[HighlyOpinionated]

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p114_Rosit.html

Albion's Seed

* ALBION'S SEED: FOUR BRITISH FOLKWAYS IN AMERICA by David Hackett Fischer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, hardbound, 948 pages, illustrations, maps, index, $39.95. ISBN O-19-503794-4.

Reviewed by Nelson Rosit

This book is a comprehensive, almost encyclopedic, guide to the origins of colonial American culture. [And origin of regional language styles.]

According to Fischer, the foundation of American culture was formed from four mass emigrations from four different regions of Britain by four different socio-religious groups. New England's constitutional period occurred between 1629 and 1640 when Puritans, most from East Anglia, settled there. The next mass migration was of southern English cavaliers and their servants to the Chesapeake Bay region between 1640 and 1675. Then, between 1675 and 1725 thousands of Quakers, led by William Penn settled the Delaware Valley. Finally, English, Scots, and Irish from the borderlands settled in Appalachia between 1717 and 1775. Each of these migrations produced a distinct regional culture which can still be seen in America today.



I heartily recommend this book. HO/Carol

[jay1949]

Excellent book. Fischer correctly notes the ethnic relationship between the two groups of “Borderers” — those living in then-Scotland, who were called “Scots,” and those living below the Scottish-English border, who were called “English.” Historically, they were the same folk, all living in then-Scotland above Hadrian’s Wall. So when writers say that both Scots and “English” migrated to Ulster Plantation in the 17th century, they often treat the “English” as being of the same ethnicity as those from southern England, but by and large they were not. Their contribution to Appalachian English therefore cannot be distinguished from the contributions of the Scotch Irish and the Scots — they all spoke similar forms of Scottish English.