The descendants of Danish, Norman, and English settlers consider
themselves pure Irish "Celts." It is a strange fact that the English,
Scotch, Norman, Danish, and even the French Huguenots who have
settled in Ireland have acquired and have handed down an extraordinary
temperamental unity. As to language, by the time of Elizabeth the
English Pale constituted a part of eastern Leinster, and there English
was uniformly spoken. The English language ultimately spread over the
whole of Ireland, leaving only a few remnants of Celtic speech in the
extreme west.
From the times of James I to those of William III, large numbers of
English and Scotch borderers passed over to the northeast corner of the
island into the province of Ulster. They were fervent Presbyterians
and hated the native Catholic Irish. It was the sons and grandsons of
these immigrants who came to America in the eighteenth century and are
sometimes miscalled the "Scotch Irish." They had special grievances of
their own against England on account of economic restrictions imposed
upon their industries.
Before this time a large number of Cromwellian soldiers had settled in
Leinster, but not having their own women with them they intermarried
with the Catholic Irish and their descendants today are most intensely
Irish in national feeling. The Reformation never had much hold
on Ireland, so that the Catholic Irish today represent the mixed
population of Ireland before the sixteenth century, together with
numerous converts from the Scotch and English immigrants.
With this brief survey of the distribution of the Nordic race in Europe
down to the time of the discovery of America and the beginning of
emigration to the colonies of the New World, we can pass on to one of
the most dramatic mass-migrations of man.
From West Central Asia where it was in contact with the Mongoloids on
the _east_, the Nordic race pushed across Europe to the extreme western
coasts. We shall show how it traversed the Atlantic Ocean and then in
three centuries subdued a continent. Generation after generation it
fought its way westward, until it reached the Pacific Ocean, where
today it stands confronting Asia and its immemorial rivals, the
Mongols, this time on the _west_.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: In _Geographical Lore of the Time of the Crusades_, by
J.K. Wright of the American Geographic Society, p. 320, the author
says: "In these authorities we find that the differences between the
inhabitants of the northern and southern parts of Italy were fully
appreciated in the twelfth century. 'The Lombards,' Gunther says, 'are
a keen, skillful, and active people; foresighted in counsel; expert
in justice; strong in body and spirit, full of life and handsome to
look upon, with slight, supple bodies that give them great power of
endurance; economical and always moderate in eating and drinking;
masters of their hands and mouths; honorable in every business
transaction; mighty in the arts and always striving for the new; lovers
of freedom and ready to face death for freedom's sake. These people
have never been willing to submit to kings.... But what a contrast the
people of Apulia in the south present to the Lombards. Dirty, lazy,
weak, good-for-nothing idlers that they are.'"]
[Footnote 3: The Spanish popular heroes, Don Rodrigo and the Cid
Campeador, were Gothic, to judge by their names, as was the brave
crusader, Count Raymund of Toulouse. L. Wilser has called attention
to the number of Gothic names still in use in the Iberian peninsula:
Alfonso or Affonso, Alonzo (Gothic Athalafuns); Alvaro and Alvarez
(Gothic Alavair); Bermuy (Gothic Berimud); Bertran (Gothic Bairhtram);
Diego and Diaz (Gothic Thiudareiks, Dietrich); Esmeralda; Fernando and
its genitive Fernandez (Gothic Ferdinanths); Froilaz and Fruela (Gothic
Fravila); Gelmirez (Gelimer); Gomez (Gothic Guma); Gonzalo and Gonzalez
(Gothic Gunthimir, Gundemar); Guilfonso (Gothic Viljafuns); Guzman
(Gothic Godaman, Gutmann); Ildefonso (Gothic Hildifuns); Isabella;
Marques (Gothic Markja); Menendez (Gothic Herminanths); Mundiz and
Munnez (Gothic Mundila); Pizarro (Gothic Pitzas); Ramiro (Gothic
Radomir or Ragnimir); Ramon and Renmondez (Gothic Ragnimund); Rodrigo
and Rodriguez; Ruiz (Gothic Rudoreiks); Sesnandes (Gothic Sisenand);
Vasco and Vasquez (Nordic Wasce); Velasquez (Gothic Vilaskja?). See p.
