Empire: World History - 192. Native American Chiefs, the Founding of Canada, and the KKK: Scots in America

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

From India to Africa, the involvement and influence of Scots in the British Empire has been profound. In both arenas, they rose through the ranks as soldiers, merchants and bureaucrats, to carve out, govern and lead the empire overseas. But what of America? Here too the Scottish presence was enormous. From the Scottish diaspora in the Caribbean, where after Culloden Scots rebels were forced to work or they travelled willingly to become wealthy slavers themselves. In North America and Canada they fought in the Seven Years War and American Revolution, quickly came to dominate the fur and tobacco trades, and in many cases developed profitable, amicable and often romantic alliances with the Native Americans and First Nations peoples. With all this and more, the history of Scots in America is rife with adventure and derring-do, success and failure, glory, tragedy, bravery and controversy…. In today’s episode, William and Anita are joined once again by historian Murray Pittock, to discuss the story of Scots in America, and some of the fascinating Scottish characters who made their names there.  To buy William's book: https://coles-books.co.uk/the-golden-road-by-william-dalrymple-signed-edition Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpirepoduk.com. Hello and welcome to Empire with me Anita Arndanth. And me, William Duremple. Now guess what? This is the final episode of our mini-series, Scots in Empire. And then it says here, which I think you might have written, although fear not, we've got more Scots for you very soon.

Oh, good. Because what I felt very strong is we haven't had enough. Well, I always feel we haven't had enough Scots, but I'm sure we'll have the Punjabis and Empire series. Today, today, today, we are joined again by Murray Pittock. The wonderful Murray Pittock. Wonder, wonderful Worry Pittick. We love Murray.

In fact, Murray, if William meets with an untimely accident, do you want to do a podcast? My God, I'm sorry. Anita, I would, I think you're absolutely marvellous yourself, but I deprecate your last remark. Oh, really? Okay. I mean, nobody's saying it will happen. It certainly won't.

I'm meeting Anita for lunch today. I'll watch out what she's slipping into Malaga. Check out what's happened to the stair rods when you go down. Murray, stop giving him clues. He'll never see it coming. Anyway, look, the reason we've got Murray on again, I'm delighted to say. is we are going to be talking about, well we talked about, or we have been talking about this area, Scots in Africa,

but we are talking about Scots in America today. And they've always been these very, very strong links between Scotland and America. You can see it around, you know, the echoes of an ancient diaspora that came over very, very long ago. And people are very proud of their Scottish roots, even now in America. Just think of the leading hamburger chain,

or indeed MacDonald Douglas. It's all there. Burger King. No, you don't mean Burger King. Okay. Wendy. I think we understand. But the USA, this is kind of interesting, I like this fact.

The USA has eight Aberdeens. Did you know that? Seven towns that are called Glasgow. Eight are called Edinburgh. Eight towns are simply called... Scotland. People just gave up on any kind of imagine. Just called it Scotland.

And nine of America's first 13 governors. That's every member of the first cabinet. 11 presidents, 35 Supreme Court justices are of Scottish ancestry. And they talk about it. They were proud of it. And you could probably do the same with the Caribbean too. There are endless Aberdeens, Invernesses and everything else in the Caribbean. So look, very briefly, and if we will, very briefly, Murray,

because we talked about it before, just recap on how Scots, you know, the relationship with not just America, but also the Caribbean after Collodden. What was the pool of these places? To take the Caribbean and the Chesapeake, which is the main area, which is involved after Cologne. Just to clarify, where is the Chesapeake? So we're talking about the Virginia and southern coast.

We're talking two dimensions here. The first is those who are transported, often without trial, by the British authorities, in a tradition that goes back to Cromwell's administration, the 1650s, as early as 1651, 2, there were 7,000 Scots transported to the Caribbean, which is actually much larger than the 600 or so that were transported after Collodon. And just to clarify, this is not for a nice holiday in the sun. This is as indentured labour. So the post-Colodon ones were normally, the passage was charged at five pounds by the carriers, and they were sold for five pounds on the quay side on arrival.

