Volume 14 , Issue 5

The Peculiarities of European Stocks

The peculiarities of the European Stocks that settled in America were The English, the Lowland Scotch, the Saxon Irish, the Hollanders, the Germans, and the Swedes that were of the Germanic stock, which was cool-blooded and persistent. The Welsh, the Highland Scotch and the native Irish were of the Celtic stock, which was more turbulent than the other and more impatient of restraint. The Huguenots were of the Latin stock, which, like the native Irish, was of warm sensibilities.

The English people had come from the North German coast eleven centuries before, and in this time had grown much away from their German cousins. The Englishman was earnest, dignified, and strong willed. He was also enterprising, industrious, and a lover of order. Wherever he settled he never failed to hold his ground.

The Lowland Scotch were shrewd and thrifty, much less under the influence of aristocratic ideas than their English kinsmen. The Highland Scotch were at the outset of the seventeenth century a cluster of disorderly clans, each one much given to fighting its neighbors and stealing their cattle. The Welch were industrious and prosperous, living on good terms with the English. The Celtic Irish had been much oppressed by their English masters because of their Catholic faith.

The Saxon Irish were derived front he English who settled around Dublin in the twelfth century. They developed a difference from the English, just as the english developed a difference from the Germans.

The Hollanders resembled both the English and the Germans. They were industrious, thrifty and progressive. The Germans from the Rhine had lived under very repressive rule, and because of this fact they were a little slow in getting used to the ways of colonial self government. These people came wholly from the farming and industrial classes. They were peaceable and industrious, yet clannish. The Huguenots differed from the English in being less stern in disposition, more active in mind, more intense in their affections, more chivalrous to woman, more flexible and hospitable to men and ideas, and more keen and enterprising in mattes of business. The Swedes, were few but excellent people and were soon absorbed in the population around them.

The Scotch-Irish during the colonial era were spoken of as Irish because they arrived from Ireland. They were unite distinct from the Celtic Irish. and were fundamentally Scotch, especially the Scotch of the Highlands. There was also a considerable mixture from the north of England and a slight sprinkling of Huguenots. They were a composite people, a stock that was usually forceful.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

---