Native Scots vs the scottish diaspora

[saxandpipes]

My paternal family came to Canada from Scotland 3 generations ago, my paternal Grandmothers family 1 generation ago and my and my maternal Grandfather 2 generations ago. Almost all of them wore kilts, admittedly more for military purposes than daily dress. Since as far as I can remember both my grandmothers had tartan items all over the house in many different forms simply for the love of it and as items passed down through the family.

I view the kilt and the love of tartans a family tradition. I view the love of many things scottish as a family tradition. So I don't really view the kilt as soley belonging to those living in Scotland. They can claim it if they like, but if they do, given the fairly brief history of kilts and "family tartans" I think they suffer the same romantic notions they accuse decendents in other parts of the world of.

The best I can offer is that I will do my best to not make a mockery of the kilt when I wear it. It's the reason I came to this site to learn as much as I can.

As boldhighlander said: "I don't really feel I need to justify my wearing it, just as I don't feel compelled to justify the wearing of any other article of clothing I wear (rather kilted or not)." I don't think anyone else should either, wether born in Scotland, 2,3,4 generations removed, or no connection at all other than an appreciation for the garb.

To be honest, after reading many of the articles here and other places regarding the history of kilts, I almost feel a little silly wearing a "clan tartan". It appears that many clan tartans were simply made up and really don't have much history of being worn by people with that surname. I would imagine that with my family coming to Canada in the mid 19th century they probably had never even heard of McCallum tartan and if they wore plaids, were likely the tartan of whatever local mill produced near the Isle of Mull.

Given the history of the modern kilt and clan tartans, if I'm playing make-believe, scots dress-up when I don my kilt and argyle jacket than so are a great many scots when they do the same. I'm really ok with that, I think playing dress-up is fun and brings out the kid in all of us wether born in Scotland or anywhere else in the world.

I agree! (although, I'm trying not to get dragged into the "argument" present here).

My mother inherited kilts from her grandmother, a native Scot, so, obviously, she was ok with her descendents, the diaspora, carrying on the traditions of her homeland. That's good enough for me!

Not all of the diaspora (Canada, Australia, NZ etc.) originally left Scotland because they wanted to...

Ok, fine... I've been dragged in...

Maybe only descendents of Sir Walter Scott should wear kilts!

Cheers!

Michael

[Peter Crowe]

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.

@ Phil regarding his post above:
This was more or less true depending on the place of settlement. In the United States during the early years of the Republic, Highland Scots were regarded with suspicion as most had been Loyalists during the War of Independence. This was less true of what are called the Scotch-Irish in America (Ulster Scots in Britain), and Lowland Scots, who because of the prevailing prejudice against all Scots (because of the Loyalism of aforementioned Highlanders) downplayed their Scottish identity. I would imagine it is less true in New Zealand and Canada where Scots were there early and in significant numbers relative to the entire population.

General observation on the current direction of this thread (not in response to Phil above):
I don't understand why some people feel the need to define the identity of others based on their own personal set of criteria about how other people should perceive themselves. I can only have ownership of my identity and not that of anyone else. Other people may form their own opinions but they do not necessarily know me, my life or it's complexities. I suspect a lot of this is a very human mental short-cut to place people into little metaphorical boxes in our brain, thus helping us to classify social information at a very basic level. I know that if I try to take people as they are (or at least as I perceive them to be), and avoid snap judgements I can be very pleasantly surprised. It makes life so much more interesting when we take time to understand different perspectives rather than classifying people according to our preconceived mental mind maps.

[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.

[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]

This was more or less true depending on the place of settlement. In the United States during the early years of the Republic, Highland Scots were regarded with suspicion as most had been Loyalists during the War of Independence. This was less true of what are called the Scotch-Irish in America (Ulster Scots in Britain), and Lowland Scots, who because of the prevailing prejudice against all Scots (because of the Loyalism of aforementioned Highlanders) downplayed their Scottish identity. I would imagine it is less true in New Zealand and Canada where Scots were there early and in significant numbers relative to the entire population.

Correct. I would only add that the Ulster-Scots, who often intermarried with other Protestant Europeans (English, Welsh, Germans and French) quickly became "American" because they were the dominant ethnicity in the backcountry; hence much of Appalachian & Southern (and subsequently Ozarkian) folklife has a strong Scottish background, as you mentioned. I think it was less of downplaying it and more of Lowland Scottish/Northern Irish culture becoming American culture due to sheer numbers.

A number of historians such as Leyburn, Fischer and Calloway (as Rex mentioned) have discussed how the Ulster-Scots viewed the First Nations on the frontier as they did the Highlanders back home: as wild savages.

T.

[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.

[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.

[Bugbear]

Correct. I would only add that the Ulster-Scots, who often intermarried with other Protestant Europeans (English, Welsh, Germans and French) quickly became "American" because they were the dominant ethnicity in the backcountry; hence much of Appalachian & Southern (and subsequently Ozarkian) folklife has a strong Scottish background, as you mentioned. I think it was less of downplaying it and more of Lowland Scottish/Northern Irish culture becoming American culture due to sheer numbers.

A number of historians such as Leyburn, Fischer and Calloway (as Rex mentioned) have discussed how the Ulster-Scots viewed the First Nations on the frontier as they did the Highlanders back home: as wild savages.

T.

, T. M. Devine also discusses that in To the Ends of the Earth: Scotland's Global Diaspora, cajunscot, and some myths about the relations of Stots with First Peoples in general, as well.
The book does seem to fit in with this thread's subject.

[macwilkin]

, T. M. Devine also discusses that in To the Ends of the Earth: Scotland's Global Diaspora, cajunscot, and some myths about the relations of Stots with First Peoples in general, as well.
The book does seem to fit in with this thread's subject.

I still haven't read it yet, Ted, even though it's currently on our new book shelf in the library -- I wonder who ordered it?

T.