107, vol. II, of book _Die Germanen_, by Doctor Ludwig Wilser.]
[Footnote 4: Describing Camoens, George Edward Woodberry (_The Torch_,
pp. 203-4; New York, 1920) says: "He was of the old blue blood of the
Peninsula, the Gothic blood, the same that gave birth to Cervantes. He
was blond, and bright-haired, with blue eyes, large and lively, the
face oval and ruddy--and in manhood the beard short and rounded, with
long untrimmed mustachios--the forehead high, the nose aquiline; in
figure agile and robust; in action 'quick to draw and slow to sheathe,'
and when he was young, he writes that he had seen the heels of many,
but none had seen his heels. Born about the year 1524, of a noble and
well-connected family, educated at Coimbra, a university famous for the
classics, and launched in life about the court at Lisbon, he was no
sooner his own master than he fell into troubles."]
[Footnote 5: Wilser cites Woltmann's essay, "Have the Goths disappeared
in Italy?," which shows that even in the latter part of the Middle Ages
many people lived according to Gothic law; that in some cities there
even existed Gothic sections; and that many Gothic names can be traced,
as Stavila, Nefila, Leuuia, Hermia, Hilpja, Ansefrida, Gilliefredus,
Totila, Vila.]
[Footnote 6: In fact, almost all the names of the Troubadours are
Teutonic, says Wilser, giving the following examples of French names,
with the Teutonic original in parentheses: Arnaut (Arnold); Aimeric
(Emerich); Bernart (Bernhard); Bertrand (Bertram); Gaucelm (Walchelm);
Gautier (Walther); Guillem (Wilhelm); Guiraut (Gerold); Gunot (Wido);
Jaufre or Joffre (Gotfrid); Raimon (Raginmund); Rambaut (Raginbald);
Rudel (Rudolf); Savaric (Sabarich). See p. 107, vol. II, of _Die
Germanen_, by Doctor Ludwig Wilser.]
IV
THE NORDIC SETTLEMENT OF AMERICA
Before considering the question of the origin of the English settlers
of the Atlantic seaboard, it is important to understand the motives
that actuated the newcomers.
The impelling motive of the settlers who crossed the ocean to America
from the earliest Colonial times down to 1880 was land hunger, and just
as we speculate in stocks today, so down to one hundred years ago our
ancestors speculated in lands on the frontier.
It is difficult to realize the extent to which the ownership of the
land in Europe was monopolized, largely through the exercise of
Royal favor, by the upper classes in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. This established English tradition and practice, brought
to America by the early settlers, coupled with the favoritism of the
royal governors in land grants, was one of the causes which led to the
Revolution. After the American victory much land was confiscated on the
plea that the owners were Loyalists.
The distribution of free land in the United States came substantially
to an end about 1880, when the public domain became exhausted. Up
to that date, the immigration into America had been assimilated
readily. Certain exceptions will be dealt with later. Practically all
of it was from northwestern Europe, and the immigrants came mostly
of their own volition. It took some degree of enterprise to leave
home, cross the Atlantic, and establish oneself in a new country amid
strange surroundings. Settling new land meant clearing the forests and
destroying the game, as well as buying off or fighting the Indians,
whose ideas about land ownership were vague. To the frontiersman in
early days, the term "a clearing" was synonymous with "a settlement."
Religious motives and the desire for political and economic
independence, of course, were also great factors in the Pilgrim and
Puritan migration to New England from 1620 to 1640.
The New England Puritans represented only a part and relatively a
small part of the exodus from England. They were pure English from the
most Anglo-Saxon part of England and consisted largely of yeomen and
the lesser gentry, who found the religious and political conditions
in England under the Stuarts intolerable for freemen. They were
essentially dissenters, who refused to bend the knee to prelate or to
king.
In 1640, under the Commonwealth the Puritans seized the reins of
government in England and only permitted the return of royalty in
1660 under conditions which established for all time the supremacy of
Parliament. In fact, during the Commonwealth the power of Parliament
had become so great that many of the best minds of England felt that a
restoration of the monarchy was needed as a check.
