Dakota Beacon

St. Patrick’s Day! Here today and gone for a year. People go goofy wearing green for the day and drinking green beer.

It’s a good-natured celebration with fun for all. But there is more to St. Paddy’s Day than fun. It’s an occasion for Scots-Irish descendants to celebrate their ethnic heritage -- political correctness and “white privilege” be damned.

North Dakota, as part of her own multiethnic experience, saw an influx of Scots-Irish in the early 1800s. These immigrants moved up the Red River from Canada and founded the towns of Grafton, Edinburg, Adams, Park River and Minto in what is now Walsh County.

Who are the Scots-Irish? Where did they come from and how did they influence American history and culture? Good questions deserve good answers.

Former Secretary of the Navy and 2016 Democrat presidential candidate James Webb wrote a wonderful book in 2004 that proposes answers to these questions. His book, “Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America,” is a great read for St. Patrick’s Day. He advances two themes. The main theme traces the Scots-Irish influence in defining “the American way of life.” The secondary theme tracks anecdotally Webb’s personal Scots-Irish heritage.

Webb does a more-than-credible job distilling the salient points of Scots-Irish culture from a sometimes involved and misty history. From encounters by the Romans with the Pics and other wild Celts to the building of Emperor Hadrian’s seventy-three-mile wall to the migration of the Scotti from Ireland to Scotland, Webb creates a perspective that makes Celtic history understandable.

For almost a millennium following the collapse of the Roman Empire the English tried and failed to subdue the Scots-Irish. The conflict in Northern Ireland is directly attributable to the forced establishment in Ireland of the Ulster Colony by the English in 1603.

To subdue Ireland, the English evicted Irish Catholics from their lands in Northern Ireland. The English then imported Scots Presbyterians to work the land and tend to business. It was only a matter of time before the English Anglican elite treated the Scots as poorly as they did the Irish. This culminated in the great Scots-Irish migration to America.

The Scots-Irish began a mass migration to America and other parts of the British Empire during the early 1700s. They came as family groups bringing with them their culture and their heritage as rebels and outcasts as well as superb frontiersmen and fighters.

Underlying Webb’s thesis is the general identification of character traits of the Scots-Irish which he uses to explain their continued fighting spirit and influence in  American culture. Among these traits is their uncomplaining self-reliance, their fierce individualism and their warrior spirit. As a substantial part of the working class, the Scots-Irish built America.

Webb is quick to point out that the American Revolution had its intellectual basis with the English Anglican elite. But over 40% of the men and guns that fought the Revolution came from the Scots-Irish. During the War Between the States, as many as 70% of the Confederate soldiers were Scots-Irish.

Pioneers like Daniel Boone, William Clark, Merriwether Lewis, Kit Carson and Davy Crockett who blazed trails westward were of Scots-Irish ancestry.

Scots-Irish gave America some of its great military leaders including Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant and George Patton.

Famous American writers like Mark Twain, Horace Greeley, Edgar Allen Poe and Larry McMurtry trace their roots to Scots-Irish heritage.

The Scots-Irish also gave America a dozen presidents including Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

Webb goes on to show how the Scots-Irish culture of isolation, stubbornness and mistrust of elites formed and still dominates blue-collar workers, the military, the Bible Belt, and country music.

A common understanding of who the Scots-Irish were has essentially been lost in today’s politically correct society. They are an all-but-invisible ethnic group whose story cries out to be told. “Born Fighting” fills that gap though it may not play well in some ethnic circles. Although Webb is certainly opinionated, that does not detract from his factual accuracy.

“Born Fighting” is a must read for anyone seeking a sober understanding of American history in general and the history of an ethnic group of men and women in particular who shaped it. Because of their great contributions to America, March should be celebrated as Scots-Irish Heritage Month.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).