The Scots-Irish in the Hills of Tennessee.
Author: KENNEDY, Billy.
Belfast: Ambassador Press, 1995. 224 pages. Illustrated. Paperback.
This is the absorbing story about a race of people who created a civilisation in a wilderness and helped lay the solid foundations for what today is the greatest nation on earth. The Scots-Irish Presbyterians who settled in the American frontier lands during the 18th century were a unique breed of people with an independent spirit which boldly challenged the arbitrary powers of monarchs and established church prelates.
After making the hazardous journey across the Atlantic in simple wooden ships these brave emigrant families landed at ports in Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina and New York and they were in the forefront of the push west to territories that hitherto had been only inhabited by the native Indian tribes. A determination to carve out for themselves a lifestyle which would take account of their dissenting Calvinistic faith and the desire to break completely from the shackles of autocracy experienced in Ireland/Scotland kept these families going.
The battles with the British forces, the native Indian tribes and the elements in a climate that had its extremes, took a terrible toll on men, women and children, but with a doggedness and a steely character inherent in their culture, the brave Scots-Irish pioneers won through - initially to the Appalachian states of the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia, and eventually to points west and south, such as Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, Oregon and Nebraska.
This book records for posterity the daring exploits of a people who tamed the frontier, It is a story that needs to be told, retold and told over and over again so that the light of democracy and freedom can shine brightly in the complex world in which we live. These were indeed a people undeterred - the Ulster-Scots who moved to America in the 18th century. Their exploits deserve our recognition.
List of contents:-
Cover painting: The Frontiersman
Foreword from Tennessee
Foreword from Northern Ireland
1. Tennessee and its Ulster links
2. The Scots-Irish: a sturdy independent breed of people
3. The Scots-Irish (Scotch-Irish) designation
4. How the Scots-Irish were viewed
5. How Tennessee became a state
6. The Wataugans: the first Tennesseans
7. Turning Point at Kings Mountain
8. The Scots-Irish Presidents
9. Knoxville: a city founded by Ulstermen
10. Heroics in the founding of Nashville
11. Scots-Irish who framed the Declaration of Independence
12. Davy Crockett: king of the wild frontier
13. Sam Houston: luminary of Tennessee and Texas
14. Links that can be traced back to Drumbo
15. Rogersville: frontier town with roots in Ulster
16. How the Scots-Irish shaped religion in Tennessee
17. Families who blazed a trail on the frontier
18. Scots-Irish in the Revolutionary War
19. Movement to South Carolina
20. Conflict with the Indians
21. Warren Country where the Scots-Irish settled
ISBN: 1898787468
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