Independent Scotland

Without a dynastic union with England, it may be harder legally for Scots to settle in Ulster... which matters for them when the Little Ice Age comes along, and the productivity of farmland in Scotland drops, and of course has other effects later on as well...

Fewer Scots settling in Ulster means fewer Scots-Irish to move to the Americas, which could very well butterfly away the American Revolution.
 
Fewer Scots settling in Ulster means fewer Scots-Irish to move to the Americas, which could very well butterfly away the American Revolution.

Well, any PoD that early MIGHT. What's your reasoning. I dont remember the Ulstermen being strong rebels. I thought, if anything, they tended to the loyalist side?
 
The Jacobites promised to dissolve the Union(though promises are there to be broken) so there could be a PoD as late as 1746.
 
Well, any PoD that early MIGHT. What's your reasoning. I dont remember the Ulstermen being strong rebels. I thought, if anything, they tended to the loyalist side?

Everything I've read has lead me to the conclusion that the Scots-Irish in the 13 Colonies were almost unanimously Patriots. If what one Hessian officer about the Revolution being a revolt by Scots-Irish Presbyterians has any basis in truth, I'd assume the smaller number of Scotsmen moving to Ulster would weaken the Revolution, if not butterfly it away entirely.
 
Everything I've read has lead me to the conclusion that the Scots-Irish in the 13 Colonies were almost unanimously Patriots. If what one Hessian officer about the Revolution being a revolt by Scots-Irish Presbyterians has any basis in truth, I'd assume the smaller number of Scotsmen moving to Ulster would weaken the Revolution, if not butterfly it away entirely.

I'm not sure where he got that idea. And what have you read that supports him?
 
I'm not sure where he got that idea. And what have you read that supports him?

Well, while I'm certain he was exaggerating, most every American history textbook I've had throughout school, various internet articles (including Wikipedia, though we all know about that), as well as...Revolutionaries, by Jack Rakove? I can't remember if it was mentioned in that or another book whose name I can't quite recall, have led me to believe that the Scotch-Irish were adamantly Patriot.

Could it be maybe that we're having a failure of communication and are talking about two different things? While I have no idea if this is the case, it wouldn't surprise me if more recent Scots-Irish immigrants were loyalists, while the older, more entrenched ones were the ones whom were Patriots. I'm basing this entirely off my own reasoning and I wouldn't be surprised if I was making no coherent sense at all. :D
 
Well, while I'm certain he was exaggerating, most every American history textbook I've had throughout school, various internet articles (including Wikipedia, though we all know about that), as well as...Revolutionaries, by Jack Rakove? I can't remember if it was mentioned in that or another book whose name I can't quite recall, have led me to believe that the Scotch-Irish were adamantly Patriot.

Could it be maybe that we're having a failure of communication and are talking about two different things? While I have no idea if this is the case, it wouldn't surprise me if more recent Scots-Irish immigrants were loyalists, while the older, more entrenched ones were the ones whom were Patriots. I'm basing this entirely off my own reasoning and I wouldn't be surprised if I was making no coherent sense at all. :D

Well, what I was wondering - which does indeed seem to have been a bit different than this:

That most of the Scots-Irish were Patriots (which I'll let others debate, I don't know the answer) is not the same as most of the Patriots being Scots-Irish.

I think you're making sense, but I think I might have been unclear in what I was trying to look at. Hope this makes it more coherent.
 
OK, I seem to have been wrong. I could have sworn I read about Scots fighting with Banastre Tarleton. But on the other hand, that might have been them fighting against him, and I misremembered.

Conflating that with the Orange Lodge in Ontario, and the 'Unionists' in modern Northern Ireland probably also happened.

Sorry for sidetracking things.
 
OK, I seem to have been wrong. I could have sworn I read about Scots fighting with Banastre Tarleton. But on the other hand, that might have been them fighting against him, and I misremembered.

Conflating that with the Orange Lodge in Ontario, and the 'Unionists' in modern Northern Ireland probably also happened.

Sorry for sidetracking things.

You very easily could have read that. Tarleton's Legion contained a surprising number of former Patriots who either volunteered, or were highly encouraged to join its ranks. Also, even if that's not what you were thinking of, plenty of Scottish colonists did fight for the British. Ironically though it was mainly the Highlanders, some of them the very ones who had giving the Crown trouble under the banner of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

The Scots-Irish were important, but sometimes I feel they are a bit overemphasized in regards to the American Revolution. That being said, their antagonism towards the British side during the war, and especially the role of Scots-Irish colonists in the Patriot victory at Kings Mountain, certainly does raise some questions about how an American Revolution ITTL would have fared (especially the Southern campaign) if Scotland had remained independent and those people had settled in Scottish colonies, or if their ancestors had never gone to Ulster in the first place. A different pattern of settlement on the colonial frontier certainly raises interesting possibilities.
 
If I had time, I would go and hunt down the reference, but IBC, before he was banned posted a good bit on how the Scots were disliked in early America as they were viewed as uber-loyalists. Indeed, if it wasn't for a Scot who helped draft the Declaration of Independence, it would have said "Scots and other militias"who opposed them.

A quarter of the officers on the loyalist side during the American Independence War were Scots. This would be reduced drastically by a continued independent Scottish state.

Butterflies....
 
There are hundreds of PoDs in the Tudor period. then if you go earlier butterflies often do it. I like the 1582 PoD. Another PoD would be Mary, Queen of Scots and James die in childbirth...
 
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