The experiences of Scots in the American Colonies

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The experiences of Scots in the American Colonies

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4 July 2026 marked the 250th anniversary of the ratification (adoption) of the American Declaration of Independence. Signed a month later on 2 August 1776, this legislation severed political ties between the 13 American colonies and Great Britain and established the colonies as self-serving states. Nine men of Scottish origin signed the Declaration. Two of them, The Reverend John Witherspoon and James Wilson, were born in Scotland and emigrated in the 1760s. You can find out more about them in our Scotland’s People article.

In the decades preceding this momentous event, many Scots had travelled to, explored and settled in, the American colonies. They came from various backgrounds, including traders, farmers, storekeepers, and intellectuals, and carried elements of their Scottish heritage with them. Not everyone travelled voluntarily, with thousands being transported either as an alternative to execution or imprisonment, seeking religious freedom, or travelling as indentured servants (a labourer legally contracted to an employer without salary for a set period). Permanent emigration or travel to the colonies ranged from an adventure to a huge risk that gambled with livelihoods, health, and survival.

National Records of Scotland (NRS) holds records which capture and reflect the experiences of Scottish emigrants in America, as well as those of traders and travellers. Archives found under the NRS reference ‘GD’ come from the collections of landed families, businesses, and institutions. They are a particularly rich source of information about the part in which Scots played in the administration and economic life of the American Colonies, as well as the events of the War of Independence in which many Scottish soldiers were involved. This article looks at a few of these records.

Early settlers

Letters of earlier Scottish immigrants to the American colonies capture their mixed experiences. Some took part in the planned settlement of provinces, such as Philadelphia in Pennsylvania and Savannah in Georgia. Others travelled on the principle of ‘first-come, first-served’, hoping to acquire the best plots of land on their arrival. David Toshach, the 7th Laird of Monzievaird, was one of these early settlers. Along with his brother-in-law, Colonel Patrick MacGregorie, they gathered around 25 families and their servants to make the journey. Toshach had acquired a 1/4th share of the Earl of Perth’s 1/24th share of East New Jersey for £250 (today estimated to be the equivalent of around £28,600 according to the National Archive’s currency converter), and it was there that they planned to settle. The group sailed onboard the Shield of Stockton which left Leith on 11 July 1684.

The Shield of Stockton was the first ship to navigate the Delaware River all the way to Burlington, New Jersey, in December 1678. She had carried prominent Quaker settlers and founding families of West New Jersey.

When Toshach and his group travelled, six years later, they arrived at the Patuxent River, Maryland, on 29 September 1684. The travellers then journeyed to East Jersey, near modern-day Perth Amboy.

On 17 March 1685, Toshach wrote to ‘The Rycht Honorable the Earle of Perth, Lord Heigh Chanceloure off Scotland’ from New Jersey to describe his initial experience:

"…the maltratement I have gotine in the province of Jersey, by thir coursed Quakers, who mind nothing but there oun interest…all the…ground and river side ar takine up allradie by Quakers, Independents, Presbiterians, Anababtists, and, in a word by all the offscourings off hell…"
- NRS, GD24/1/826/148, shared with permission of Mr and Mrs Parker

As the firstborn son to an aristocratic Scottish family, Toshach had felt irritated by the lack of reverence shown to him by the previous settlers. The land he had originally intended to establish himself upon was unobtainable. After the Earl of Perth refused to refund him his money, he sold his share to David Mudie, a merchant from Montrose. By the following summer he was living in New York. Known locally as ‘The Laird of Minivaird’, he established and operated a fur trading post with his brother-in-law, which he continued until his death in 1689.

Toshach’s experience would have seemed luxurious to the poorer Scots who, in many cases, were forced to travel to an unknown land. At this time, thousands of Scots were forcibly shipped to the colonies, mainly due to religious persecution or following societal unrest. Indentured servants, who often traded four to seven years of uncompensated labour in exchange for the cost of their travel, faced the harsh realities of disease, poverty, and extremes in climate.

