Origins of American Bellicosity

[jmm99]

This article, Blood Brothers, The Dual Origins of American Bellicosity, by Stephen Peter Rosen (2009), was linked on another thread. The author's thesis is:

The United States will remain an unusually warlike nation in the years to come, and the reason is that we are in fact an unusually warlike people, despite having become wealthier and more multi-ethnic over the years. Our warlike nature resides in the lingering influence of the early environment and demography of British North America, subsequently reinforced by the impact of the War for Independence, the Civil War and World War II. My argument is that the United States had two near-simultaneous foundings, one by Scots-Irish people ready to fight when challenged, and one by Puritans ready to use force when legally authorized. The founding experiences of the Frontier and the Revolution mingled the distinct but mutually reinforcing predispositions of these two groups, producing an American national culture united in the idea that being an American citizen meant being ready to fight and die in its wars. What divided these two groups, and divides them still, was not the question of whether to fight, but of when.

It strikes me that the many (all ?) here at SWC, interested in US military history, might have more than one critique of the author's argument - as well as multiple agreements and disagreements with specific points of that argument.

If so, this is an opportunity to weigh in on topics which continually show up in more current-oriented threads.

[J Wolfsberger]

I have to keep reminding myself that there is not necessarily any maliciousness behind our domestic peace movements, since that is a strong streak within US culture dating almost to day 1.

Does he speak to it?

[Steve Blair]

The whole "Scots-Irish" thing is, IMO, really overdone. It MIGHT be there if you really want to reach for it, but I honestly don't think that anything Rosen is talking about is especially "unique" to Americans. If anything I might take the position that our reputed bellicosity has its roots in the (possibly perceived) existence of outside threats to the existence of the nation and from emulating the example of the British in many ways.

[goesh]

The Scots-Irish thing is there, maybe not as strong as some want it to be but they were a factor to be reckoned with in the earlier frontier days, of course I'm biased having Indian and Brit fighters/ancestors going back to those days. Geography has been referenced many times in this forum and I know people who still eat alot of venison year round, despite having town jobs. Apples v oranges, more attuned with nature v being a violent people maybe, where a broken leg could end you faster than a tomahawk and more died from infection than a scalping knife or an outlaw's gun. Bad whiskey took a few too you know.......

[jmm99]

read the article and your question will be answered - maybe

As to the Scots-Irish thing, I think the author missed half of the equation. The folks from Scotland and Northern Ireland (primarily Ulster), whether called Scots-Irish or Scotch-Irish, are exemplified by Andy Jackson (both parents from Ulster - Carrickfergus). As early as them were the Famine Irish from Southern Ireland (primarily Munster) in the 1600s and 1700s (many famines in Munster), many of whom settled in the South (Virginia being prime real estate) and who were usually Anglicans. The huge migration of Famine Irish occured in the 1800s (Potato Famine, etc.), who largely settled in the North and came along with their RC priests - also some of the same ilk settled in the South - and both got to fight each other in the Civil War.

Except for the religious differences, it is hard to see that much difference in how the Scots-Irish and Famine Irish reacted to challenges - very much clan-based (using the Scottish term) and sept-based (using the Irish term), for the same type of extended families. All of which is historical since the Gaelic speakers (Q-Celts or Goidelic) of Scotland and Ireland were known from Roman times into the early Middle Ages as Scotti. And, there were also Picts in Ireland, though not as many as in Scotland.

So, if we view all of these Scotti and Pictish descendents as something of a collective herd of cats, their influence on the US military has been and still is obvious. If someone were to set up a poll here at SWC asking about some ancestry from Scotland or Ireland, I suspect a large percentage would be affirmative.

As to these folks from Scotland and Ireland, I fail to see their history as being particularly bellicose in external matters. One can certainly point to four characteristics: (1) faction fighting amongst themselves; (2) defense of their self-interests domestically (sometimes well; oftentimes badly); (3) service as professional soldiers or mercenaries under the flag of other countries; and (4) something of a propensity for gradual domestic migrations when under pressures (military, economic or population).

-----------------------
My looksee at the New England Puritans has been less personal (my English ancestry is minimal and not American colonial English). However, in looking at the history of a good chunk of my wife's ancestors, I've gained some appreciation for what the New England Puritans were and were not. Also, I looked at them from the standpoint of the Canadian Marines; that is, as opponents over a couple of centuries of warfare (including the two US invasions of Canada). My overview is that there was a lot of Cromwell's Roundheads in the New England Puritans, just as there was some Cavalier influence in the South. How far one can take that in analysing present-day US foreign policy and the reactions to it, is something less than that argued by the author.

I thought the quote from the Brit officer (included in this snip from the article):

The Puritan experience in the War of Independence reflected this institutionalization of collective violence. The war in New England was a righteous war, authorized and often organized by the New England “black regiment” of Calvinist clergy. As Charles Royster wrote in A Revolutionary People at War (1979), “both those who admired the American Protestant ministry and those who ridiculed it could agree that preachers carried the revolution to large numbers of Americans.” Royster quotes Royal Army Major Harry Brooke, a soldier deployed to Boston who was eloquent on the subject of the clergy and the rebellion: “It is your God damned Religion of this Country that ruins the Country; Damn your religion.”

is a thought that more than a few have had in dealing with present-day religious fanatics.

