Scotland, the Stateless Nation - Essay Example

Scotland, the less Nation This essay investigates which push or pull factors were most significant in causing the emigration of Scots from 1707 to 1914. It also evaluate whether the alienation factors existent in Scotland (push factors) or the attractive factors contained in the land of emigration (pull factors) were most powerful. Scots emigrated by force as political prisoners and religious protesters, they were assisted and they volunteered to leave a land that they loved1. They wandered to the European Continent, settling in Scandinavia, Holland, France and Italy pursuing trade and sales2. Many attempted to settle in Central America through the Scottish sponsored Darien project with a hope of establishing the same success as the English. There they were fated to die, abandoned by both the Scottish and English government. The Scottish government and investors lost huge amounts of capital that contributed to the later depression of the 17th Century3. Large numbers of Scotsmen and their lassies relocated to Canada, North American Colonies as well as Australia and New Zealand. Motivation for leaving their homeland varied over the 18th, 19th and first decades of the 20th Century. However, the main causes of this startling Diaspora arose from the blunt fact that Scotland as a nation had lost as a rival to England. This process began much earlier than the era of colonization at least six hundred years earlier. England, the poor leadership from the aristocracy of both lands, the European wars of the 18th Century and the Imperial expansion of Great Britain in the 19th proved the death of the nation of Scotland. The conquest of England by the Normans brought about a six hundred year war between England’s’ new masters and Scotland, which culminated in 1688. Malcolm Canmore, Malcolm III and William the conqueror hated each other at first sight. However, William the Conqueror forced Malcolm III by the Treaty of Abernathy in 1072 to surrender his son Duncan to the Norman court as hostage. Malcolm III received in exchange for this fealty land in England4. The very use of hostages was a weakening stratagem because it influenced indirectly and directly the youthful heirs of one’s opponents, in a positive manner, towards the ways of their captor (host). Herein, the English turned the Scottish laird and chieftain to their purposes and ultimately through them destroyed the Scottish nation. The Normans and the Scots continued in a never-ending battle between each other until after the middle of the 18th century. The English monarch insisted on the Scot being a vassal, while the Scot was just as obdurate in maintaining his equality. The Normans had succeeded in their assault through the bloodline by the time of Henry VIII when the Scottish King was married to Henry VIII’s older sister5. This would latter provide a death knell to Scottish nationality since their offspring would create a single monarch of two nations. The cultural problem was somewhat more difficult since the Scottish were more influenced by the French in terms of architecture, art and trade. This was a factious issue since the English constantly were at war with France whose ally was Scotland. The English demanded that Scotland yield fealty. This meant that Scotland should support England in their cause against France often this was not possible. This created a continuous cycle of war for almost six hundred years. When James I and VI was crowned as Queen Elizabeth’s successor, Scotland lost her monarch and national identity. The Regal Union of 1603 established the co-regency of England and Scotland. Scotland has always needed but seldom had a strong monarch to control the clan chieftains. The leadership of the Scot aristocracy failed to serve the Scottish nation in a manner that benefited the majority. Their loyalty, unlike the English, was towards the clan or family not primarily to the monarch. When the Scots needed a united purpose or vision, the Scottish aristocracy constantly was more concerned with pursuing clan feuds6. The Scottish aristocracy by the time of James I and VI was more French in its art, architecture and interrelatedness than any English aristocrat except the new monarch was a Tudor. The co-incidence of Scottish emigration with the Wars of the Covenant (1630-1640), the Annexation of Scotland by Cromwell (1650) and the famine of 1690 is not accidental. The early years of the 17th century showed almost 127,000 Scots departed Scotland for Ulster, Ireland and Continental Europe7. The North American emigration started in New Jersey in 1683. East New Jersey and the Carolinas attracted over 100 Scottish investors and nearly 1,000 settlers. Many Scots were “transported” by both sides of the English civil war to the American Colonies8. There were more who decided to leave Scotland of their free will than those who were “transported” because of political or religious differences. This reflects a desire on the part of a large number of Scots to escape conflict, pursue freedom and acquire land. British Customs Reports from 1772 recorded the reasons for their emigration as being the famine, increased rent prices (an increase from two to five £), no work available and most common the advice of friends who had already emigrated. Whatever the push was to emigrate, a pull was generated by the fact that emigrants were given reasonable terms to purchase. The Earl of Selkirk, an aristocrat, who actively involved himself with the early colonization of North America, said, "the settlers had every incitement to vigorous exertion from the nature of their tenure. They were allowed to purchase in fee-simple, and to a certain extent on credit. From 50 to 100 acres were allotted to each family at a very moderate price, but none was given gratuitously. To accommodate those who had no superfluity of capital, they were not required to pay the price in full, till the third of fourth year of their possession; and in that time an industrious man may have it in his power to discharge his debt out of the produce of the land itself". Those who went out without capital at all, could, such was the high rate of wages, soon save as much as would enable them to undertake the management of land of their own. That the Highlanders were as capable of hard and good labour as the lowlanders is proved by the way they set to work in these colonies, when they were entirely freed from oppression, and dependence, and charity, and had to depend entirely on their own exertions.”9 Before 1776, over 150,000 Scots emigrated to America. The trend of migration was initially to Nova Scotia (1620-1630), New England and the Chesapeake Bay (1650-1660), South Carolina (1685). The American plantations were the destinations of