A Brief History Of The Early Highlanders In North Carolina

   Nearly a century after the failed Roanoke Island colony, the Stuart King Charles II granted “Carolina” to eight Proprietors, who later divided the lands administratively into North and South Carolina. This arrangement was uneasy at best, making the settlement of the colony less enticing to the King’s subjects over the seas. In 1724, the land office for the Cape Fear region opened and settlement along the Cape Fear River began. Initially, Lowland Scots populated the colony and the first true documentation of Highland settlements was about 1732. These settlements were in part dependent on the navigation of the Cape Fear River for ships limited to about 300 tons. New Hanover, Brunswick, Bladen and Cumberland Counties began to see homesteads and plantations being established by names such as MacDonald, McAlister, Macleod, Innes, MacRae, Stewart, Cameron, Blue, McNeal, Campbell and many others. Tax incentives were implemented to encourage Highland immigration to North Carolina following the landing of  350 Highlanders from Argyll about 1740. Sadly, the emphasis was on “foreign Protestants” in these incentives, leaving many Highlanders of Catholic faith out of the schemes.

   Landing initially at Brunswick and subsequently Wilmington, some Highlanders settled near these two ports. Others made the slow journey up the Cape Fear to the hub of the Scottish settlement, which was called Cross Creek due, by tradition to the two stream branches crossing one another before emptying into the Cape Fear River from the west. Cross Creek was well-established by the early 1760s. Eight years later, a proposal was initiated to develop a new trading settlement named Campbellton a short distance from the bustling Cross Creek settlement. As immigrants arrived in greater numbers and the settlements grew, the counties were further and further subdivided to accommodate the burdens of administration. Cumberland County, encompassing both Cross Creek and Campbellton, was named and branched off from New Hanover County in 1754. It has been speculated that the name was for George II’s son, the Duke of Cumberland, also known as “Butcher Cumberland” because of his brutal treatment of Highland folk and other Scots at the time of and following the final battle of the Rising of 1745 at Culloden Moor. The collapse of the ancient Clan system, in part due to its intentional dismemberment by the Hanoverian government to suppress further Risings gave incentive to further immigration and transportation to North Carolina and other colonies, notably South Carolina, Georgia and New York. A rough estimate of the Highland population in the Cape Fear region by the time of the American Revolution is approximately 12000, based on records of the period and estimates of well over 3000 potential recruits for the militia.

   In the western part of the state, where the land was rugged and largely untamed, a series of settlements developed in the same timeframe known as the “Scotch Settlements.” These Scots had migrated down the Shenandoah Valley and settled in the more familiar terrain and climate of the “North Carolina Highlands,” extending these settlements back up into Virginia and westward into the present–day Tennessee. 691 land grants and 312 purchases of land were recorded during this period, frequently in 640 acre parcels. In both the east and the west, the principle occupations were as they had been in the Highlands, agriculture and livestock. Game, fruit, herbs and other food sources were abundant, making the transition in this new land somewhat easier. Churches were established, such as Barbecue Church, where Flora Macdonald attended services, and the Longstreet Church not far away. Services were conducted in both Gaelic and English, due to the mixed population. Social interaction between Highlanders, Lowlanders and the Scotch-Irish, English, Welsh, German and other nationalities was frequent and generally congenial. Many Highlanders were also very active in local and regional government.

   As the storm clouds of the American Revolution gathered, the Highlanders hoped to have left behind the strife and misery of civil wars, but found their hopes dashed. Some embraced the Patriot rebel cause, whilst many remained loyal to the British King. The decision by a number of Highlanders to become Loyalists seems perplexing, given their histories of rebellion and fierce independence, but with the Clan system largely removed, individual considerations doubtless led to a desire for stability, supposedly represented by Crown rule. As hostilities broke out, the British General Gage despatched General Donald MacDonald and Colonel Donald McLeod to organise Highlanders and others into an effective militia. Allan MacDonald of Kingsburgh, husband of the famous Flora MacDonald, began to assist Governor Martin in the recruitment of additional militiamen and to train them for Crown service. Although a large number of Highlanders supported the Crown, the support was by no means unconditional. Many of them were slow to come forward, and assisted their fellow colonists who were not Loyalists in a number of often surreptitious ways. When the Cross Creek Loyalists mustered to the sound of the pibroch, they marched back down the Cape Fear toward Moore’s Creek, where the painful memory of defeat was revisited upon them, this time by a crafty and determined Patriot force. General MacDonald had become quite ill and was represented by Colonel McLeod, who proceeded to lose 50 men killed and 880 captured. The Patriots lost two men. Cornwallis made numerous attempts to entice the North Carolina Highlanders into his forces, but by this time, most were indifferent to his efforts.

Later in the War of Independence, in an effort to cut off the rebellious South from the northern colonies, Lord Cornwallis attempted a series of tactical manoeuvres including a protective flanking deployment by Lt. Col. Patrick Ferguson’s Highland Regiment, who entrenched themselves on King’s Mountain. On the morning of the 7^th October 1780, following a forced march through difficult terrain and weather, combined elements of the North Carolina Militia and the Overmountain Men, many of them Highlanders and Scotch-Irish from the Scotch Settlements in western North Carolina engaged Ferguson’s  1100-man Regiment. Fighting as they and their ancestors before them had done, the Patriots methodically neutralised each wing of Ferguson’s Regiment, who lost Ferguson himself, 157 killed, 163 wounded and 698 captured. The Patriots lost 32 men killed and wounded. Following this engagement, Cornwallis turned his forces to the northeast away from western North Carolina and onward to a settlement in Virginia called Yorktown.

   The history of Highlanders in North Carolina following the American War of Independence is marked with many achievements and outstanding leadership at the local and State levels. As the Clearances continued in the Highlands, more Highlanders flowed into the state. The conciliatory treatment of the Loyalist Highlanders following the War, coupled with the reports sent back home of the opportunities that existed in the New World, encouraged many Highlanders and Lowlanders alike to seek their fortunes in the New World by immigrating into North Carolina. Today, the rich legacy of the Highlands of Scotland is carefully and lovingly nurtured and protected by the descendants of these intrepid pioneers, who surmounted overwhelming obstacles far from home to make new lives for themselves. A Chlanna Cuinn, cuimhnichibh….O Children of Conn, remember.