So they were sold into indentured labour in the Caribbean. So they were technically released after seven years. But it has to say that given your life expectancy was not seven years if you were laboring in the Caribbean or if you were a soldier in the Caribbean, you can't describe it as chattel slavery, but the circumstances could be extremely adverse. And in the event that one of these people, for example, a woman and women were transported to, had a mixed-race child, the child would become a slave and the woman's indenture would be effectively extended. So it's a continuum. There's a desire to separate off Chattel Slay was uniquely evil and it was, but the people in

these circumstances are in pretty dreadful circumstances. Can I just ask, I mean, just to get this clear in my mind, were they then enduring the same conditions as those who were from Africa who were brought over? Were they chained together? Were they given sufficient rations? What was their accommodation like? What do we know about all of that? It's basically one step up, but of course there are people of African origin like Tucson Lovershire himself, who became coachman and so on, whose conditions were better than indentured servants were. Some of those who indentured had conditions which were just about as bad, though they usually weren't chained. Some of them were virtually free, especially if they were

bought by fellow Scots. I've got a question, Murray, are these mainly Highlanders and Gallic speaking? Is there a hierarchy there too within Scotland, whereby the Highlanders get treated worse? No, in Scotland you have the same situation as you have in Ireland after 1798, which is that it suits both sides to describe it as a nativist Gaelic rising when it isn't. So a large number of those transported are not Gaelic speakers. There's some sign of particular awareness of tensions in Gaelic speaking Scotland. For example, given the large number of Campbells who owned estates in Jamaica, there's a tendency to transport McDonald's to Jamaica, which I'm sure is deliberate. And that was not just a pub joke in the 18th century. It was a living feud that the Campbells would buy McDonald's and treat them badly deliberately. That was the hope. I'm not sure it actually transpired, but a lot of people were transported who in no way could be called Gallic speakers. And it must be said also that they did suffer at times conditions akin to chattel slaves in that sick prisoners were thrown overboard. There were individual cases of

brutality amounting to murder on board. The 18th century Navy was not a place for bleeding hearts, has to be said. There's a lot of very rough men there. It wasn't a place for bleeding hearts. They viewed these people as traitors and rebels. And women are transported too. That's important to note, are often without trial. You've got those who are forcibly transported, but they're not the only ones coming over because you also have, after Darien and dreams of colony and colony wealth, you've got those who choose to go. And surely you must have, have some who actually they just want a different life after Collod and they want to put all that behind them and they want to try something new where the money is at. So you do get people who

want to try something new. The sojourners are much more common than full-scale immigrants. People tend to go for a period, make money and come home. This again goes back very early and when there are Scots, for example, in Dutch Curacao in the 1630s, their Scots settlers on Nevis by the 1660s. and by the 18th century of a situation whereby the middle of the 18th century, 60% of doctors in Antigua and neighboring islands are Scots or Scots trained, and Scots are providing up to half of the assembly members in various of the West Indies. So there's a very strong plantation, Scottish elite growing, both there and on the American coast by the later 18th century. And there's also, of course, Scottish colonisation, in direct Scottish colonisation, particularly in the case of Georgia, where Oglethorpe, who is the founding colonial leader of the Georgian colonisation in the 1730s, brings in a lot of Scots because Oglethorpe is effectively himself a Jacobite sleeper. His sisters are both Jacobite agents. And you write this astounding statistic in your book, the latter half of the 18th century, up to half the whites in Jamaica, and 80% of those in Antigua are Scots.

There is a very marked presence. When they get there, I mean, if you've got in such numbers and such percentages, which are actually jaw-dropping, do they transplant the clan loyalty when they come over to the new world or, you know, wherever they end up? And what are their networks like? Is it just sort of like a little Scotland? You know, we have that term little Englander, but do you have a little Scotlander mentality in these new worlds?

One of the things that black enslaved people describe Scots as in the West Indies is shellfish. because of their habit of sticking together and to any surface. They also comment that English people don't tend to know each other, but Scots do. So that's from an enslaved person's perspective that Scots always seem to recognize and accommodate other Scots. It isn't by family or clan, I would say it's by a nation. Are there any clan chiefs out there by this stage or are the chiefs often sitting at home and sending their clansmen abroad?

The McNabs end up in Canada. Canada, doesn't he? But that's a bit later. I'm not sure that there are any chiefs of the name operating in the Caribbean or the American coast by the mid-18th century. There are some that undertake this in the 19th. Of course, what happens, and we'll get to that, is that there are different kind of chief emerges in fairly short order, which is the Native American Scottish chief. Get to that in a second. You also write, Murray, that there are Scots Masonic lodges founded across the Caribbean and even more remarkably branches of a Fife sex club. Tell us about that.

