Scottish Loyalism in the British Atlantic World

Using recent work on loyalism in Britain, Ireland, and the British Atlantic as a foundation, this book offers a pioneering exploration of Scottish loyalism and explores the many ways in which Scottish loyalists shaped the British Atlantic world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Scots have yet to be examined as a particular ethnic group in the context of loyalism in the British Atlantic world. However, like many other Britons and other imperial subjects, Scots demonstrated their support for Crown and empire in myriad ways and for myriad reasons. What often united Scottish loyalists was a commitment to counterrevolution and constitutionalism. Yet the story is not so simple. Scottish loyalties, like others, were complex and often antithetical to perceptions about Scots invented by outsiders. Many Scottish loyalists challenged the traditional narrative as they included those who were assumed to be enemies of the Crown such as Highlanders, Catholics, and people for whom neutrality was a failed political strategy. Through a detailed examination of Scottish loyalism, the chapters in this volume highlight the multifaceted nature of Scottish political engagement and identity in an increasingly volatile political age. By examining these different strands of Scottish loyalism, this volume reveals the new histories of Scots and those of Scottish heritage and the contributions they made to a broad and popular political movement on both sides of the Atlantic.

The book will be relevant for students and researchers of Scottish history, British imperial studies, loyalism, and Atlantic history. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue in Atlantic Studies and are supplemented by a new Preface and Conclusion.

Katie Louise McCullough is the former Director for the Centre for Scottish Studies (2015–2020) and Shadbolt Fellow in the Humanities (2015–2020) at Simon Fraser University. Her forthcoming co-authored monograph, Mohawks and Scots in Early Canada, will be published by Edinburgh University Press.

Graeme Morton is Professor of Modern History at the University of Dundee. He has written or edited a dozen books, including Unionist-Nationalism: Governing Urban Scotland, 1830–1860 (1999), Ourselves and Others: Scotland 1832–1914 (2012), The Scottish Diaspora (2013), William Wallace: A National Tale (2014), and Weather, Migration and the Scottish Diaspora: Leaving the Cold Country (2021).