The settlers of New England may be regarded as essentially rebels
against established religion and established authority when the
religion and authority were not of their own choosing. This
non-conformist spirit persisted in the successive new frontiers as
they were settled by New Englanders. The early New England settlers
of western New York and the old Northwest Territory gave birth to an
astonishing number of new sects, religions, "isms," and communities,
ranging all the way from Mormonism to Shakers and the Oneida Community.
They were, however, law-abiding in their own way and murders and crimes
of violence were relatively infrequent.
This is in sharp contrast to the southern frontiersmen, who were and
are addicted to killings and physical violence. That, however, is
chiefly true of the inhabitants of the Appalachian valleys, who always
have been lawless. The dissent and predisposition to rebellion among
the New Englanders dates back to the Puritans in England and the
lawlessness and violence of the Ulster Scots to the endless border
warfare on the Scottish frontier. The southern frontiersman was
originally a Presbyterian, but he found his religion too intellectual
for isolated communities and turned in many cases to the more emotional
creeds of the Methodist and Baptist. The hatred of England by the
Ulster Scotch frontiersmen dated back to the unjust and oppressive
interference with their industries in the north of Ireland, as well as
to a deep-seated impatience of all authority.
After the Revolution this hatred of authority was transferred to the
tidewater aristocrats and was accentuated by the debtor complex, which
has characterized all our frontiers.
The character of the frontier from the very beginning remained the
same. Each generation of the restless, the discontented and the
failures pushed West, carrying with them some of the fine qualities
of the original settlers of the seaboard, but more often developing a
new complex of intolerance for the restraints and usages of the older
communities.
There is an amusing and significant evolution of these traits in
families who settled around Massachusetts Bay and then moved to
the Connecticut Valley; thence to Vermont, western New York, Ohio,
Illinois, Iowa, and Los Angeles, where they now flourish.
At the time of the Revolution the intense hatred in New England of
the mother country was due partly to a desire to confiscate the lands
of the Loyalists and partly to that which they considered unfair
restrictions on their overseas trade, as well as to an unwillingness to
being taxed to pay a part of the great cost of conquering Canada.
The net result of these forces was a widespread anti-British and,
later, anti-governmental complex, which has characterized our country
ever since. In contrast to England and to Canada, we are an essentially
lawless people.
[Illustration: Ireland.]
In the North the Revolution was largely a movement of various Calvinist
communities. The few Episcopalians in New England and the more numerous
adherents of that church in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were
almost all Loyalists. In Virginia, however, and further to the south
the numerous Church of England planter class took the American side
and as a result retained their leadership as an aristocracy down to
the time of the Civil War. Even at the time of the Revolution this
church contributed more than its quota of leaders. Of fifty-six signers
of the Declaration of Independence, thirty-four are classified as
Episcopalians, twelve as Congregationalists, five as Presbyterians,
two Quakers, one Baptist and one Roman Catholic. Of the Continental
Congress which ratified this Declaration, nearly two-thirds are said to
have been Episcopalians.
In the North following the expulsion of the Loyalists, the Church of
England was left prostrate, and it was some time after the Revolution
before it was successfully reorganized and was definitely designated
as the _Protestant_ Episcopal Church to become, after a century, the
fashionable church of the Atlantic seaboard. The Protestant Episcopal
Church has never had any substantial hold in the Middle or Far West
and even today it is there largely a missionary church with a tendency
towards ritualism, which has checked its normal development.
The Roman Catholic population of the colonies was negligible. In 1790
out of a white population of a little over 3,000,000, there were not
more than 35,000 Catholics in the United States. This number included
5000 Negroes and some Germans. They were located for the most part in
Maryland and Pennsylvania, showing that the South Irish Catholics had
not come over in appreciable numbers during Colonial times. Many of the
colonies legislated against Roman Catholics.
