Sam Allison - Drivn by Fortune: The Scots March to Modernity in America, 1745–1812

by Richard W. Pound

S am Allison was as skillful setting the hook for my modest contribution to his book as he was in the identification of the principle theses of this work. While my family name, Pound, is about as English as can be imagined, he knew that my mothers family were Highland Scots, with a full line of Frasers. Added to that background is the fact that there were (as I understand the family lore) several members of the family who were part of the 78th Frasers Highlanders regiment, serving, inter alia, at Louisbourg, Quebec, and Montreal. Fraser is a name held by one of my sisters, by one of my children, and, of course, my kilt is Ancient Fraser. It was childs play for him to dangle the bait of writing a foreword for the book, bait that proved to be irresistible.

There are several features of this work that will give it a well-deserved place in Canadian history. The first is its ability to establish the context for the involvement of the Scots in warfare in Europe and the Americas. Although it is not often commented upon (especially by the Scots themselves), the fact of the matter is that they, especially the Highlanders, were well -sought-after mercenaries. Part of the reason was circumstantial a combination of birth rates, lack of other employ, natural strength derived from the harsh living conditions, and their shared language and culture. The Highlanders proved to be capable, adaptable, and serially loyal to those who paid their wages. Many stayed where they served and became part of those communities, both in Europe and, as it is relevant to the Canadian aspects of the work, in North America.

The second feature is the exposure and debunking of several myths, romantic and otherwise, about the Highlanders in general and the Frasers in particular. The Battle of Culloden had been, to be sure, an important and humiliating defeat for some of the Scots. However, they recovered and prospered soon after, and did little to contradict the beneficial effects of the new view the English held of them. Allison uses Mark Twains apt description of what he called Sir Walters disease, the hopelessly romantic view of the Highlanders in Sir Walter Scotts immensely popular series of novels. The real context of the Frasers Highlanders was not Culloden, but the Scottish Enlightenment, which had an enormous impact on almost every aspect of life in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As Allison points out, the Scots had a major impact on economics, trade, shipping, science, medicine, religion, governance, and politics that continues to this day.

A third feature of importance to Canadian, British, and United States history is Allisons examination of the battle for Quebec on the Plains of Abraham. A great deal of inaccurate and romanticized stories of that battle have long plagued the reality of what actually happened and why. It is true that General James Wolfe was anxious, indeed desperate, to conquer Quebec, a stronghold that effectively controlled access to North America not because North America was particularly important to the British, but rather as a part of an ongoing, larger European conflict between the French and the British. It was this context that made the victory at Quebec so important, and Wolfe such a hero (especially after he was killed in the process), despite the fact that it was thousands of miles away from the main conflict and that the battle lasted less than half an hour. Often overlooked is that Wolfe had with him, in the Frasers as well as in other units, very well-seasoned and disciplined troops, excellent sailors who could manage the tidal aspects of the St. Lawrence River at Quebec, and soldiers who, because of their service in continental Europe, could speak French, an attribute that proved essential, perhaps even decisive, when the final plan to capture Quebec was launched. The arrangements for the attack are described in a manner that brings the battle alive and that debunks the much-propagated myth that undisciplined Highlanders threw down their muskets and, in some sort of bloodlust, charged with their claymores. In fact, the charge (against the exposed flank of an exhausted enemy that was forced to come out from the fortified town of Quebec to do battle on difficult ground) was a pre-considered part of the plan of battle and succeeded precisely as Wolfe intended.

These are among the many well-considered exposures of historical inaccuracies and uncritical examinations of conventional conclusions that Allison identifies. It is refreshing to see such observations and one can only hope that, with this example, historians of the future will be willing to challenge existing accounts that are based less on fact and more on convenience or a perceived need to conform to some national or political agenda. As the work demonstrates, one Canadian history did not end and 1759 and another begin in 1760; there is a continuum and the Scots were an important part of making that continuum function for both sides of the earlier conflict. Allison observes that the influence and persistence of the Scots kept potential conflict from becoming racist, reducing it instead to the level of a manageable political issue. The presence of the Scots in Quebec contributed to the lack of support for the independence struggle in the colonies to the south. Those Scots in the Thirteen Colonies with military experience were, in fact, decidedly loyal to the Crown, which, once independence was established, led to their subsequent persecution and expulsion, and the arrival of large numbers of displaced Loyalists in Canada. There are some trenchant conclusions on the post-revolutionary America that deemed it white, male, and Patriot, a political and practical reality far different from the flowery language often used by Americans to describe the outcome of their conflict with the British.

Allison makes a compelling argument that the impact of the Scots in Canada was greater after the fall of Quebec than during the conquest itself. An extraordinarily high percentage of the Highlanders who returned to Scotland when the 78th was disbanded came back to North America with their families, and often with other recruits. They were driven by ambition, not by poverty or starvation. Land was free for the veterans, or cheap for others, and ownership of property was an important measure of success and influence. Suffrage was then based on owning property; the concept of universal suffrage was generations in the future and was believed at the time to be a path to anarchy. The frontier experience gained through military experience for many, a seven-year stint during which they mastered the means of clearing dense forests, transport by land and water, and experimented with crops and shelter accounted for the high rate of re-migration of members of the regiment back to Canada. The conditions in the new world held no fears for them and their survival. The kilt and the red jacket led to them becoming landowners and prominent members of their communities. Scots in general were in the intellectual vanguard of North American modernity.