obscene and so we dropped it.
I wonder if the fact that the 'colonies' as they then were were dominated by Episcopalian English people meant that anyone of another religious persuasion and background was discriminated against. After all, this was the reason many left their homes in Ulster to escape the institutionalised persecution so prevalent there. It was not only Catholics who suffered, Presbyterians were equally discriminated against.

Depends on the colony, though: In New England, a majority of the colonies were English in ethnicity, but Congregationalist/Puritan in established churches. You could therefore be an Anglican and be a persecuted minority in Boston until after the Glorious Revolution, and even then, the Congregational Church remained the state church until the 1830s & American Independence. Only Rhode Island had religious toleration.

The Scots-Irish did face religious discrimination in several Crown Colonies in the South, where the Anglican Church was established. Even in Pennsylvania, where there was also religious toleration, the Scots-Irish found themselves as second-class citizens that were looked down upon by the colonies Quaker elite that controlled the colonial government. The Scots-Irish frequently made a coalition with the settlers from German states to impose the Friends, who did not like the Scots-Irish engaging in paramilitary operations against the Indians in the back country.

T.

[PatG]

Concerning success, I am certainly not as affluent as some of my forbears, but I am also not as prone to alcoholism, marital infidelity and overt and vicious racism as they were. That I consider my life to be a happy one is success enough for me.

Before we tread down the path of Romanticism, let's not forget that some of the Diaspora was kicked off the Auld Sod for being thieves and murderers and some of the Native Scots got to remain that way because they were on the landlord's side during the clearances. Neither is more or less noble or ignoble than the other. Shaking the family tree invariably brings down a few pieces of rotten fruit.

Let us also not forget that the kilt is the garment of what some would call mountain dwelling barbarian thieves and raiders (as my American neighbours say - Booyah!).

I wear the kilt because it sets me off from the rest of the boring and homogeneous modern world and it is comfortable to boot. My Scots roots are a bonus and not a pre-requisite. I wear my kilt appropriately to the occasion because that is what a gentleman does.

Finally, I reserve the right to look at my past through rose coloured glasses as long as I openly and honestly acknowledge the colour of those lenses.

Life is too short to not be filled with fun.

[ThistleDown]

I speak from talking to a couple of people from Canada holidaying in Florida whose parents had immigrated from Scotland. We dropped a few Scots words, expecting them to recognise them but the reaction was strange, almost hostile as if we had said something obscene and so we dropped it.
I wonder if the fact that the 'colonies' as they then were were dominated by Episcopalian English people meant that anyone of another religious persuasion and background was discriminated against. After all, this was the reason many left their homes in Ulster to escape the institutionalised persecution so prevalent there. It was not only Catholics who suffered, Presbyterians were equally discriminated against.

Yes, I understand. Media in Canada is influenced by its large and powerful southern neighbour. A little like Scotland. There are times when words I use or my form of speech produce blank or confused looks, as careful as I am about that.

Once again I can't speak of other parts of the world (the 'colonies', if you like) and would leave it to Father Bill to tell us about the eastern part of Canada; but I will say that in western Canada there appears to have been little or no discrimination between Christian sects in the latter half of the 19th and throughout the 20th centuries. Highlanders and Lowlanders alike. Perhaps there was a sense of relief in that, I don't know.

Western Canada did not receive the huge numbers of Ulstermen as did the Eastern US, but those who did settle here considered themselves to be Irish, not Scotch-Irish.

[Father Bill]

I won't pretend to speak for other parts of the "new" world, Phil, but that deliberate merging and setting aside of their culture by Scots immigrants you refer to certainly was not/is not the way of it in Canada. Many communities across this country were founded by Scots and given names reminiscent of their homeland: Calgary, Elgin, Fort Macleod, Fort Mcpherson, Glengarry, Mackenzie, Carberry, Arisaig, Kildonan, Invermere, Aberdeen, Dundas -- well, you get the idea. Those who arrived here second to our First Nations folk were, most often, people of Scotland (both Lowland and Highland) and of France -- and they greatly influenced even where they were not themselves the majority. If you could spend time here you would find, just beneath the surface, a culture quite familiar to you.

Three hundred years has resulted in change, I'll grant you, but not more than those that have caused Scotland to see itself as one culture with several vibrant sub-cultures after the same evolutionary period.

Ditto SW Ontario, Canada. Proudly Scottish

[macwilkin]

I won't pretend to speak for other parts of the "new" world, Phil, but that deliberate merging and setting aside of their culture by Scots immigrants you refer to certainly was not/is not the way of it in Canada. Many communities across this country were founded by Scots and given names reminiscent of their homeland: Calgary, Elgin, Fort Macleod, Fort Mcpherson, Glengarry, Mackenzie, Carberry, Arisaig, Kildonan, Invermere, Aberdeen, Dundas -- well, you get the idea. Those who arrived here second to our First Nations folk were, most often, people of Scotland (both Lowland and Highland) and of France -- and they greatly influenced even where they were not themselves the majority. If you could spend time here you would find, just beneath the surface, a culture quite familiar to you.

Three hundred years has resulted in change, I'll grant you, but not more than those that have caused Scotland to see itself as one culture with several vibrant sub-cultures after the same evolutionary period.

This is found "south of the border" to a much lesser degree, and well after the Revolution. Fernec Szasz documents this in his Highland Scots in the North American West, 1790-1917 (University of Oklahoma, 2000).

T.