The Revolution itself was political and social, carrying to an extreme
development the political theories of the English Whigs. The distrust
of officialdom in power, engendered by the Revolution, led to all
manner of constitutional and legal restrictions, in place of a reliance
on the personal character of office holders as in England.
During Colonial times two distinct types of population developed.
First, the older communities along the tidewater districts, closely in
touch with Europe and having a long tradition of culture and wealth.
Second, a type grew up on the frontier which from the very beginning
showed itself intolerant of the control of the older and richer
settlements. This found its expression in Shays's Rebellion in West
Massachusetts in 1786-87, in the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania
in 1794, and, still earlier, in 1770, when the "Regulators" in North
Carolina were in open rebellion. After the Revolution this tendency
became more and more marked until the then West under Andrew Jackson
took over the control of the country and, with many unfortunate
results, carried Jefferson's ideals to an extreme.
The Revolution emphasized this second attitude of mind and resulted
in the loss, by expulsion, of some of the best Nordic blood in the
country. The Loyalists from Boston, for instance, comprised many of the
oldest and most distinguished families. The representative families
of that city today are not descended wholly from the aristocratic
Colonial families, but largely from the population of the small towns
and villages in its neighborhood. It is said that a total of eighty to
a hundred thousand Loyalists left the colonies and went to Canada and
England and to the English West Indies.
New England to a greater extent than any other colony had been at
war with France and her Canadian Indians for the best part of one
hundred and fifty years, but the memory of this prolonged and bloody
struggle was obliterated by the Revolution. In its place there arose
in America a sentiment for France, caused largely by the romantic
personality of Lafayette, which survives to this day. The Jeffersonian
emotional sympathy with the French Revolution also played a large part.
The fact nevertheless is that we had a naval war in 1798 with the
French, although no formal war was declared. It was caused by French
depredations on American commerce, resulting in several duels between
American and French frigates. All this is conveniently forgotten or
ignored in some of our school text-books.
* * * * *
The earliest permanent settlements of importance in New England were
around Massachusetts Bay, and in Virginia along navigable streams.
From such centers settlements spread up and down the coast until
all the desirable lands accessible to salt water became occupied.
In New England the coasts of southern Maine, of Rhode Island, and
of Connecticut were quickly occupied. Migration then went overland
from Massachusetts Bay, westward to the Connecticut River. This was
our first real northern frontier, and it took more than a century to
populate southern and western New England.
The settlement of Connecticut westward was blocked by the colony of New
York, while the Indians delayed the advance of Massachusetts to the
north. Connecticut in turn threw out colonies at an early date, such as
Newark in New Jersey in 1666.
Vermont was not settled until just before the Revolution, owing to the
danger from the Indians and a serious dispute between New Hampshire
and New York as to its ownership. At the time of the Revolution it was
a typical frontier with all of its bad features. At that time it was
about as rough and tough as Kentucky or Tennessee. After the Revolution
some of the best of its population migrated to western New York, along
with settlers from all over New England who went for the most part
through Vermont.
Early in the eighteenth century nearly all the desirable lands within
reach of salt water had been occupied from New Jersey southward, and
later coming immigrants were forced back into the uplands of the West
beyond the so-called Fall Line at which the Atlantic rivers cease to be
navigable.
New York interposed an absolute bar to westward migration because the
Iroquois Indians held almost all the fertile lands to the west of the
Hudson River. The east bank of the Hudson was more or less filled up
with New Englanders and the west bank with its undesirable lands was
turned over to late coming immigrants, chiefly Germans. The Dutch
population of New York was but small. The total population of the
colony at the time of its seizure by England in 1664 was little more
than 10,000 and there were already many English among them.
The English settlers occupied both banks of the Delaware around
Philadelphia, forcing the later-coming Germans and Ulster Scots to the
west. The Swedish settlement along the river was trifling and was soon
absorbed. There is very little trace of it left in place or personal
names. On the upper reaches of the Delaware River, in Pennsylvania, and
in New York, there were some small settlements of French Huguenots, who
suffered severely from Indian depredations during the Revolution.
Delaware and the country east of Chesapeake Bay are purely English, as
was Maryland, except that western Maryland was really part of western
Pennsylvania and western Virginia.
