"Were my project to make money, I would never leave America": Highland Soldiers and Scottish Emigration to North America, 1756-1775

R. Scott Stephenson

This essay explores connections between Scottish Highland soldiers' experiences in the American campaigns of the Seven Years' War and Scottish emigration to British North America in the years leading up to the American Revolution. Drawing largely on surviving letters from Highland soldiers to correspondents in Scotland, I examine how these men perceived and described social and economic opportunities in the colonies, estimate the volume of correspondence and the impact of the letters in Scotland, and trace the role that veterans played in shaping this chapter of the "Peopling of British North America."

[WP #96011]