"In part, Griffin's book is so successful because he understands that the historian of any diaspora has a dual responsibility: to the homeland and to the new land. Privileging either of these distorts the picture. . . . Griffin's fine book will stand as a fundamental building block of Ulster Scots and of Scots-Irish historical study."--Donald Harman Akenson, American Historical Review
"A masterful reconstruction of the experiences of the Scots Irish migrants who transformed the culture of the eighteenth-century colonial frontier. Drawing creatively on research materials in Ireland and America, Griffin shows how these extraordinarily resilient people made sense of an expanding commercial world and managed to accommodate to rapidly changing social conditions without compromising their own hard-earned identity."--T.H. Breen, Northwestern University
"This is a first-rate and timely piece of scholarship, offering a compelling new vision of transatlantic history and an equally compelling analysis of the intricacies of identity and culture in the colonial Atlantic world. It may well be the best sustained study of the 'Ulster Scot' in the Atlantic world that has been written in a generation."--Kevin Kenny, Boston College
"A significant contribution to the field. Certainly, every scholar who does research in Irish and/or Scots Irish history will want to read this book, as will many specialists in immigration history. Griffin's book will also be a valuable complement to the burgeoning study of transatlantic or the 'new' British history, and will attract specialists in 18th century Irish (especially Ulster) history as well."--Kerby Miller, University of Missouri at Columbia
"This highly recommended monograph is based on broad and deep archival research on both sides of the ocean and is written in a clear, lively style that quotes abundantly from contemporary sources."--Stanley H. Palmer, History
"A welcome contribution to a field with a small but growing literature."--H. Tyler Blethen, William and Mary Quarterly
"There is much new in Griffin's study. . . . His accomplishment derives in part from an ability to discuss identity formation in a jargon-free story at once engaging and profound."--Warren R. Hofstra, Journal of American History
"An excellent study of interest not only to students of Britain, Ireland, and colonial America, but also to those seeking to understand the eighteenth-century British Empire as a whole."--K. David Milobar, International History Review
"A good analysis of one of the several disaffected and displaced groups that occupied the margins of the colonial world."--Choice
Acknowledgments xiii
INTRODUCTION: Identity in an Atlantic World 1
CHAPTER ONE: The Transformation of Ulster Society in the Wake of the Glorious Revolution 9
CHAPTER TWO: "Satan's Sieve": Crisis and Community in Ulster 37
CHAPTER THREE: "On the Wing for America": Ulster Presbyterian Migration, 1718-1729 65
CHAPTER FOUR: "The Very Scum of Mankind": Settlement and Adaptation in a New World 99
CHAPTER FIVE: "Melted Down in the Heavenly Mould": Responding to a Changing Frontier 125
CHAPTER SIX: "The Christian White Savages of Peckstang and Donegall": Surveying the Frontiers of an Atlantic World 157
Notes 175
Bibliography 223
Index 239