The Highland Scots of North Carolina

FOREWORD

The drama of North Carolina’s three hundred year history has been played on the stage of time by a multitude of actors. The first of these players, in order of appearance, were the men and women, high-born and humble, who came to Carolina seeking land and liberty. Among these North Carolinians was a hardy group from the Highlands of Scotland. The story of these Scotsmen is a dramatic scene in the epic of North Carolina’s past. There is an element of mystery in this saga. The Highlanders were a people fast-bound by family ties and devoted to their sternly beautiful homeland. Why did such men and women leave all that they knew and loved to come to a strange new world? These same Highlanders, twice defeated in rebellion against the Crown, were bitter enemies of the English King. Why, then, did the majority of them take the unpopular position of defending George III at the time of the American Revolution? In these pages we shall attempt to answer these questions and to present a picture of these Scotsmen as they made the decision to leave their Highlands, as they journeyed to America, as they established themselves in their new home, and as, for the third time in sixty years, they were forced to choose sides in a rebellion against the English Crown.