Scottish Highlanders in Colonial Georgia

The Recruitment, Emigration, and Settlement at Darien, 1735-1748

Anthony Parker

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780820324562, 9780820319155
• eBook ISBN: 9780820327181
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

Between 1735 and 1748 hundreds of young men and their families emigrated from the Scottish Highlands to the Georgia coast to settle and protect the new British colony. These men were recruited by the trustees of the colony and military governor James Oglethorpe, who wanted settlers who were accustomed to hardship, militant in nature, and willing to become frontier farmer-soldiers. In this respect, the Highlanders fit the bill perfectly through training and tradition.

Recruiting and settling the Scottish Highlanders as the first line of defense on the southern frontier in Georgia was an important decision on the part of the trustees and crucial for the survival of the colony, but this portion of Georgia's history has been sadly neglected until now. By focusing on the Scots themselves, Anthony W. Parker explains what factors motivated the Highlanders to leave their native glens of Scotland for the pine barrens of Georgia and attempts to account for the reasons their cultural distinctiveness and "old world" experience aptly prepared them to play a vital role in the survival of Georgia in this early and precarious moment in its history.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Discovery, Exploration, and First Contests in the Debatable Land Called Georgia
• Chapter 2. Changing Conditions in the Highlands of Scotland
• Chapter 3. Highland Recruitment: Fertile Fields for Georgia Settlers
• Chapter 4. The Founding of Darien
• Chapter 5. War Comes to Darien: The Battle at Fort Mosa
• Chapter 6. Darien and the Aftermath of Fort Mosa, 1740–1748
• Conclusion
• Appendix A. List of Jacobite Prisoners Sent to South Carolina, 1716
• Appendix B. List of Scottish Settlers to Georgia to 1741
• Appendix C. Petition of the Inhabitants of New Inverness to His Excellency General Oglethorpe
• Appendix D. List of Highlanders on the Loyal Judith, 17 September 1741
• Appendix E. Summons to Disarm to the Mackintosh Clan in the Highlands of Scotland, 1725
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index