Reviews of Books

The Scots-Irish constituted one of the largest population groups in eighteenth-century British North America, and yet the exact numbers of migrants, the causes and character of their movements, and the significance of their historical role have never been adequately assessed. Much of what we do know rests on guesswork, not archival authority, and a good deal amounts to mere caricature of a group commonly dubbed "Scotch-Irish"—a label to which contemporary Scottish people object. Thanks to the Ulster-American Heritage Symposium, this situation should soon change. From a series of conferences convened by the symposium on both sides of the Atlantic comes Ulster and North America: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Scotch-Irish. Devoted largely to the "long eighteenth century," from 1680 to 1815, the collection disseminates recent findings little known outside Ireland and publishes new information about the Scots-Irish and their Ulster forebears for the first time. It thus deserves a place on the shelves of all students of British North America, for it points the way for future appraisals of the part played by the Scots-Irish in the development of the mainland colonies.	1
The originality of this collection rests, first of all, on its reconsideration of Scots-Irish demography. The contributors agree that an estimated 250,000 people of Ulster Scots origin migrated to Britain's colonies in mainland North America between 1680 and the outbreak of the American Revolution and that people of the same stock followed in ever-increasing numbers in the decades down to the Great Irish Famine of the mid-nineteenth century. Several contributors investigate the causes for this exodus, and while they attend to the usual push and pull factors, they also highlight a natural increase of the Protestant population that persisted in some areas of Ulster during the whole of the eighteenth century and not just in the later decades, as was previously thought. This growth, as shown by William Macafee, was facilitated by a relatively early marriage age for women in a society enjoying reasonable levels of nutrition. But the benefits of prosperity were unevenly shared. For those who wished to better their situation, outward movement to North America became possible once ships' captains found it necessary to augment their earnings by including passengers on their voyages from the ports of Ulster to those on the Delaware. Graeme Kirkham's most original finding is that this migration was underway well before the previously accepted date of 1714.	2
The social and legal disabilities that Presbyterians in Ulster endured at the hands of an Anglican (Church of Ireland) establishment for most of the period 1660–1850 are detailed by S. J. Connolly. Discrimination alone would not have been sufficient to provoke people to leave for America in such large numbers, Connolly concludes, but it does explain why Ulster Presbyterians were attracted to anti-establishment politics at home and subsequently in the colonies. Connolly's other major finding concerns the extent to which Presbyterian communities in Ulster were for most of the eighteenth century set apart both from other Protestants in the province and—much more so—from their Catholic neighbors by communal, religious, and kinship links. They stood out as well for their distinctive accent and speech patterns and sometimes their distinctive attire.	3
Vivienne Pollock's essay on the household economy is a model of Atlantic history in that it draws on evidence from both sides of the ocean. Like Connolly, she emphasizes the high premium placed by Ulster Presbyterians on communal values. Even as they desired to take an active part in the market—a feature of everyday life whether at home or in the colonies—they tempered material ambition with efforts to forge and sustain a system of reciprocal personal obligations.	. . .