Some immigrants, however, were pleasantly surprised by the sophistication of their new surroundings. John Rutherfurd (junior) admired the refined culture of the developing towns in a letter he wrote to Sir Hew Dalrymple of North Berwick, 2^nd Baronet, in 1742:

Letter from John Rutherfurd (junior) to Sir Hew Dalrymple of North Berwick, 2nd Baronet,1742. NRS, GD110/911/7

"This is the third Ive wrote you since I came to this part of the world [in December 1741], but not a line from you… I have just passed the last two months at New York and never think I passd two in my life more agreeably. The people of Fashion liveing in the politest, most hospitable way in the world… there is no pleasure in life but may be enjoyed in Perfection there except Opera and Play houses."
- NRS, GD110/911/7

Upon arriving in the American colonies, Sir John secured a commission as Captain in the Independent Regiment of Foot in New York. He spent the 1740s in New York, becoming a Major in the New York Forces (1746) and a member of the Governor's Council (1745–1758). He was killed on 8 July 1758 at Fort Ticonderoga during the Battle of Carillon (part of the French and Indian war).

Like Sir John, other writers lamented the lack of mail from home. Sir Patrick Houston, who took part in the planned settlement of the provinces under General Oglethorpe in Georgia, wrote to Sir John Clerk of Penicuik on 22 June 1748:

"I have not been favoured with a letter from you for some years, altho I have wrote many to you, yet S[i]r I shall never while I live neglect any opportunity of acknowledging the many former favours I have received from you, for which I return my hearty thanks…I should be mightie glade to hear of the happiness and prosperity of your family… I am appointed quarter-master to General Oglethorps Regtt, with a promise to be allowed to Continue my former business, non of the Trustees hase taken any notice of me since I came to Georgia, notwithstanding of there promises to you & the years & mony I have spent in the Country, my wife & children joins me in offering our service to you, Lady & family…"
- NRS, GD18/5360/9, shared with permission of Sir Robert Clerk of Penicuik

Sir Patrick (1697-1762), 5th Baronet of Glasgow, immigrated to the Colonies in the 1730s. He was a prominent planter and official in Savannah, Georgia, serving as President of the Council of the colony and a trusted leader under General James Oglethorpe, a British army officer who founded the province of Georgia. One of Sir Patrick’s sons, John, served as Governor of Georgia in the 1770s and 1780s and helped to found the university there.

Not everyone who emigrated wished to maintain old connections from their homeland. On 7 January 1750, on his arrival at Charleston, William Murray, who later established himself as a doctor in South Carolina, wrote to his mother, in Dumfriesshire. He had come across an old Scottish acquaintance, Sir Henry Nisbet, who had snubbed him:

"he has too great a regarde for his knighthood to stoop so low as to take notice of us, and we (are) too high to yeald in the least to him, he is hear very little taken notice, on Account of his Surly proud haughty behaviour, Gentry is not taken Notice of hear, every one is here upon a level, the knight with the Private Gentleman & them with the meanest Pheseant… "
-

Further in his letter, which he wrote upon arrival in Charleston, he reflected on the unpleasant voyage:

The letter written by Dr Murray to his mother in January 1750. NRS, GD219/287/1

"We had all the sea sickness, and I in particular, everyone aboard thought I was dying & Mr Short in particular told I was dead, this sickness lasted six days in which time I indured such violent pain that words are insufficient to give you an idea of it, it reduced me to skin and bone, & so weak that I could not walk…"
- NRS, GD219/287/1

Over the next 15 years, Dr Murray operated as a physician and surgeon in Charleston, before returning to his ancestral home in Dumfriesshire. His brother, John Murray, was also a physician. He immigrated to South Carolina in the 1740s and held prominent positions in the colony, serving as a member of the Commons House and as secretary to Governor William Henry Lyttelton.

John Inglis, an emigrant from Douglas in Lanarkshire, opened a shop in William Street, New York, in the autumn of 1777. He kept a journal in which he recorded the little details of his daily life. For example, his entry for Thursday 28 May 1778 reads:

"Arose at five, walk’d to Bunker Hill opned Shop a(t) six read the newspaper, a paper of The Spectator and a lesson of French till breakfast, Tea and muffins, Staid in the shop till 12, walk’d out and bot a chip hat [a lightweight woven hat]"
- NRS, GD1/46/20

Licenced to ship supplies to the British army and fleet, he made a trip home to Scotland in 1779. He was subsequently captured and exchanged for an American prisoner at Yorktown and, in 1785, offered to become storekeeper in New York for James Mitchell and Company.