That made me drop my breakfast as well. Does it do what it says on the tin? It does. It does? Oh, right. Discuss Murray. You want to know what happened at Beggars Benison meetings in the West Indies. Well, of course we do.

Is it all about sex? Is it basically a knocking shop? Is that what it was? No, it's not a knocking shop. It's a sort of masturbation club. Sometimes naked women were imported to aid. the meditation of the members. The horrible detail is that the dish, the central dish, survives in many cases,

in provincial museums in Scotland. What are you talking about? I mean, I know, look, I know you're in a club being Scottish, but this is going to be absolutely mind-blowingly mad to everybody. So just a whole bunch of blokes. This is the 18th century Libertines. There's a fantastic book about it by a guy called Farmer's Dabirwala, called The Origins of Sex,

has a whole chapter on Scottish sex clubs in this behaviour. There are also China and silver dildos surviving from the Beggars Benisneros. Can I just say that on my list for today or ever was not Murray Bittick saying dildo? But it's okay. It's all right. There was also a branch in St. Petersburg if you wanted. So it was widespread. When I would open that can of worm, so to speak.

The art collector Oliver Haw had a sale of Scottish ivory and walrus ivory. dildos about 10 years ago. There is a catalogue if you look online. Can I just say, when people ask me, what is it the difference between working on Empire and working at the BBC? This last two minutes? That would be the difference. I will refer you to.

You did ask. You did ask. I did. I did. The Origins of Sex is the go-to book for this. Farnemez-Dabier-Waller, it's an absolutely jaw-dropping book. Anyone that thought the 60s were the first big Libetine era should go to them. the mid-18th century of chapters in this book. And it's just astonishing. So, you know,

although you have these sojourners who are doing weird things around balls in clubs, that I had no idea existed. I know, idea, absolutely no idea. But the greatest number of people, and I'm just looking, again, this is a fact in your book, latter half of the 18th century, still 90% of this burgeoning Scots community in Jamaica were enslaved. There are very, very rich people and there are really quite beleaguered Scots. There are beleaguered Scots, though I wouldn't want to call it enslavement. And sometimes, it must be said, some of those sold on the Quiside were instantly liberated.

That happened at least one well-attested, the case where Scottish landowners bought them and freed them in South Carolina. But it could go either way. You could either end up in the hands of a Klansman or in the hands of a clan rival. I think unless you had reason to dislike the person, you were likely to get reasonably good treatment if you were bought by a Scott, if you weren't actually released. But then there are figures,

it's Lewis Hamilton, who's actually executed in 1773 in Jamaica, who's a serial killer. He actually kills enslaved people. So there are some really, really extraordinarily unpleasant individuals. I mean, even especially in an unpleasant world, unpleasant individuals out there. They are all involved. Hamilton, of course, runs out of room. He's a doctor, by the way, or makes it even matter, runs out a room in the 1770s, there are an enormous number of people out there who are making a great deal of money and they're repatriating it to Scotland. One of the things that also happens, I think it's worth saying, is that they have a number of mixed race children who are often schooled in Scotland, though sometimes they're not, but William Davidson, who becomes schooled in

Scotland, who is executed for this part in the Cato Street conspiracy against the British government in 1820 and of course perhaps the most famous one of these relatives who's in that lovely painting by David Martin now in Schoon Palace is Dido Bell who's the great niece of the Earl of Mansfield, William Murray, who gave the conditional judgment against the legality of slavery in England in 1773. And who lived in the very grand Kenwood House in London, where the FT Festival takes place today. And this story that you're telling, you know, I mean, this is the origin story of people like Alexander Hamilton, you know, the famous Alexander Hamilton, you know, his nickname or his pejorative that was used, particularly by John Adams, was Creole bastard because there was said to be some Creole blood

