The Crow nation

[macwilkin]

Thanks, Terry, for posting those examples of Highlanders in the Revolutionary period. Folks sometimes forget that Scotland was not a unified nation during the 18th century, and that Lowlanders and Ulster-Scots tended to view Highlanders in the same way they viewed the First Nations on the American frontier -- as "redshanked savages". Religious & political differences also caused a gap between Highlander and Lowlander, and this is also cited by Meyer as a reason why so many Highland immigrants may have sided with the crown -- as Roman Catholics and Episcopalians (The Kirk was only beginning to make inroads into the Highlands), they had little in common with their Presbyterian and dissenter neighbours.

Also something to consider: some supporters of the Stuart cause would have found very little attraction to the Patriot side and its anti-monarchial tendencies. George III may have been a Hanoverian, but at least he was a king.

The historian Fernec Szasz documents several examples of Patriot hostility towards Highlanders during the Revolution; In 1782, the Georgia legislature passed a resolution which declared the "people of Scotland" hostile to the Civil Liberties of America, and threatened to throw Scots in goal. Thomas Jefferson originally condemned "Scotch & other foreign mercenaries" in a first draft of the Declaration -- thankfully The Rev. John Witherspoon, himself a Scot, convinced TJ to remove that line. Another ancedote is told by a Highland officer who was physically and verbally abused by Scots-Irish patriots in the backcountry after being captured by rebels during the Southern campaign.

To bring this back to the First Nations, Pontiac's Rebellion in 1763 was a bit of a wake-up call for the British. The nations obviously preferred the French, but constantly played Europeans off of each other in the "middle ground". After Pontiac, the British started to mimic the French in terms of their relations with the Indians of the Old Northwest, and as a result, the majority did side with the Crown in the Revolution -- the Crown was a much better alternative to the swarm of American settlers and their sometimes violent acts (Think of the Paxton Boys or the Gnadhutten Massacre) against Indians in their way. As a result, Indian leaders from Tecumseh to Black Hawk and even Sitting Bull saw the British in Canada as a viable aternative to the bluecoat long knives -- Both Sitting Bull and Chief Joseph, for example, tried to flee across the border -- Sitting Bull was successful, and made "friends" with NWMP Commissioner James Macleod, who was a Scot. Joseph's attempts to reach Canada were not so successful.

T.