Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Quick and Easy Sign Up!

It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.

Sign Up Browse

Popular Genres

Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

  • Download on iOS
  • Download on Android
  • Download on iOS

Driven

Driven

Jacqueline L. Kochak
0/5 ( ratings)
Read Download
In studying our family history in America I became aware that our ancestors seemed to have always lived at the outermost fringes of the wild frontier. Indeed, investigating back into the fog of early-recorded memories, when myth, legend and history merged, it seems as though our ancestors in Europe, too, had always occupied much the same role in the expanding frontier of civilization. Even in more recent history, when my great grandfather and his brethren moved into the Kansas Territory, they had gone where wise men dared not tread – into Comanche Territory.
What the Comanche did not know was that at the vanguard of white men moving across the United States came a breed of man just as tough, and dangerous, and savage as the Comanche: the Scots-Irish. When they had first came to Pennsylvania in the early 1700s, Benjamin Franklin had commented that they were the last savages in Europe.
They moved south along the Wilderness Road of Appalachia, settling in the backcountry, because several colonies offered them religious freedom if they would form a buffer between the savage aborigines and the settled east coast of colonial North America. In the first 100 years of American settlement, civilization had advanced only 50 miles from the coast, and it was believed that whites would never settle west of the Appalachians. Then came the Scots- Irish, and within another 100 years, settlement had reached the Pacific Ocean.
Verner Crane, in his classic "The Southern Frontier," said it really wasn't clear what drove the Scots-Irish, because it had to be more than land. They just seemed to court danger. When they settled Tennessee west of the Appalachians, they were 200 miles from any kind of safety or help, and seemingly beyond all hope, across very rugged and dangerous land.
On the frontier, every man, woman and child knew how to use a gun, and they made their cabins into forts. This tradition carries forward even into modern-day society - although I don’t even own a gun, I hail from countless generations of military service; it’s in my blood. While serving with the Marine Corps and Special Forces, I earned sharpshooter medals in both rifle and pistol; I taught my children to handle a gun before they were teenagers, both of whom can shoot the cherry off a cigarette at 100 paces.
The borderlands of England had seasoned the Scots with 800 years of warfare - they never knew peace. The English crown "planted" the worst of the border ruffians in Ireland, who became known as the Scots-Irish. In 1700 they joined with the native Irish in rebellion against the English, and they carried their hatred with them to the American colonies. The English called the American Revolutionary War "the Presbyterian War" because it seemed to them as if they were fighting against the Scots-Irish all over again. Of course, in England they also said the reason American women were so pretty was that so many had descended from Scots-Irish prostitutes transported as criminals to the colonies, but that is another story.
Although we draw our family tree with branches of our Scots-Irish “savages” from Europe, our ancestor’s ceaseless quest for Neverland inevitably led to interbreeding with the Native American “savages.” The White family certainly mingled with the Cherokee, and most likely with the Creek. Our family has several genetic traits, such as a lack of wisdom teeth that characterizes the Native Americans. Because of this cohabitation of the frontier, our family history also closely parallels the history of conflict between the Native and European Americans.
But just who were these Scots-Irish? Where did they come from? What was their ancestry and their cultural heritage and how did it influence them to become the rough individualists that blazed the
Pages
95
Format
Kindle Edition
Release
May 15, 2013

Driven

Jacqueline L. Kochak
0/5 ( ratings)
Read Download
In studying our family history in America I became aware that our ancestors seemed to have always lived at the outermost fringes of the wild frontier. Indeed, investigating back into the fog of early-recorded memories, when myth, legend and history merged, it seems as though our ancestors in Europe, too, had always occupied much the same role in the expanding frontier of civilization. Even in more recent history, when my great grandfather and his brethren moved into the Kansas Territory, they had gone where wise men dared not tread – into Comanche Territory.
What the Comanche did not know was that at the vanguard of white men moving across the United States came a breed of man just as tough, and dangerous, and savage as the Comanche: the Scots-Irish. When they had first came to Pennsylvania in the early 1700s, Benjamin Franklin had commented that they were the last savages in Europe.
They moved south along the Wilderness Road of Appalachia, settling in the backcountry, because several colonies offered them religious freedom if they would form a buffer between the savage aborigines and the settled east coast of colonial North America. In the first 100 years of American settlement, civilization had advanced only 50 miles from the coast, and it was believed that whites would never settle west of the Appalachians. Then came the Scots- Irish, and within another 100 years, settlement had reached the Pacific Ocean.
Verner Crane, in his classic "The Southern Frontier," said it really wasn't clear what drove the Scots-Irish, because it had to be more than land. They just seemed to court danger. When they settled Tennessee west of the Appalachians, they were 200 miles from any kind of safety or help, and seemingly beyond all hope, across very rugged and dangerous land.
On the frontier, every man, woman and child knew how to use a gun, and they made their cabins into forts. This tradition carries forward even into modern-day society - although I don’t even own a gun, I hail from countless generations of military service; it’s in my blood. While serving with the Marine Corps and Special Forces, I earned sharpshooter medals in both rifle and pistol; I taught my children to handle a gun before they were teenagers, both of whom can shoot the cherry off a cigarette at 100 paces.
The borderlands of England had seasoned the Scots with 800 years of warfare - they never knew peace. The English crown "planted" the worst of the border ruffians in Ireland, who became known as the Scots-Irish. In 1700 they joined with the native Irish in rebellion against the English, and they carried their hatred with them to the American colonies. The English called the American Revolutionary War "the Presbyterian War" because it seemed to them as if they were fighting against the Scots-Irish all over again. Of course, in England they also said the reason American women were so pretty was that so many had descended from Scots-Irish prostitutes transported as criminals to the colonies, but that is another story.
Although we draw our family tree with branches of our Scots-Irish “savages” from Europe, our ancestor’s ceaseless quest for Neverland inevitably led to interbreeding with the Native American “savages.” The White family certainly mingled with the Cherokee, and most likely with the Creek. Our family has several genetic traits, such as a lack of wisdom teeth that characterizes the Native Americans. Because of this cohabitation of the frontier, our family history also closely parallels the history of conflict between the Native and European Americans.
But just who were these Scots-Irish? Where did they come from? What was their ancestry and their cultural heritage and how did it influence them to become the rough individualists that blazed the
Pages
95
Format
Kindle Edition
Release
May 15, 2013

More books from Jacqueline L. Kochak

Rate this book!

Write a review?

loader