The thing that struck me on my brief trip to the States (California) wasn't the history, it was the space! There is space to homestead in the USA. There isn't any in the cultivated parts of the UK. The population density of the UK is some ten times that of the USA.

Which is why Americans seem to drive everywhere as soon as they are old enough, but I go everywhere on my own in London by public transport.

(In view of the Highland clearances, I realise there might well be a different perspective on this between Scotland and England. That's probably an area that was more deeply populated before 1745 than it is now.)