"The Very Scum of Mankind": Context, Meaning, and the Creation of Scotch-Irish Ethnicity in Pennsylvania, 1717-1741

Patrick Griffin

This essay explores the ways in which Ulster’s earliest migrants adapted to Pennsylvania society. Between 1717 and 1741, as massive migration immersed colonist and newcomer alike in an uncertain world, Pennsylvania’s Scotch-Irish made sense of the plural context they encountered by infusing older notions of identity with new meaning. Using an Irish conception of the group situated in a corporate notion of British rights, the Scotch-Irish reinvented themselves as an ethnic community that set itself apart from others by erecting cultural boundaries and creating markers of identity around which the group defined itself. This complex process, which contributed to the reshaping of Pennsylvania society, reveals that contention marked the transition from a province dominated by English migrants to a plural one peopled by diverse groups. Moreover, the story of Scotch-Irish adaptation illustrates that Pennsylvanians defined themselves by and often clashed over conflicting conceptions of the Atlantic world. [WP# 98027]