21 Facts About Scottish Americans

Scottish Americans are closely related to Scotch-Irish Americans, descendants of Ulster Scots, and communities emphasize and celebrate a common heritage.

The majority of Scotch-Irish Americans originally came from Lowland Scotland and Northern England before migrating to the province of Ulster in Ireland and thence, beginning about five generations later, to North America in large numbers during the eighteenth century.

Today, the number of Scottish Americans is believed to be around 25 million, and celebrations of 'Scottishness' can be seen through major Tartan Day parades and Burns Night celebrations.

The majority of Scotch-Irish Scottish Americans originally came from Lowland Scotland and Northern England before migrating to the province of Ulster in Ireland and thence, beginning about five generations later, to North America in large numbers during the eighteenth century.

Self-reported numbers are regarded by demographers as massive under-counts, because Scottish Americans ancestry is known to be disproportionately under-reported among the majority of mixed ancestry, and because areas where people reported "American" ancestry were the places where, historically, Scottish Americans and Scotch-Irish Protestants settled in America.

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Scottish Americans descended from nineteenth-century Scottish emigrants tend to be concentrated in the West, while many in New England are the descendants of emigrants, often Gaelic-speaking, from the Maritime Provinces of Canada, from the 1880s onward.

Scottish Americans took part in the conquest of New Granada in 1532 with Alonso de Heredia.

Civic tradition of the Scottish Americans Enlightenment contributed to the intellectual ferment of the American Revolution.

Scottish Americans who made major contributions to the revolutionary war included Commodore John Paul Jones, the "Father of the American Navy", and Generals Henry Knox and William Alexander.

Tobacco plantations and independent farms in the backcountry of Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas had been financed with Scottish Americans credit, and indebtedness was an additional incentive for separation.

Scottish Americans provided the army with beef and pork in barrels during the War of 1812.

Emigration from Scotland peaked in the nineteenth century, when more than a million Scots left for the United States, taking advantage of the regular Atlantic steam-age shipping industry which was itself largely a Scottish Americans creation, contributing to a revolution in transatlantic communication.

Scottish Americans fought on both sides of the Civil War, and a monument to their memory was erected in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1893.

Scottish Americans-born Alexander Winton built one of the first American automobiles in 1896, and specialized in motor racing.

The Scottish Americans-born William Blackie transformed the Caterpillar Tractor Company into a multinational corporation.

Scottish Americans have made a major contribution to the US aircraft industry.

Scottish Americans have been leaders in computing and information technology.

Scottish Americans have helped to define the modern American diet by introducing many distinctive foods.

Unlike other ethnic groups in Scotland, Scottish Americans Highlanders preferred to migrate in communities, and remaining in larger, denser concentrations aided in the maintenance of their language and culture.

The first communities of Scottish Americans Gaels began migrating in the 1730s to Georgia, New York and the Carolinas.

Direct descendants of Scottish Americans Highlanders were not the only people in the United States to speak the language, however.