The Scotch-Irish Argumentative Essay

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Why the Scotch-Irish left Ulster The Scotch-Irish trace their ancestry to a few hundred thousand Scottish Lowland Presbyterians who were coerced to move to Ulster, a region in northern Ireland, by the British government in the 1600s. Hoping to augment its control of Ireland, England tried to increase the number of Protestant citizens in Ulster. Resentment from “natives”, however, maintained the group’s distinct cultural identity. Economic pressures, such as: growing rents, multiple crop failures, and added with the prospect of greater opportunity abroad, lead many Scotch-Irish to travel to the American colonies during the eighteenth century (Hess). Many Scotch-Irish joined the mass migrations to this New World in response to the Potato Famine of the 1840s. As many immigrants are known for, the Scotch-Irish faced intolerable conditions in their homeland. These conditions were economical as well as cultural, and so they escaped the punishing conditions by traveling to the land of the free, America. It is understandable then as to why …show more content…

Presidents who shared this heritage include Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Woodrow Wilson, and Ronald Wilson Reagan. These people’s immigration also sparked the creation of a political movement of nativism in American politics. This would develop into the Know-Nothing Party, which will be discussed later (About.com). The Know-Nothing Party, although not present for very long, had enough success to alter American policies in one way or another. The presidents listed previously goes to show how deeply impactful the Scotch-Irish have been in American history. A lot of these presidents’ policies and actions greatly benefitted the American people as well as the development of society on a global scale. And while some of these outcomes were controversial, the United States would not be where it is today without