The Conquest of a Continent; or, The Expansion of Races in America. Grant Madison
the Revolution some of the best of its population migrated to western New York, along with settlers from all over New England who went for the most part through Vermont.
Early in the eighteenth century nearly all the desirable lands within reach of salt water had been occupied from New Jersey southward, and later coming immigrants were forced back into the uplands of the West beyond the so-called Fall Line at which the Atlantic rivers cease to be navigable.
New York interposed an absolute bar to westward migration because the Iroquois Indians held almost all the fertile lands to the west of the Hudson River. The east bank of the Hudson was more or less filled up with New Englanders and the west bank with its undesirable lands was turned over to late coming immigrants, chiefly Germans. The Dutch population of New York was but small. The total population of the colony at the time of its seizure by England in 1664 was little more than 10,000 and there were already many English among them.
The English settlers occupied both banks of the Delaware around Philadelphia, forcing the later-coming Germans and Ulster Scots to the west. The Swedish settlement along the river was trifling and was soon absorbed. There is very little trace of it left in place or personal names. On the upper reaches of the Delaware River, in Pennsylvania, and in New York, there were some small settlements of French Huguenots, who suffered severely from Indian depredations during the Revolution.
Delaware and the country east of Chesapeake Bay are purely English, as was Maryland, except that western Maryland was really part of western Pennsylvania and western Virginia.
Virginia itself was the mother of States and in Colonial times extended in fact, as other colonies did in theory, to the Mississippi, without mentioning claims to the South Sea. The tidewater population of Virginia differed profoundly from that of the western part of the State, including the Shenandoah Valley, which was settled largely from western Pennsylvania.
There was a marked difference between the settlement of New England and that of Virginia. To New England the earliest settlers brought their women and families, while in Virginia the early arrivals were nearly all males. Women were afterwards sent over by the shipload, but this was only during the early days of the colony.
Like Virginia, North Carolina in Colonial times extended nominally to the Mississippi. Its population lacked the tidewater aristocrats of the Old Dominion and contained many Scots, straight from the Highlands, who, strangely, took the British side during the Revolution, as well as a very large number of Ulster Scots in the western mountains, and in the counties which were afterwards Tennessee.
Kentucky and Tennessee were both settled from the colonies immediately to the east, but largely by the Ulster Scots, coming from western Pennsylvania through the mountainous districts of Virginia and North Carolina. These Ulster Scots came south along the Appalachian valleys, which trend in a southwesterly direction. They were reinforced by the numerous groups of the same people, who came up from South Carolina. Kentucky was much more purely English than Tennessee.
It is a fact but little understood, that the frontier was not much reinforced from the coast but extended itself. In other words, the frontier from the beginning was pushed onward by the backwoodsmen, each generation advancing a little farther westward and making new clearings.
The people along the coast, after a couple of generations of severe privation, became relatively rich as compared with the frontiersmen. The inhabitants of the coast cities for the most part preferred a sea-faring life rather than the hewing out of a homestead in the wilderness. There have been many cases in our Colonial history where men went from the coast towns to the wilderness, but for the most part they were content to stay at home.
As to the original racial complexion of the colonies, New England was purely Nordic and English. The handful of Ulster Scots in New Hampshire was not to be distinguished from the English, and the individual Huguenot families around Boston were only trifling in number. This remained true of all New England during the Colonial period.
In New York, however, conditions were different. Dutch New Amsterdam, afterwards English New York City, was always an important port and attracted to itself from the earliest times a substantial number of foreigners. In addition to the Dutch founders a considerable number of French Huguenots were among the earlier settlers. There were also a few Germans and Portuguese.
The west bank of the Hudson was less accessible and desirable than the east bank, but there were some substantial colonies of Palatine Germans settled there and up the valleys of the Mohawk and its connecting streams. These last played a creditable part in the heavy fighting which raged in this district with the British settlers, who were for the most part Loyalists. There were also some small colonies of pure Scotch along the Mohawk.
One of the results of the Revolution was the expulsion of the Iroquois Indians, who had occupied New York westward from near Albany to Buffalo. They had sided with the British and had committed many atrocities. Their lands were immediately occupied by New Englanders, coming chiefly from or through Vermont, so that New York State west of Albany became little more than an extension of New England, except that the settlers had become Presbyterians.
Many of the colonists who came to New York from Holland were refugees from the provinces now included in Belgium—in other words, they were either Flemings or French Huguenots. The real Dutch in the province came from the north of Holland and were mostly Nordic Frisians.
In addition to the large migration from Ulster very many English Protestants from Leinster came to America by way of New York immediately after the Revolution. The Catholic Irish did not come in any numbers until after 1845.
The Huguenots were pre-dominantly Nordic. For example, New Rochelle in New York was settled directly from Old Rochelle which is, even today, one of the purest Nordic districts remaining in France. It is entirely safe to say that the Huguenots from Brittany, Normandy, and Picardy, who came to the American colonies by way of England and Holland were overwhelmingly Nordic. Some of those from southern France were probably Mediterranean.
Outside of the Port of New York the Dutch population was confined to the Hudson River towns, chiefly on the east bank, up to and including Albany and Schenectady. The Dutch element of New Jersey was very small.
New Jersey was almost all English, except a few Scotch settlements. It was settled directly from England by way of Perth Amboy, Elizabeth, and Freehold in the north. South Jersey was settled from Pennsylvania. There were a few German communities scattered throughout the north-central part of New Jersey, but, on the whole, the State can be counted as purely English.
The case of Pennsylvania was somewhat different. The original settlers on the west bank of the Delaware, around Philadelphia, were English Quakers with a certain number of Welsh, who probably were for the most part Nordic. This section was the most cultured and important part of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia was the port of entry of two important migrations in the eighteenth century. First, the Ulster Scots, who came in great numbers after 1720. In fact, most of the Ulster Scots in America entered the colonies through Philadelphia and, to a less extent, through Charleston, South Carolina. These late comers found the desirable land along the Delaware had been taken up, so they moved westward to the Indian frontier. They were a restless, brave, and pugnacious people, and immediately assumed the burden of the Indian fighting, often without the support or even the sympathy of the Philadelphia Quakers. They were numerous and soon spread along the foothills and valleys of the Appalachians southwestward through western Maryland and Virginia into North and South Carolina, whence they again crossed the ridges westward, until, by the time of the Revolution, they had laid the foundations of Kentucky and of Tennessee. They were, of course, pure Nordics and of North England and Lowland Scotch origin. They had resided for two or three generations in North Ireland. Being fervent Presbyterians, they had not mingled with the Catholic Irish.
In 1790 these Ulster Scots in the colonies numbered about 200,000 and the pure Scots about 300,000 and taken together they were, next to the English, the most important element. They were, as said above, pre-eminently pioneers and Indian fighters and the same fact appears in the history of practically every frontier of British colonies during the next century. They were a highly selected group when they first went to Ireland, which was at that time to all intents a frontier. Since that time the Scots and the