Scotch-Irish Americans

===History of the term ''Scotch-Irish''===
[[File:Scotch vs. Scottish.jpg|thumb|An example, showing the usage of Scotch as an adjective, in the 4th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica, Edinburgh, Scotland (1800), and modernized to Scottish in the 7th edition (1829).]]

The word "[[Scotch (adjective)|Scotch]]" was the favored adjective for things "''of Scotland''", including people, until the early 19th century, when it was replaced by the word "Scottish". People in [[Scotland]] refer to themselves as Scots, as a noun, or adjectivally/collectively as Scots or [[Scottish people|Scottish]]. The use of "Scotch" as an adjective has been dropped in the UK and Ireland where it is now more commonly regarded as offensive,<ref>{{cite news|title=6 times it's OK to use the word Scotch and why you don't want to get it wrong|work=[[Irish News]]|publisher=[[The Irish News Ltd.]]|date=17 November 2017|url=https://www.irishnews.com/magazine/daily/2017/11/16/news/6-times-it-s-ok-to-use-the-word-scotch-and-why-you-don-t-want-to-get-it-wrong-1189740/}}</ref> but remains in use in the U.S. in place names, names of plants, breeds of dog, a type of tape, a type of [[whiskey]], etc., and in the term Scotch-Irish.

Although referenced by [[Merriam-Webster]] dictionaries as having first appeared in 1744, the American term ''Scotch-Irish'' is undoubtedly older. An affidavit of William Patent, dated March 15, 1689, in a case against a Mr. Matthew Scarbrough in [[Somerset County, Maryland]], quotes Mr. Patent as saying he was told by Scarbrough that "it was no more sin to kill me then to kill a dogg, or any Scotch Irish dogg".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~merle/Articles/OldestUseSI.htm |title=Ancestry.com |publisher=Homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com |access-date=2012-06-04}}</ref>

Leyburn cites the following as early American uses of the term before 1744.<ref name=Leyburn330>Leyburn 1962, p. 330.</ref>
*The earliest is a report in June 1695, by Sir Thomas Laurence, Secretary of Maryland, that "In the two counties of [[Dorchester County, Maryland|Dorchester]] and Somerset, where the Scotch-Irish are numerous, they clothe themselves by their linen and woolen manufactures."
*In September 1723, Rev. George Ross, Rector of Immanuel Church in [[New Castle, Delaware]], wrote in reference to their anti-[[Church of England]] stance that, "They call themselves Scotch-Irish&nbsp;... and the bitterest railers against the church that ever trod upon American ground."
*Another Church of England clergyman from [[Lewes, Delaware]], commented in 1723 that "great numbers of Irish (who usually call themselves Scotch-Irish) have transplanted themselves and their families from the north of Ireland".

The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' says the first use of the term ''Scotch-Irish'' came in Pennsylvania in 1744: 
*1744 [[Witham Marshe|W. MARSHE]] Jrnl. 21 June in ''Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society''. (1801) 1st Ser. VII. 177: "The inhabitants [of [[Lancaster, Pennsylvania]]] are chiefly [[Pennsylvania Dutch|High-Dutch]], Scotch-Irish, some few English families, and unbelieving Israelites." Its citations include examples after that into the late 19th century.

In ''[[Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America]]'', historian [[David Hackett Fischer]] asserts:
<blockquote>
Some historians describe these immigrants as "Ulster Irish" or "Northern Irish". It is true that many sailed from the province of Ulster&nbsp;... part of much larger flow which drew from the lowlands of Scotland, the north of England, and every side of the Irish Sea. Many scholars call these people ''Scotch-Irish''. That expression is an Americanism, rarely used in Britain and much resented by the people to whom it was attached. "We're no Eerish bot Scoatch," one of them was heard to say in Pennsylvania.<ref>Fischer, p. 618.</ref>
</blockquote>

Fischer prefers to speak of "borderers" (referring to the historically war-torn England-Scotland border) as the population ancestral to the "backcountry" "cultural stream" (one of the four major and persistent cultural streams from Ireland and Britain which he identifies in American history). He notes the borderers had substantial [[English people|English]] and [[Scandinavia]]n roots. He describes them as being quite different from Gaelic-speaking groups such as the Scottish Highlanders or Irish (that is, Gaelic-speaking and predominantly Roman Catholic).

An example of the use of the term is found in ''A History of Ulster'': "Ulster Presbyterians – known as the "Scotch Irish" – were already accustomed to being on the move, and clearing and defending their land."<ref>{{cite book|first=Jonathan|last=Bardon|title=A History of Ulster|publisher=Blackstaff Press|place=[[Belfast]]|year=1992|page=210}}</ref>

Many have claimed that such a distinction should not be used, and that those called Scotch-Irish are simply Irish.<ref name=Leyburn327/> Other Irish limit the term ''Irish'' to those of native Gaelic stock, and prefer to describe the [[Ulster Protestants]] as ''British'' (a description many Ulster Protestants have preferred themselves to ''Irish'', at least since the [[Irish Free State]] broke free from the United Kingdom, although ''Ulstermen'' has been adopted in order to maintain a distinction from the native Irish Gaels while retaining a claim to the North of Ireland).<ref>James G. Leyburn (1962). [http://www.irishgenealogy.com/surnames/migration-scotch-irish.htm "The Scotch-Irish"]. In ''The Scotch-Irish: A Social History''. University of North Carolina Press.</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Walker|first=Brian M.|title=We all can be Irish, British or both|work=[[Belfast Telegraph]]|publisher=[[Independent News & Media]]|url=http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/news-analysis/we-all-can-be-irish-british-or-both-31290843.html|date=June 10, 2015}}</ref> However, as one scholar observed in 1944, "in this country [the US], where they have been called Scotch-Irish for over two hundred years, it would be absurd to give them a name by which they are not known here.&nbsp;... Here their name is Scotch-Irish; let us call them by it."<ref>Wayland F. Dunaway, ''The Scotch-Irish of Colonial America'', 1944, University of North Carolina Press</ref>
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