Duane Meyer’s point of departure is what he perceives as a paradox: “Why did the Highlanders, bitter foes of the House of Hanover in the first half of the eighteenth century, rally to the unpopular cause of George III thirty years after their defeat and humiliation in the Forty-five? (vii)” By “the Forty-five,” Meyer means the abortive attempt by Charles Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) to seize the throne.
Therein lies the flaw in this meticulously researched dissertation: the terms in which Meyer cast his argument. Even in the seventh, final chapter, dealing with the role of the Highland Scots in the American Revolution, Meyer refers to “the Loyalist stand of the North Carolina Highlanders” (132). Yet his research forces him to concede: “In the fall of 1775, then, there was clearly a split in the leadership of the Highlanders” (146), and “it is clear, then, that the decision of the Highlanders to support one side or the other was not an automatic one. Members of the group were active on both sides” (155–6).
Meyer seems to have unknowingly fallen for the fallacy of history as written by the winners. He notes that the uprising was popular and feels compelled to explain why many Highland Scots in North Carolina sided with the Loyalists but feels no similar need to explain why some joined the Patriots.
Behind the seeming paradox that initiated Meyer’s research lies popular mythology about the events that led up to the disastrous Battle of Culloden in 1746, namely, that all Highland Scots supported the usurper. Yet this was not the case. The powerful Campbell clan, led by the Duke of Argyll, for one, did not (many immigrants to North Carolina came from Argyllshire).
Despite the flawed assumptions at its heart, the book is still useful. At the outset of his research, Meyer stumbled across a discrepancy in explanations of the massive relocation of Highland Scots to North Carolina. Broadly speaking, American researchers directly tied it to the failed rebellion. It first appears a half-century after the Revolution in Francis-Xavier Martin’s History of North Carolina, 1829. According to him, nineteen out of twenty rebels (chosen by lot) were allowed to escape execution if they swore loyalty to the crown and agreed to deportation. This explanation was taken up by a Presbyterian clergyman, William Henry Foote, who published Sketches of North Carolina in 1846 after visiting congregations in the area.
Meyer was surprised to learn that British historians had other explanations for the massive emigration: changes in agricultural practices, decay of the clan system, and population growth. Meyer’s research led him to accept these. Of the Martin-Foote thesis, he writes: “this historical tradition is without foundation.”
It appears to me, however, that British sources (at least as reported by Meyer) are a little too quick to remove Crown policies after the failed rebellion from the equation. While all three factors they mention were underway before 1745, it is nonetheless clear that punitive measures exacerbated them. In particular, the move to strip all clan chiefs of their authority led to social upheaval. In addition, the disabilities imposed on all Highlanders, whether belonging to clans that supported the Stuarts or not, increased social instability. These included stripping them of their arms and banning Highland attire. Finally, the roads laid out to provide quick access for troops in case of a renewed uprising led to more contact with the world beyond the Highlands.
In other words, while the Martin-Foote thesis is wrong, the British explanations are incomplete without factoring in how political repression accelerated trends and was, therefore, an indirect motive for emigration. For that reason, it might be unrealistic to expect a sharp jump in 1747, say—and indeed there wasn’t—but it could help explain the moderate uptick recorded in subsequent years. Still, it wasn’t until 1773—74 that the number of land grants in any year surpassed the record set in 1740 (before the uprising).
As for that nettlesome question of the divided response of the Highland colonists in North Carolina during the Revolution: It is not evident there is any warrant to expect a united stance in 1775 any more than there had been one in 1745. And there’s another possible reason why Martin and Foote reported the explanations given to them when they visited the area fifty and seventy years after the Revolution. Meyer notes that many Highlanders who sided with the Loyalists resettled after 1783, mainly to Nova Scotia and other parts of Canada. So Martin and Foote’s interlocutors would have primarily descended from those who sided with the Patriots, which might have colored their view of the events of 1745.
Yet there was no one-to-one carryover of division from 1745 to 1775. Allan McDonald, for instance, husband of the famed Flora who sheltered the fleeing Bonnie Prince, was an officer for the British, and at least one Campbell was a leader of the Rebellion. The reasons why a person ends up on one side or the other of a controversy are often complex, and family history is only one of them, it seems.
Despite my criticism, I learned much from this book and am glad I read it. ( )