Has anyone got this book? I thought I had ordered it before but I don't have it.. so I just ordered it. <A HREF="http://www.carolinascots.com/cs/chap1.html">Carolina Scots - Excerpts - Chapter 1</A> Carolina Scots > > > >CHAPTER ONE THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND: FOUNTAINHEAD OF EMIGRATION >In September 1739, the quiet lapping of dark waters against the thickly wooded banks of the Cape Fear river would have been disturbed by the sounds of men, women and children talking excitedly in their native Gaelic, " Feuach, 's briagha a th'ann!" - (Look, isn't it lovely!). They had sailed in July, from Campbeltown, the main port of their home area of Argyll on the West of Scotland following the recommendation of a committee of leading citizens. These men had already made an advance trip the Carolinas encouraged by the interest of the Governor, Gabriel Johnston, himself a Scot, who felt that the colony would be prospered by the addition of Highlanders. To attract such immigration, he offered free land grants and even possible exemption from taxation for a time. Led by Neill Du MacNeill ('Black' Neil of Ardelay), this group of Gaelic speakers, included Armstrongs, McAlesters, Clarks, Colvins, Alexanders, McKays, McLaughlins, McLachlans, McNeills, McPhersons, Stevens, Buies, Camerons, McDuffies, McCranies, Pattersons, Campbells, Stewarts, Connors, Wards, McGaws, McDougalds, McGills, Smiths, and Smylies, - and as they fanned out into the surrounding sandhills during the next months, they set the pattern for future settlements, adapting their Scottish ways to the new environment. To set the movements of our forefathers in proper context, we must begin by taking a look at the general cultural background from which they came. In so doing, we will be examining the formative influences on the Scottish settlers in the Carolinas, influences which have made a lasting mark on the Southern culture there and elsewhere. Geography and History of the Highlands >Scotland, not including its large scattered island areas, is about the size of the state of South Carolina. It is divided into two main regions known as the Lowlands and the Highlands. The Highlands include much of the northern and western portions of Scotland, particularly above an imaginary 'Highland line' which runs along the Grampian mountains. It runs across the north side of the Clyde Valley, then north and east through Perthshire and Angus, and so around to the east side of Scotland close to the coast. Reaching the boundary of the counties of Sutherland and Caithness, it turns northwest to end on the northern shore near the Pentland Firth, leaving Caithness as a remote outpost of the Lowlands. In the eighteenth century the cultural and linguistic boundary approximated very closely to this geographical line. The Western Isles, or Hebrides, have always belonged to the Highlands in every respect. . . Until last century, the Highlands were isolated from the Lowlands not only by the difficulties of travel through the mountains and remote islands, but also by a difference in language. The Highlanders spoke Gaelic, a form of ancient Celtic, which is far more different from the English that was spoken in the Lowlands than is German or French! And along with the Gaelic language there was a distinct Highland, or Celtic, culture which set the region apart from the Lowlands even more than its geography. In order to be in a better position to explore this distinctive Celtic culture and look at the changes it suffered in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries leading to its exportation to the faraway coast of Carolina, we will begin by taking a brief look at the history of the Highlands, with reference to the rest of the British Isles, where relevant. The Highlanders are one branch of a larger family of Celts, who belong originally to the Indo-European peoples, and who seem to have come in two large waves to prehistoric Britain: one directly into mainland Britain and the other by way of Ireland. These people brought with them not only their language but also a peculiar structuring of society along kinship lines, which in later centuries evolved into what is known as the clan system of Ireland and Scotland. At one time the Celts occupied large sections of Great Britain, but by the early Middle Ages, the invasions of the Romans, and then of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and others, had driven them back into the Northern and Western portions of Britain: to Wales, Cornwall, Ireland, the Isle of Man and Scotland. The Highlands of Scotland, however, can trace the main development of their peculiar culture to a sixth and seventh century migration of their distant relatives from Ireland to the Southwestern Coast of Kintyre. Large numbers of Gaels or '"Scots" moved into Argyllshire in the early Middle Ages. They brought with them not only a line of Kings, who would become the progenitors of the Scottish Royal House, but also the form of Gaelic which would become standard in Scotland. In addition, they were accompanied by monastic Christian missionaries, who helped to spread faith, language and civilization throughout the mainland of Scotland. Eventually the MacDonald Clan became the most powerful of the clans, so that for much of the Medieval period they dominated large areas of the Highlands and Islands as well as significant parts of Northern Ireland. The MacDonalds were a counterbalance to the authority of the House of Stewart, who were, in theory, the Kings of all Scotland. For several centuries, the MacDonalds essentially functioned as rulers of the Highlands, and closely connected to them were a number of other powerful clans such as the MacLeans, Camerons and others. In fact, until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Highlands, under the MacDonald hegemony as 'Lords of the Isles', maintained a functional independence from the rest of Scotland. But the Highlands were not to remain isolated for long. As was so often to happen in the future, it was events further south that were to have a decisive influence in the shaping of Highland history and culture. In 1603, the long reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England ended. But she died single and childless and the Tudor line came to an abrupt end also. Who would succeed her? In looking for a successor, eyes turned north to her cousin, James VI, Scottish monarch of the House of Stewart. Thus, when he was chosen to succeed her, the crowns of England and Scotland were united in his person and line and he moved away from Edinburgh to London. As a result, although the process would take generations, the tendency of the controlling powers of Scotland was naturally to look southwards to England, and increasingly to draw Scotland into the orbit of the economic and social system of the vastly larger and more powerful Southern neighbor >From this time forward the central government would work hard to bring the independent Highlands under their sway. Eventually the result was that they were fused into the Lowland section, and ultimately - in a certain sense - into the whole of what would become the "United Kingdom." However, as it turned out, the actual procedure would take a long time and would be accompanied by considerable bloodshed and widespread dislocations for the Highlanders... Windows on the past >It is hard to picture the way things were before the political and social changes affected the Highlands so radically. We are fortunate, however, that about the time that some of the distinctive characteristics of Highland life were beginning to come under severe attack from all quarters, there was arising a new breed of writer whose interest was to chronicle daily life all over the British Isles. In some cases, they were outsiders to the culture which they were describing. An example of this would be the famous Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, made in the 1770's by the Englishmen, Johnson with his friend Boswell, a Scot. Another Englishman whose observations have become a window through which we can view Scottish life of two hundred and fifty years ago, is Edmund Burt, an officer of the Royal Engineers, sent to Oban in the mid-eighteenth century. In his line of work as a contractor he travelled widely, and was thus able to leave for us not only written accounts of a variety of different loca As we shall see, the Scots loved the past, and so they were not without their own chroniclers of the period. Although, naturally, they were not all writing at exactly the time of the Argyll colony, for example, very often they draw in past experiences, their own or of others, or describe features of Gaelic culture which had changed little over the years. When they do this, they can be of use to us. For example, Alexander Carmichael, made an enduring study of Gaelic Hymns and songs in the nineteenth century, and at about the same period, John Francis Campbell was traveling through the Hebrides, keeping records of his experiences..   Vicki Vicki McGlaun Culpepper McGlaughon Mail List Owner Proud Rootsweb Sponsor McGlaughon MyFamily.com site McGlauhon/McGlohon/Glohon/McGlohan/McGlaughon/MeGlaehan/McGlawn/McGlawhorn/McG laun/McGlaughn/McGlaune/McGlon/McLawhorn/ </HTML>