Covenanters and the American Revolution
Scottish Covenanters had a big impact on the colonisation of North America. During the persecutions of the 1660s - 1680s, many Scots migrated to the Thirteen Colonies, some via Scottish settlements in Ulster (the “Ulster Scots” or “Scots Irish”). The highest concentration of Covenanters was in the South. Some claim they’re the source of the term “redneck”, because some Covenanters signed their names to the National Covenant in blood, then wore the reddened bandages round their necks to show their loyalty.
Regardless of the term’s origins, it’s clear the Scots took their fierce Presbyterianism and ability to live rough to America, living in frontier settlements particularly in the Appalachians. Resistance to the authority of the Crown was seemingly in their blood, for when the colonies rose in rebellion in 1775 many of the descendants of the Covenanters were at the forefront (despite most Scottish colonists siding with the Loyalists). When campaigning in the South the British soon realised that Presbyterian communities were the most pro-rebel.
It’s fascinating to note that the “over-mountain men” who massacred British Loyalists at King’s Mountain were almost all descended from Covenanters, and went into battle shouting the same battle cry that had been popular in the 1640s - “The sword of Gideon, the sword of the Lord.” It is a grim irony that the slain commander of the Loyalists at Kings Mountain, Patrick Ferguson, was himself a Presbyterian from Edinburgh.
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