[Steve Blair]

you also have to consider that many Americans during the earlier years of the country claimed German ancestry. They made up a good chunk (largest ethnic group after the Irish) of the Regular Army prior to the end of the 19th century, and there was real concern in some quarters about the public willingness to get involved in World War I due to said "German influence." It's also worth noting the impact that the Prussian Army system had on folks like Sherman, Sheridan, and Emory Upton. Most of the regimental reorganization plans that surfaced during the 1880s made at least passing reference to the German "community system" where a regiment would have a home station and conduct its recruiting there. That and the reference to Ohio before the Civil War as "America's Prussia" is certainly interesting...

That said, it's much more likely that the claimed "American character" is really a combination of all these factors...for good and ill. Efforts to ignore that blending, attributing it to one ethnic group or the other, really miss the point. IMO, anyhow.

[J Wolfsberger]

The whole "Scots-Irish" thing is, IMO, really overdone. It MIGHT be there if you really want to reach for it, but I honestly don't think that anything Rosen is talking about is especially "unique" to Americans. If anything I might take the position that our reputed bellicosity has its roots in the (possibly perceived) existence of outside threats to the existence of the nation and from emulating the example of the British in many ways.

Steve, I'm with you.

Americans are a warlike people, which is the only (!?) reason we've had so many wars, and since we've had so many wars we must be a warlike people? And it's all because 300 years or so ago a bunch of Puritans came over, followed by a couple of hundred years of Scottish and Irish, who defined a warlike culture (to the exclusion of Germans, Poles, Italians, Chinese, et. al.)?

The paper seems circular and very simplistic. I expect more from Rosen.

[jmm99]

from JohnWolf...
The paper seems circular and very simplistic. I expect more from Rosen.

and

from Fuchs
I wouldn't dig deeper than at most two generations to find reasons for modern phenomenons.

You may search for a root cause and find it, but that root cause would have become irrelevant if in the meantime another factor had changed the outcome. The lack of such another factor is as important as the root cause.

All very logical.

Logic, real history and archaeology can also be applied to the homeland of the Gaels (Scotland and Ireland). The map (attached) from Fuchs' linked Wiki illustrates the geography from the Mesolithic until now. The red area has been a "common market" since that time - flows of peoples, technologies, commerce, etc. Not surprisingly, Southern Ireland has had more inputs from Wales and Cornwall - and from France and Spain. Northern Ireland has had its primary inputs from Scotland. And so, a bit more "Pictish" than the South - but read on.

When did it all begin and from whence the peoples of Ireland. I buy this, as to the Mesolithic:

The first humans in Ireland are thought to have crossed from Scotland, in wooden boats, to what is now county Antrim around 8000BC. It is also thought that the rising land and rising sea levels may have moved at a fluctuating pace, occasionally allowing the southern land bridge to re-emerge from the Irish Sea, as well as a northern one connecting Antrim to Scotland. These would have lasted only briefly, but would have allowed the migrations of both humans and animals. There is a cultural continuity between the mesolithic remains found in north Ireland and those in southern Scotland. Ireland was one of the last parts of western Europe to have been settled by humans, and the human presence here is perhaps only about 10,000 years old.

and as to the Neolithic:

It would be a mistake to think that the Mesolithic people of Ireland suddenly invented farming and became Neolithic. Rather, Ireland's Mesolithic hunters were displaced or assimilated by Neolithic settlers who gradually arrived in Ireland from Britain and brought the technology with them. The practice of farming had spread from the Middle East, through eastern and southern Europe to reach Britain around 4000BC. Again it seems that it arrived in Ireland via the Scotland-Antrim link. Evidence from Cashelkeelty, county Kerry, suggests that this happened between 3900BC and 3000BC [4 p28].

So, whatever you want to call the Gaels, the settlement of Ireland and its population came from Scotland - not the other way around.

Scotland and Ireland, like most nationalities, tribes and families, have their own mythology - the received narrative. That has nothing to do with logic, real history and archaeology. The Gaelic (Irish and Scottish) myth of Scota is a good example.

The myths and received narratives create a perception of reality, which as we see in current affairs, military and political, is often more powerful and devastating than what a totally logical person would reach from true reality.

And, that perception is what we have to deal with in the Small Wars context.

Now, if I can find one of Ken's Scotch-Irish girls:

... noted for their wanton ways - loud, rowdy and very tough girls, and the genre itself for the huge numbers of kids they had and their willingness ... to hop in bed with or marry outside the clan or sept ...

My son needs a mate.

Cheers

Mike

[Rank amateur]

I subscribe it to an eye for an eye is more fun than turning the other cheek. Until you figure out the other guys doesn't just sit around waiting for you to take his eye.

Europe has figured out the other guys doesn't just sit around waiting for you to take his eye. Every couple of decades we forget it and expect to be greeted as liberators.

Maybe because every once in a while we actually are greeted as liberators and Europeans never were.

[George L. Singleton]

Mike:

Interesting theory...but Scotland was moved into Christianity by Irish coming up into Scotland, which otherwise was thinly people by ex-Scandanavians, the vikings and such.

George

PS - This whole "topic" misses the mark in that America's ethnic make up was done in phases...but at first we were people by "everybody"...Maryland was a Roman Catholic religious colony in the beginning...Pennsylvania was a Quaker colony....New York was earl on Dutch...the Carolinas and much of Virginia were Scot Irish...Georgia was largely, initially English bread thieves (some of my early on Singletons landed at Savanna and were 7 and 14 year indentured white slaves, bread thieves)...Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas were largely Spanish, then French, then "British"...more Scot Irish folks, etc. George.