Scottish Loyalism in the British Atlantic World

Katie Louise McCullough, Graeme Morton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040331583
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Scottish History
• Index: History

Using recent work on loyalism in Britain, Ireland, and the British Atlantic as a foundation, this book offers a pioneering exploration of Scottish loyalism and explores the many ways in which Scottish loyalists shaped the British Atlantic world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Scots have yet to be examined as a particular ethnic group in the context of loyalism in the British Atlantic world. However, like many other Britons and other imperial subjects, Scots demonstrated their support for Crown and empire in myriad ways and for myriad reasons. What often united Scottish loyalists was a commitment to counterrevolution and constitutionalism. Yet the story is not so simple. Scottish loyalties, like others, were complex and often antithetical to perceptions about Scots invented by outsiders. Many Scottish loyalists challenged the traditional narrative as they included those who were assumed to be enemies of the Crown such as Highlanders, Catholics, and people for whom neutrality was a failed political strategy. Through a detailed examination of Scottish loyalism, the chapters in this volume highlight the multifaceted nature of Scottish political engagement and identity in an increasingly volatile political age. By examining these different strands of Scottish loyalism, this volume reveals the new histories of Scots and those of Scottish heritage and the contributions they made to a broad and popular political movement on both sides of the Atlantic.

The book will be relevant for students and researchers of Scottish history, British imperial studies, loyalism, and Atlantic history. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue in Atlantic Studies and are supplemented by a new Preface and Conclusion.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction: Scottish loyalism in the British Atlantic world
• 1 “All grand tories”: Loyalism in the trans-Appalachian west during the revolutionary war
• 2 “Without the smallest recompense”: Scottish loyalist women in revolutionary North Carolina
• 3 The law of loyalism: The Campbell family, the Court of Session, and the price of loyalty in the Revolutionary Atlantic World
• 4 Inculcating loyalty in the Highlands and beyond, c.1745–1784
• 5 The Glengarry Cairn and Highland loyalism in the British Atlantic world
• 6 Loyalism, legitimism, and the neo-Jacobite challenge to the Anglo-Scottish Union
• Conclusion – The loud silence: Scottish loyalism in the British Atlantic world
• Index