in his past. So it's illegal to hold slaves within Scotland, and yet it is legal to transport people from Scotland. So, for example, you get McDonald's transported to Jamaica by the Campbells, you get Scots traded from their homes by landlords, you have people kidnapped from sky to be sold as indentured servants in 1739, 500 boys stolen from Aberdeen in 1740. But it is actually illegal to steal the boys, really, but they are nonetheless stolen and traded. We talked before with you, in fact, about Bunt's Island with Richard Oswald. So, I mean, you know, this is a mighty loophole. You can't do it at home, but you can do whatever you like. Look, can we move on from the Caribbean just very quickly to talk about the Scots in North America

and particularly interested in their interactions with Native Americans. And also, can we also talk about the associations with the Ku Klux Klan? Because that's also very interesting. But let's start from the very beginning. We're talking about the period between 1700 and 1815. And you estimate what 100,000 Scots left for North America then. Same situation, same way that they leave as the Caribbean experience. So a lot of Scots go to North America for military service.

Seven years war. Yeah, seven years war. So ultimately, the British Army presence in Scotland can only be dialed down. That's the decision taken in 1755, 56, by having the Scots regiments exported to serve outside Scotland, far outside Scotland, at scale. And often they're not particularly trusted because the Black Watch aren't given weapons until they're arriving in Guadeloupe in 1759. Really?

No, they're not distributed once they get to the West Indies. But in the North American sector, they served extensively. And in terms of rehabilitating their leaders, they took some of the most enormous casualties. So Simon Fraser, Lord Lovett's son, the master of of Lovett, the Fraser's who we commanded, took 65% casualties at Ticonderoga. That's in which date? That's 1758. So 647 out of 1,000 killed or wounded. Fighting the French. Yes, fighting the French. And actually, Wolf's victory on the plains of Abraham, is only made possible because the French password is given by a bilingual officer who was formerly a Scottish officer in the French service. Captain MacDonald. Tell that story briefly because

people may not be familiar with it. So you've got the Scots having to climb up the cliffs of Quebec in this crucial moment of the Anglo-French Wars and the Seven Years War. Exactly. And the shock was that the troops, the British Army could assemble on the plains of Abraham. At the top of the cliffs. At the top of the cliffs. At the top of the cliffs. directly threatened Quebec. It's an extraordinary risky venture, but it only succeeds at all because Captain MacDonald is actually a former Scottish officer in the French service and is bilingual and can give the French password in a French accent to a Frenchman. That's a great story. Just go into that again, Murray, because we dealt with it last time with the Scots in India,

but this crucial matter of the Scots having to in a sense prove themselves loyal Brits after 1745, after the second Jacobite rebellion, the Scots are suspected massively of disloyalty across the board. And it is through service in the empire and through demonstrably loyal service at this period in this first major conflict after the 45 that the Scots are seen to rehabilitate and doesn't, particularly their leaders. That's right. I think that a lot of the rank and fires, I suggest pay the price for their leaders' rehabilitation, pay the ultimate price in no uncertain terms. So that's a significant part of the North American story because many of these people are settled with land grants in North America after the war. It's an easy way because land is short in the north of Scotland and the desire

to subdivide property is high, which is one of the reasons that leads to the clearances. So actually, it's better to have, if it's fertile, land in North America because there's much less pressure on land. So many of them are settled that way. But they're also a significant number of merchants. Remember that by 1760s, Glasgow has more than 50% of the UK's tobacco trade, and an awful lot of that is supplied by Scottish merchants for resale from Glasgow. So there are significant numbers of particular tobacco, though, not excluding sugar, merchants, right down the eastern coast of what becomes the United States. And many of these have become pretty rich by the 1770. and the beginning of the American War of Independence.

Though actually one of the things that is driving them also is the early development of St. Andrew's societies, which start, Scots societies start in Boston the 17th century, and there's several of them by the mid-late 18th century. And they actually bring together, as they did right through the British imperial period, their job is to ensure that Scots are advantaged and employed at the expense of everybody else. And that's what they do. But it doesn't mean they aren't necessarily progressive, inverted commas in certain terms, because, for example, the Charleston St. Andrews Society votes by 77 to 32 to support the colonists in 1776 against the Crown.

Now, that's interesting. What is more interesting is that you have all of these numbers in your head and you just pluck them out. Let me tell you, most people would be reaching for their own book to remind themselves. We're going to take a break here, but join us after the break. When we talk about a truly remarkable man, John Ross, paramount chief of the Cherokee Nation. Welcome back. So we have now established that there are these very healthy Scottish settlers who have come to North America, some of them voting with the cause of American independence, some not. We haven't talked about the Native American population, the relationship with them. And sort of key to this is this amazing figure.