thousands of Scot soldiers transported there by Cromwell. Seventeen hundred Scots were transported to the plantations after the Covenanter Uprisings alone. An additional 1600 were exiled because of the Jacobite Rebellions of 1715 and 1745. Another colony to which Scots emigrated was the West Indies. The West Indies had a significant settlement of Scots both voluntary and involuntary. The majority of Scots arrived in the West Indies involuntarily, being Cromwell’s prisoners of war, political prisoners such as Covenanters and convicted criminals. After the Anglo-Scot Union of 1707, the restriction on trade between the West Indies and Scotland was lifted. Trade grew between Great Britain and the West Indies rapidly, as well as with the American Colonies. Emigration from the West Indies to Boston, Philadelphia, Charleston and Savannah occurred frequently10. The emigration to Ireland counted for a great number of Scots in the 18th century. There was upwards of over 250,000 who migrated between the years of 1715-1776 to Ulster11. Scots from the counties of Galloway, Ayreshire, Fife and Argyle settled in Ulster, Ireland making it a Scottish colony in the 18th Century12. The Anglo-Saxon Union of 1707 improved the economy of Scotland by allowing Scottish trade with the North American colonies13. It lifted the heavy and onerous tariffs imposed on Scottish goods to English markets. However, it removed the Scottish Parliament and consolidated it into the English Parliament. This Union was so unpopular that it barely missed dissolution in 1713 by only four votes14. This Union allowed the travesties of the Highland and Lowland Clearances where an antiquated agriculture was changed over night15. There was no real thought of the impact on the national economy with this almost instant urbanization16. It was undertaken as a Scotland’s economy was in tatters in the later part of the 17th Century due to an entire century of civil war, a policy of being remotely ruled from Westminster and enforced trade laws, which favored only the English17. This political event caused in itself many of the push factors that contributed to emigration. The famine, loss of jobs, urbanization and the high cost of food led many to the Jacobite cause. The Jacobites were supporters of King James VII of Scotland and II of Britain who was dethroned by force of arms by the army of William of Orange in 1689. The deposition and exile of King James VII and II came from a real fear that he would reinstitute Catholicism in Britain. Concerned Scottish and English parliaments invited his daughter Queen Mary and her protestant husband William to assume the throne. James III his son took part in the aborted Jacobite revolts of 1708 and 1715. He had two children Charles and Henry. Charles became Bonnie Prince Charles and Henry became a cardinal on the Catholic Church. Bonnie Prince Charles led a successful rebellion capturing most of Scotland but went too far when he invaded England. He lied to his highland chiefs telling them that the English Jacobites would support their war effort. The chieftains discovered his perjury at Derby when they confronted three opposing armies. The Scottish forces withdrew to Culloden where they were defeated. The Jacobite Rebellions were finished18. The Clearances were the forced displacement of the Scottish population from their land, the rapid change of century’s old technology into a crazy industrialization, which had no organization, nor planning from any government source. It resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousand through violence19. The Economy of 1830 was still bad in Scotland. Scottish semi-skilled employees in Glasgow were paying over 5% more than their compatriots in London for food and housing. This created even a larger exodus than before since well over 2 million Scots left for Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand during the period from 1830-1914. The Highlands and Islands Emigration Society financed the emigration of almost 5000 Scots to leave western Scotland for Australia20. The push forces of emigration were political dissatisfaction, poor economy, religious persecution and a lack of individual empowerment. The pull factors were available land, decent pay and a new life. The more significant factors that contributed to the massive Scottish emigration of over three centuries were the push factors. In review of the individual reasons given to 18th Century emigration officials by emigrants, the push factors of famine, a lack of work, intolerable rent increase out numbered the pull factors by three to one. The push factors created a hostile environment that made the attractiveness of emigration possible. In this sense, they are two different aspects of a single essence. If Scotland during the period of 1707-1914 had had a thriving economy, suffered none of the after effects of a bitter civil war, possessed a stable and representational government and provided available arable land, then what sane Scot would have left his clan and family? If all the negative push factors were absent, then how many emigrant Scots would there have been? Perhaps there would have been enough Scots to populate Scotland in the 21st century without resorting to attracting emigrants from Europe. Bibliography Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites, Scotland - UK History, http://www.scotshistoryonline.co.uk/, Obtained from the internet on September 11, 2006. Craig Cogburn, Scots Emigration/Immigration to the US, Obtained from http://www.siloconglen.com/Scotland/history.html, obtained on September 11, 2006. David Daiches, The Paradox of Scottish Culture: The Eighteenth Century Experience, (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 5. T. M. Devine, The Scottish Nation A History 1700-2000, (New York: Viking, 1999), xxxi, 4-5, 20, 25, 35, 52, 177-178. Harold Orel, Henry L Snyder, and Marilyn Stokstad, editors, The Scottish World: History and Culture of Scotland, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1981), 48, 71, 75-76. Highland Clearances,16th century,1725,1732,1746,1762,1803,1820s,1846,19th century, Acts of Union 1707, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/opensearch_desc.php, obtained from the internet on September 11, 2006. Scots Abroad - National Library of Scotland, http://www.nls.uk/news/index.html, obtained from the internet on September 11, 2006. Scottish Emigration, http://www.electricscotland.com/index.html, obtained from the Internet on September 11, 2006. Scottish Emigration, http://www.genealogy.com/268facd.html, obtained from the Internet on September 11, 2006. The Highlands and Islands Emigration Society, http://www.scan.org.uk/directory/index.htm, obtained from the internet on September 11, 2006. Read More