A chart of the entrance to New York from Sandy Hook, c.1776. NRS, RHP85408

The beginnings of trade

Tobacco, the main import to Scotland from America, had first arrived in Scotland in the reign of King James VI (1567-1625) who vehemently denounced smoking in his ‘Counterblaste to Tobacco.’ The English Navigation Act (1661) required that all colonial trade be carried on English-built and owned ships with mostly British crews. It also mandated that ‘valuable goods’ such as sugar and tobacco be exported exclusively to English ports. This legislation reduced Scotland’s small but persistent trade with America into smuggling. In August 1690, a complaint was made to the Privy Council by George Lockhart, a Glasgow merchant, and his co-partners that their ships ‘loadned with Tobacco’ had been commandeered by an English captain in the River Clyde. The Council decided that ‘the ships are Scots bottoms [built, owned and registered in Scotland] and belonging to Scotsmen, and that justice shall be done…’ (PC1/46 p345).

Complaint made by George Lockhart, a Glasgow merchant, to the Privy Council, August 1690. Crown copyright, NRS, PC1/46 page 345

In 1694, the Council wrote to the King ‘anent seizing Scotts shippes in our owne ports.’ They complained that ‘both in our East and West seas and in the ports and harbours thereof our merchant ships have been seized…Our merchants are so much discouraged and prejudget by these attempts that many of them already has given over trade.’ (Privy Council Register, 29 June 1694, PC1/49). The high volume of complaints demonstrates the frequency with which this was occurring.

Emigrant Scots helped foster the traffic, however, which was on the increase by the turn of the 17th century. In 1691, the Marie of Boston, which had a Scottish master, brought over 21,000 lbs of tobacco into Port Glasgow for the merchant William Arbuckle, much of which had been grown by slave labour.

A customs book detailing the tobacco brought into Scotland on board the Marie of Boston, 1691. Crown copyright, NRS, E72/19 page 21.

The Union of the Parliaments of Scotland and England in 1707, with its equal trading opportunities, opened the way for the phenomenal expansion of the Scottish tobacco trade by the mid-18th century, when Glasgow was the leading British tobacco port. The Customs Accounts from the Exchequer records note that in the year 1771 no less than 46 million lbs of tobacco were imported by the Glasgow merchants, who by then dominated the British tobacco trade. West-coast ports such as Port Glasgow and Greenock expanded, and many Scottish industries produced more consumer goods for export.

Detail from a page from the Collector's Quarterly Accounts: Port Glasgow, January - October 1771. Crown copyright, NRS, E504/28/19/61

Successful Scottish merchants, and their resident factors and storekeepers, were heartily disliked in the Chesapeake and James River areas. Their stores, found all over the tobacco growing colonies, functioned as collecting points for the crops of their planter-customers and supplied all kinds of consumer goods. The Glasgow firms almost vied with one another in offering credit and planters’ property was taken in security for growing debts.

Planters

Tens of thousands of Scottish settlers actively participated in the slave trade; an exact figure is not known, but Scots working as plantation owners, merchants, ship captains, overseers and doctors across the colonies (in both America and the Caribbean) all played a role. Letters detail contemporary views of slavery and the treatment of enslaved people. For example, the exceptionally wealthy Captain Archibald Kennedy of the Navy, who became 11th Earl of Cassillis in 1792, and inherited the Culzean estate in Ayrshire, Scotland, was American born, owning many houses in New York as well as a plantation and house in Pavonia in New Jersey. In 1767, his factor in London wrote to him about labour on the plantation:

Letter from Captain Archibald Kennedy’s factor to Captain Archibald Kennedy, 1767. NRS, GD25/9/27/1