John Ross, the grandson of John MacDonald. Now, tell us about him and why we should all know his story, because it is amazing. So John Ross is one of a number of Scottish, Native American chief, but he is the only paramount chief, and he is the longest serving paramount chief of the Cherokee Nation, effectively serving as chief for 38 years. He's a Scott, all completely 100% Scott, and he is the paramount chief of the Cherokee Nation. That's amazing. I mean, yes. I'm not sure about 100%. In fact, some Cherokee who didn't like him pointed out, he was only one-eighth Cherokee by blood during his lifetime. But because of matrilinear succession effectively, I mean, Scots who overwhelmingly become the employers of the Hudson's Bay Company who also make their way extensively as fur traders and are much better at dealing with indigenous people in terms of getting money out of them and establishing a trading relationship with them than some other nations are, often end up marrying. into important branches of Native American First Nations families. And because there's matrilinear succession, they can end up, or their children end up,

as chiefs. And that's what happened to John Ross. Born in Alabama, his native name is Guisgui, which is mysterious little white bird. So he was born in 1790. He was always an important member of the Cherokee because of the matrilinear practice. And again, the Cherokee were an exogamous grouping, so women often married outside the Cherokee, so this tended to bring new blood into the system. He fought in the war of 1812 under Andrew Jackson, the future president. And then in 1814, he set up a tobacco plantation in Tennessee at a place which became Ross's landing and is now Chattanooga. And the interesting thing is that one thing people do not realize about Native Americans was that they

kept enslaved people. And they're about 20 enslaved black Africans. on Ross's tobacco plantation. And he also, after the tobacco plantation, developed a ferry service between American and Cherokee lands across the Tennessee River. By the 1820s, there was increasing pressure in Washington to grab the Cherokee lands. And because Ross was absolutely bilingual, he was sent effectively to be the chief negotiator. So the man with talking about is you have to imagine a man with piercing good looks, dark hair, dark eyes, impeccably dressed, who has got a legal understanding as well. And this is, you know, 1827, the state of Georgia, as Murray is saying, starts annexing Cherokee homelands. And it is 1830 when the US government

passes the Indian Removal Act. And John Ross becomes the focal point for resistance of this. You know, we can't stop you with guns. We are outgunned and outmaned, but we can stop you with the law. And he becomes this, you know, just an extraordinary figure who argues, who, you know, writes his way out, if you like, and again, to use another Hamilton lyric. Just tell me, you know, under him, Paramount Chief, what are we talking about with the Cherokee Nation? Does he incorporate some of his Scottishness, or do they incorporate some of his Scottishness in their identity as well? I think we would just say is that the Scottishness was compatible. And you can tell that from the popularity of tartan sales, to put it bluntly, in the 18th and 19th centuries,

Native Americans particularly wanted to have status tartan, red or bright yellows, and at one year's sale, for example, at Fort Vancouver at the end of the 1830s, about two miles of tartan, principally I think Royal Stuart McGregor and McDonald was sold to First Nations customers. McGregor is always one of the prettiest tartans. Exactly. But also giving that sense of importance, which the bright colours always carried.

So the cultures are compatible to an extent. This is very much what we found in the last episode with the Scots in India, that the Scots are taking the remote postings in Delhi, Lucknow and Hyderabad and are far more apt intermarry than the English, who often stay in the presidency towns. and that you're finding a great deal of mixed-race children fathered by Scots.

Most famously in the case of India, James Skinner, Skinner of Skinner's Horse. And you're talking about sort of these things being compatible. Now you've said it, I'm thinking of those many, many, numerous sort of old, old photographs or portraits of Native Americans, First Nation Americans, wearing, you know, things that look a lot like the Glengarry cap, which is a really Scottish Highland thing, you know, that sort of like soft cap. And they are there there in those same headgear. To just skip ahead to emphasize the point, John Buchan, as Governor General of Canada, famously portrayed by Louis Cash with full Indian chief's headdress,

had 30 presentations of honorary tribal membership given to him by Native Americans, made one speech partially in Cree, and very much engaged in a very long tradition which they and he both recognized. But Murray, again to emphasize, John Ross is not a unique figure. John McDonnell is a Mohawk commander. William McIntosh is a Cree chief. Alexander McGilroy in some ways one of the most interesting of all of these people is effectively plays off the Spanish against the Americans from his position as a Creek chief in Florida.

