Scottish Highlanders in colonial Georgia : the recruitment, emigration and settlement at Darien, 1735-1748

Abstract

This volume is a study of the immigration of three individual groups of Scottish Highlanders as they ventured to the new colony of Georgia in British North America between the years 1735 and 1748. It examines the importance of the area of the Altamaha River in which they settled and the conflicts along the southern frontier of British colonial America between the rival powers of Great Britain, Spain, France, and the Native American population. These struggles would necessitate the organised recruiting efforts made on the part of the Trustees for Establishing the Colony of Georgia in America to bring Highland Scots, in particular, to the province as their first line of defense. The focus of the text is on the Scots themselves as the changing conditions in the Highlands motivated them to leave their native glens of Scotland to come to the pine barrens of Georgia. The thesis explores the ability of these immigrants to face the challenges of a new environment and the trials of the frontier settlement at Darien. It is an account of how their cultural distinctiveness and "old world" experience aptly prepared them to adapt and to prosper in the new land and to play a vital role in the survival of colonial Georgia. The Highlanders of Scotland who settled at Darien during the first two decades of the colony's existence have been relegated to the shadows of Georgia's colonial history for too long and this work hopes to establish their importance during this crucial period.