Re: Scots-Irish - I felt compelled to learn about them after I married one. The book I like the best is Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, by David Hackett Fischer. All four segments stand alone, so you can skip ahead to the fourth, "Borderlands to the Backcountry, the Flight from North Britain, 1717-1775." Eighteen presidents are descended in part from these folk - Andrew Jackson, James Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses Grant, Rutherford Hayes, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan.
Bush's father is descended from Puritans. I don't know about his mother.
Before 1856, every American president but one was descended from one cultural stock. The exception was John Tyler, who had a Huguenot grandmother.
Dominant clans from the beginning included the Jacksons, the Polks, the Calhouns, the Henrys, and the Byrds, as well as the Houstons, the Grahams, the Bells, and the Bankheads. Although Jackson emphasized his humble origins, his clan back in Ireland was well-to-do, and his grandfather left him a legacy of 400 pounds sterling.
Fischer argues that much of American history is properly understood as regional differences based on regional origins. I have read this argument before, by several authors, and I think it's correct. Whig vs. Tory is related to Cavalier vs. Roundhead, and Democrat vs. Republican is related to both. North vs. South is a replay of the same back in the old country, although many Scots-Irish became plantation owners and thus slave owners. |