So Ross is the leader of a most important single figure, but this is a significant grouping of people. How do we get from that intermarriage, intermingling, mutual respect, compatibility that you're talking about, to this, and is it a myth, or is it true? The Scots were the ones who set up the Ku Klux Klan in America? No, it's not really true. So it's a backformation.

What's a back formation? I don't even know what that word is. What's a back formation? So the two ex-crupal Confederates who set up the clan claimed, as many Americans do, Scottish ancestry, which may or may not be the case. It's not immediately clear. But in Birth of a Nation... Which is an epic film depicting and a rather heroic...

posture to the Ku Klux Klan, that they are saving America. Exactly. The hero is Cameron, who is the southern gentleman who's effectively betrayed, not quite so much by Lincoln, but by Lincoln's successors and the treacherous Yankees, and also by the growth rather exaggeratedly portrayed of black majority rule in post-Civil War America. And so the Ku Kluxat-Scan is strongly associated by 1915 with Scots and also had already adopted certain Scottish features. For example, the Fiery Cross, the Cross Tare. Why is that Scottish, the Fiery Cross?

Because it's used for gathering troops from great distances by placing the recruiting cross on high ground. It's used most recently in the rising of 1745 by William Murray, the Marquis of Taliban. That is really nice, just didn't have a clue about that. Murray, we jumped ahead slightly. Just one very important thing which you mentioned, which fascinated me, Scots and the Declaration of Independence. It's been said that Thomas Jefferson actually modelled the Declaration of Independence on the 1320 Declaration of Our Broth. And I should just read,

for those who don't know the Declaration of Our Broth, the crucial words, for we fight not for glory nor riches nor honours, but for for full. freedom alone, which no good man gives except with his life, those stirring words from the declaration of our bro 1320. Is there any influence of one on the other, or is that a Scottish myth? If it is a myth, it's not one confined to Scotland because the Tartan Day movement set up in Canada in the late 1980s and ratified in US Senate Resolution 155 in 1998, explicitly identified, the Declaration of Our Growth with Independence and American Liberties. Now, I mean, I cover this in a degree of detail in my book, Scotland, the Global History.

Your great book, which we haven't done enough to pump up there. Scotland, a global history, a must-buy for all Empire listeners. Thank you very much, Willie, and only £11.99 in paperback. So, anyway, the issue is, I think it's not unlikely, but it must remain not proven. Most of the influence comes through the philosopher Francis Hutchison. The question is whether Francis Hutchison's democratic Presbyterian tradition and its idea of covenanting and holding the crown to account, which begins in the 1560s, actually itself comes to Declaration Arbroath.

The Declaration of Both, I have to say, is out there. It's printed 14 times in the 18th century. Is it? Yeah. Being read by people. Yes, it is. It's used by Boswell and his preference. to his essay on Corsica and Journal of the Tour of Corsica in 1768.

It's well worth looking up. English people are completely unfamiliar with this stirring document. Absolutely. It's used in correspondence about comparisons between America and Corsica between Boswell and Corsicans with an American interest in the 1760s, early 1770s. James Wilson, as effective of the founder of the Supreme Court, more or less seems to quote the liberty passage. It's very close paraphrase.

freedom for which no good man gives up except with his life. You can't get better than that. It comes from Salas, actually. It's a Roman Republican quote which has been embedded in something which hovers between classical republicanism and religious manifest destiny. In that sense, there's something really interesting about this document, which we don't have time for today. Well, bring it back, Murray, because we can't look without you, so we might revisit that with you. It could, but we will never prove it, have an indirect and possibly a very slight direct influence on the US Declaration of Independence, but the text that it influences in Scotland are more influential directly on the US Declaration.