"...I propose to begin your Settlement upon a frugal plan, and to place at first five white Men Servants, consisting of three Carpenters, one Cooper and an Overseer, together with 10 Negroes upon your Estate. I have procured the Servants, and on account of their Industry and Sobriety have preferred Scotch to English. These servants are covenant [indentured] servants to your Lordship for 8 years at the expiration of which time they receive 26£ each and fifty acres to settle upon your Lordships Barony. As to the negroes, I must get them either in Carolina or Georgia, and must choose such as are used to the different cultivations I begin with as Rice, Cotton, Indigo etc the Demand for negroes for East Florida has raised their price in Carolina, and I expect to pay between 36 and 40£ a head. The expence of the white servants in engaging them here fitting them out for the voyage and then [tran]sporting them to Florida comes to about 10£ a head, the plantations tools and implements amounts to about 70£ , I reckon in all about 200£ will be expected here in London for the Outsett, 100£ will be laid out for the survey and locating the Lands, and the remaining 500£ for the purchase of negroes and Scotch." (The National Archive’s Currency Converter estimates that £40 in 1770 would equate to around £3,500 today and £500 to be around £43,600).
- NRS, GD25/9/27/1

Exchanging Ideas

Cultural links and exchange of ideas between Scotland and America were often the result of personal contacts and friendships. Although these began in the colonial period, they survived the Revolution, after which the full effects of the creative literary output of the Scottish Enlightenment were felt on the other side of the Atlantic. From the late 17th century, many Scots had gone to America as schoolmasters. Some participated in the founding of colleges and became college principals; James Blair at William and Mary College, William Graham at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) and Reverend John Witherspoon at Princeton.

The college of New Jersey (now Princeton University) was founded in 1746, with a financial contribution from Scotland of about £3,200 (approximately £379,000 today) which helped to build Nassau Hall and the President’s House. Of Reverend John Witherspoon, signatory of the Declaration of Independence, who became president of the college in 1768, Dr Benjamin Rush (a fellow signatory) wrote:

"He gave a new turn to education, and spread taste and correctness in literature throughout the United States. It was easy to distinguish his pupils everywhere when ever they spoke or wrote for the public."
- NRS, GD26/1/3/316, shared with permission of the Earl of Leven

In 1759, Benjamin Franklin received the degree of LLD (Doctor of Laws) at the University of St Andrews during his visit to Scotland. The exchange of ideas was informal and non-institutional too, as in the club frequented by Sir John Pringle and his friends in London, where Franklin and he often met. In 1768 Sir John Pringle wrote to Sir John Hall of Dunglass:

Detail from Sir John Pringle’s letter to Sir John Hall of Dunglass, 1768. NRS, GD206/2/554/7

"This winter I have had a sort of weekly club with…Dr Knight the King of Magnetism, and Mr Franklin Sovereign of Electricity with two or three more of the Ingenious… the evenly commonly passes in puns, conundrums, eating mutton chops and oysters and smoaking Tobacco…I find Mr Franklin a very extraordinarily universal genius…"
- NRS, GD206/2/554/7

Benjamin Franklin, printer, inventive genius, philosopher and Pennsylvanian ambassador to London, had already made Scottish friends at home before 1759, when he spent ‘Six Weeks of the densest Happiness’ as he put it, in ‘the agreeable and instructive Society’ of Scotland. Completely at home in the closely-knit, intellectual but convivial society of Edinburgh, where he was made a Burgess and Guildbrother, he met many personalities of the period: David Hume, William Robertson, Dr Cullen and Adam Smith, then teaching at Glasgow University. At St Andrews, the university gave a reception in his honour and conferred on him the degree of LLD. ‘America has sent us many things, Gold, Silver, Sugar, Tobacco, Indigo etc..: But you are the first Philosopher’ wrote David Hume. His closest Scottish friendship, perhaps, was with Lord Kames, judge, philosopher, and farmer.

The Revolution

Franco-British hostilities, which ended in Europe in 1748, broke out again the following year in Ohio. This led to French incursions into British-claimed territory, the harassment of settlers and traders and the building of a string of forts along the Ohio River. In negotiations with the French, George Washington acted on behalf of Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia. He attempted to stop the French advance and commanded a force of Virginia militia and volunteers. The campaigns brought him valuable experience rather than glory. When General Baddock was sent from Britain in 1755 to step up the military campaign, Washington joined him as a volunteer aide, escaping from the disaster at the Forks of the Ohio in which Braddock was killed.

