Rethinking the Irish in the American South: Beyond Rounders and Reelers

Chapter 3. Irish Migration to the Colonial South: A Plea for a Forgotten Topic

51 Chapter 3 IRISH MIGRAtIoN to tHE CoLoNIAL SoUtH A Plea for a Forgotten Topic Patrick Griffin t he topic of Irish migration to the colonial South remains understudied , and with good reason. Comparatively speaking, it was— and in memory, continues to be—dwarfed by other, more visible and significant migrations, most notably that of the Scotch Irish to the eighteenth-century American colonies and the even larger nineteenth- and twentieth-century movement of the Irish to the United States. The colonial period, especially in the South, did not have much of an Irish component. We know something of a few individuals, but truth be told, these are an exceptional people whom earlier ethnic chauvinists tried to insert into a largely English story to champion the supposed Irish contribution to early American history. In fact, in its own time and taken on its own terms, this admittedly rather small migration was even overshadowed by the movement of Irish men and women to the Caribbean. So at the end of the day, the “Irish” do not figure into the southern colonial story—or at least, that’s what we have been told. Though the Celtic tiger should wax and wane, Irish Americans can hardly be counted members of a marginalized ethnic group. Viewed instead as the archetypes of an American success story, we are moving well beyond the insecurities that drove earlier historians to try to convince their audiences that the Irish mattered to the colonial South.1 Should we leave well enough alone? I would argue no. to be sure, the movement of the Irish to the South before the Revolution, as we have 52 Patrick Griffin defined that process, will always remain marginal with respect to larger migrations. What follows, then, is not a narrative of what could be conventionally called the “Irish” experience in the colonial South; rather, this essay explores how the issue of the Irish in the colonial South, a matter that raises more questions than it clarifies, goes to the heart of the flawed ways we conceive of migration from Ireland to America in general. As will be evident , even terming the movement under question as “Irish migration to the colonial South” raises a whole host of issues not only of how we place this small movement into the broader whole but also how we periodize Irish migration, label migrants, and characterize place. Indeed, the use of the terms “Irish,” “colonial America,” and “South” epitomize the myopic and comfortable ways we approach the entire subject. Perhaps new frameworks will offer new answers. Perhaps not. Nevertheless, we might at least recognize the limitations we impose on the whole by sticking with terms, categories , and, most critically, assumptions that characterize the discussion. • • • Historians freight most studies of Irish migration—protestations to the contrary—with anachronistic categories of ethnicity, chronology, and geography . take, for example, the term “Irish,” a veritable hornet’s nest in its application. The preferred term for the colonial period, as textbook and monograph alike proclaim, is “Scotch Irish” or “Scotch-Irish” or “Scots Irish” or “Scots-Irish.” In fact, the “Scotch-Irish” belonged to the colonial period, and more to the point, the colonial period belonged to the “ScotchIrish .” The received story is simple. It started with the Presbyterian minister Francis Makemie, who paved the way for the other members of the group that would follow, when he landed in Maryland in 1683. A man who moved from region to region, Makemie was jailed for his unbending beliefs . Standing against convention and elites alike, he epitomized the Scotch Irish saga. Beginning in 1718, approximately 100,000 to 200,000 left to the American colonies before the American Revolution. Most went to Middle Colony ports, though many would seep south with time. Like Makemie, they tended to move about.2 Historically the story of this migration dovetails with a mythic tale of northern dissenters in Ireland. Early peak periods—or waves—of migration not only coincided with rising rents, the economic trigger, but also occurred in the years after dissenters were subject to a disabling test Act. We Irish Migration to the Colonial South 53 now know that religious discrimination did not lead to migration, although it did play a mediating role in that migrants tended to view economic problems through religious and political prisms. Nonetheless, the conventional narrative maintains that these people—overwhelmingly Protestants—left with a decided chip on their shoulder...