Now, I want us to jump the border, as it were, and talk about Canada and the Scots influence there, because I was very, very tickled. I was doing a little Google. And do you know, in Ontario, we've just missed, sadly, the Fergus Scottish Festival and Highland Games. And we've even more missed the Glengarry Highland Games, also in Ontario. And there's also the North Lannock Highland Games, which took place, oh, well, we just about missed that. August the 24th was the big day. And there are more. The Highland Games is a big, big deal in Canada, which makes me think there is a good story to tell here about the Scots and Canada. It's enormously central story. So Scots formed the vast majority of employees of the Hudson's Bay Company by mid-18th century. And indeed, Orcadians formed a majority because their hardiness. was regarded as absolutely necessary. Okadians being. People from Orkney.

Oakney. Right, thank you very much. Okay. You forget that most of us aren't Scottish. And Orcadians, I just only thought, is that Tolkien? Where is that coming from? There's a special village built for them on South Island, New Zealand. So, and also because they were very good at being fur traders and raw materials traders

across Canada. So in terms of climate and in terms of adaptability, they were very good. Does the Nova Scotia bit come into all this history? New Scotland, for those of you who don't have your Latin to hand. So Nova Scotia is initially a grant of James the sixth and first to Sir William Alexander, who becomes the Earl of Sterling in 1621. A set of Nova Scotia baronets are created to run it. Including a certain family familiar to this podcast. Oh, no. Really? Again? Yep. Murray, do you do this on purpose? I mentioned the clerks of Pennycook, who are also Nova Scotia baronets. But it is true, I'm afraid.

It is true. My brother is to this day a Nova Scotia Marriott. There were others who we won't talk about just now. But it was an early colonial venture which effectively collapsed after Port Royal was lost to the French or exceeded by Charles I first of the French in 1631. It left me with one percent micmac blood, I have to say. Somehow some derumple intermarried with the micmacs around Halifax. It's all about you. It's hilarious.

I did. Are you planning on claiming a bit of Nova Scotia, just with your 1%. I did trade on it when I went to lecture in Halifax once, I have to say. So Nova Scotia, New Scotland keeps its name, though, and it changes hands, or large parts of it change hands, between France and Great Britain during various times during the 18th century. And the first two prime ministers of the Canadian Confederation, indeed the creator of the Canadian Confederation in 1864 to 67, are both Scots and born in Scotland. John MacDonald, and he put it together as well.

He put it together, and he also extended the territory by getting Rupert's land, Prince Edward Island, Northwest Territories, and also by British Columbia. British Columbia was being sought by the US in 1870. So he wanted a bi-coastal Canada that crossed the continent. In other words, MacDonald is really the maker of modern Canada. So, Murray, this has been utterly fascinating. And also, I'm just sort of minded if even now there is a kudos to claiming Scottish heritage.

I mean, Donald Trump really did have a Scottish immigrant mother, but he does bang on about it. How many do you see now when you look at the news today and you say, right, I know where you're from, I know where you're from, I know your story? I don't actually think that, to be honest. For one thing, the names have spread extremely wide now. And for another, the number of people claiming Scottish ancestry is partly a function of the cultural prestige of Scotland or of big films or the Outlander series. So the number of people in the US claiming Scottish ancestry is much more volatile than those in Canada. They want to be Scots. They want to be affiliates. And one of the interesting things which has happened in the last 20 years is among the Church of Latter-day Saints.

Because the Mormons are very keen on genealogy, they've been very keen on finding a Scottish identity for themselves because they think of themselves a nation within a nation. And therefore, they see the Scots in the same light. They were selling 1,200,000. tickets to barn suppers the last time I was in Brigham Young. The Mormons were. That's amazing. Yeah, they were. Indeed, I don't know. They'll be much drunk at those barn suppers. There'll be very sad affairs of orange juice. Haggis and lemonade.

Not quite right, is it? Yeah. We should say that it's a very important source today for clan funds, that many of the Scottish clans like the McDonald's and the McNabs have these big fundraising tours around their clansmen in America. And you see all sorts of things in Scotland with little plaques attached to it, saying thanks to the McDonald's of Ontario or whatever it is, who've given money for things. Absolutely. And as a board member of the National Trust for Scotland, I have to say that NTS USA are also extremely helpful fundraisers for preserving Scottish heritage at home. So you're absolutely right, Willie.

We can never get enough, Murray. Anyway, Murray Pittick, thank you very much indeed. That is all that we have time for. Until the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnand. And goodbye from me, William Durhampool.