Virginia itself was the mother of States and in Colonial times extended
in fact, as other colonies did in theory, to the Mississippi, without
mentioning claims to the South Sea. The tidewater population of
Virginia differed profoundly from that of the western part of the
State, including the Shenandoah Valley, which was settled largely from
western Pennsylvania.
There was a marked difference between the settlement of New England and
that of Virginia. To New England the earliest settlers brought their
women and families, while in Virginia the early arrivals were nearly
all males. Women were afterwards sent over by the shipload, but this
was only during the early days of the colony.
Like Virginia, North Carolina in Colonial times extended nominally to
the Mississippi. Its population lacked the tidewater aristocrats of the
Old Dominion and contained many Scots, straight from the Highlands,
who, strangely, took the British side during the Revolution, as well as
a very large number of Ulster Scots in the western mountains, and in
the counties which were afterwards Tennessee.
Kentucky and Tennessee were both settled from the colonies immediately
to the east, but largely by the Ulster Scots, coming from western
Pennsylvania through the mountainous districts of Virginia and North
Carolina. These Ulster Scots came south along the Appalachian valleys,
which trend in a southwesterly direction. They were reinforced by the
numerous groups of the same people, who came up from South Carolina.
Kentucky was much more purely English than Tennessee.
It is a fact but little understood, that the frontier was not much
reinforced from the coast but extended itself. In other words, the
frontier from the beginning was pushed onward by the backwoodsmen, each
generation advancing a little farther westward and making new clearings.
The people along the coast, after a couple of generations of severe
privation, became relatively rich as compared with the frontiersmen.
The inhabitants of the coast cities for the most part preferred a
sea-faring life rather than the hewing out of a homestead in the
wilderness. There have been many cases in our Colonial history where
men went from the coast towns to the wilderness, but for the most part
they were content to stay at home.
As to the original racial complexion of the colonies, New England was
purely Nordic and English. The handful of Ulster Scots in New Hampshire
was not to be distinguished from the English, and the individual
Huguenot families around Boston were only trifling in number. This
remained true of all New England during the Colonial period.
In New York, however, conditions were different. Dutch New Amsterdam,
afterwards English New York City, was always an important port and
attracted to itself from the earliest times a substantial number of
foreigners. In addition to the Dutch founders a considerable number of
French Huguenots were among the earlier settlers. There were also a few
Germans and Portuguese.
The west bank of the Hudson was less accessible and desirable than the
east bank, but there were some substantial colonies of Palatine Germans
settled there and up the valleys of the Mohawk and its connecting
streams. These last played a creditable part in the heavy fighting
which raged in this district with the British settlers, who were for
the most part Loyalists. There were also some small colonies of pure
Scotch along the Mohawk.
One of the results of the Revolution was the expulsion of the Iroquois
Indians, who had occupied New York westward from near Albany to
Buffalo. They had sided with the British and had committed many
atrocities. Their lands were immediately occupied by New Englanders,
coming chiefly from or through Vermont, so that New York State west of
Albany became little more than an extension of New England, except that
the settlers had become Presbyterians.
Many of the colonists who came to New York from Holland were refugees
from the provinces now included in Belgium--in other words, they were
either Flemings or French Huguenots. The real Dutch in the province
came from the north of Holland and were mostly Nordic Frisians.
In addition to the large migration from Ulster very many English
Protestants from Leinster came to America by way of New York
immediately after the Revolution. The Catholic Irish did not come in
any numbers until after 1845.
The Huguenots were pre-dominantly Nordic. For example, New Rochelle in
New York was settled directly from Old Rochelle which is, even today,
one of the purest Nordic districts remaining in France. It is entirely
safe to say that the Huguenots from Brittany, Normandy, and Picardy,
who came to the American colonies by way of England and Holland were
overwhelmingly Nordic. Some of those from southern France were probably
Mediterranean.
Outside of the Port of New York the Dutch population was confined to
the Hudson River towns, chiefly on the east bank, up to and including
Albany and Schenectady. The Dutch element of New Jersey was very small.