Washington’s letters to the Scottish Brigadier-General John Forbes, who came over to take command in 1757, record his difficulties in the Spring of 1758 in collecting the Virginia regiment, keeping an eye on the French, and humouring the indigenous allies. On 23 April he wrote:

"I congratulate you on the promising prospect of a glorious Campaigne. The Indians seem to anticipate our success in joining us so soon with 700 of their Warriors…I have received no Orders yet to Assemble the… Virginia Regiment… destitute almost of every necessary proper to a Campaigne so that I fear we shall make a very shabby appearance at the general rendezvous."
- NRS, GD45/2/83/4

The breakdown in Britain’s relations with the American colonies, which eventually led to war, began over economic and commercial grievances which came to a head with the Stamp Act of 1765. Through a stamp duty imposed on newspapers, pamphlets and legal documents, the British Government hoped to raise an American contribution to the cost of defending colonies from French and Indian attack.

On 13 March 1766, Alexander, 10th Earl of Eglinton, wrote to General James Murray to give a British perspective of the issues:

"Dear Jamie… …things are in such damned confusion, that no man can tell where it will end. Disunion and faction reign every where, both in administration, and in the opposition, so that no party acts either with a plan or in consent. You will no doubt hear from Mr Pitts extraordinary speech in the house of Commons in which he madly, wickedly and flatly denyed the power of the legislature of this country to tax her colonies (Curse on his virtues they have undone his Country). I am just going to the house on this American business. I have and still shall do all I can for the honor and interest of the country both in publick and in private…I am just come from the House. The repeal of the stam[p] Act has pasd the Comitty and is to be read a third time next Monday when it will pass. 32 of us have sign'd a protest… This country is going to the devil faster perhaps than you can immagin."
- NRS, GD32/24/29

In the colonies, men had readily accepted posts as distributors of the stamps in America, little anticipating the violent resistance they were to meet with in the course of their duties. In the Virginia House of Burgesses, the radical Patrick Henry urged resistance, whether it was judged treason or not. In Boston a mob, partly roused by Sam Adams, burned official records and looted the mansion of Governor Thomas Hutchinson, who wrote angrily to London about the outrage. Stamp distributors were tarred and feathered in the streets.

A Council was held at the Council Chamber in Boston on Thursday 15 August 1765 where the actions of the mob were recorded. They had broken into the house of Andrew Oliver, the Massachusetts provincial secretary and merchant who was appointed as the stamp distributor for the colony. As he had implemented the highly unpopular Stamp Act, he became the primary target of outrage. An effigy of Mr Oliver was discovered hanging from a tree in town on the morning of 14 August and local officers, afraid of violent repercussions from the crowds, were unable to bring it down. Later, the mob marched past the town house before making their way into town to destroy the shops that Mr Oliver had erected. They progressed to his home where they damaged his furniture and destroyed his fences and garden. Mr Oliver hid in a neighbour’s house, before escaping to Castle William, in fear for his life.

In 1766, the British Government repealed the hated Stamp Act, although some hardliners, including a number of Scottish MPs, voted against the repeal. The colonists had won the first round, and this led Parliament to hold ‘all-night’ debates on the ‘American problem’.

In the early 1770s, colonial demonstrators clashed with the military. This came to a head in the winter of 1773, at the time of the ‘Boston Tea Party’. Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Leslie, Governor of Castle William, Boston, wrote to his father, the Earl of Leven and Melville, on 6 December 1773 with an account of the unrest:

"The East India Company’s Tea sent here has made a fine Dust, the people are in actual rebellion, and where it will end none can say, Lord Dartmouth has not…manage[d] the ungrateful Americans, nothing but severity will do it now."
- NRS, GD26/9/512/5, shared with the permission of the Earl of Leven

Although Lieutenant-Colonel Leslie could not perhaps have predicted it, the ending would be the signing of Independence. In early 1776, Thomas Paine published the pamphlet ‘Common Sense’ which swayed public opinion in favour of separating from British Rule. On 11 June, the Continental Congress appointed John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert L Livingston (known as the Committee of Five) to draft a formal statement of separation. The following month, on 2 July, congress officially approved the Lee Resolution, a legal vote to sever political ties with Great Britain. Two days later, Congress formally adopted the text of the Declaration of Independence. Finally, on 2 August, 56 delegates gathered to sign the parchment, officially committing an act of treason against King George III. Months of frantic debating, compromise, fear, anger, and hope had finally culminated in independence for the 13 colonies.

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