Timelines and Drivers of Migrations

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Timeline of McAdoo Migrations

Unlike Scots and Irish who migrated to America after 1840 driven by desperate circumstances such as poverty or famine, the Ulster-Scots and the Highland Scots who migrated in the 1600s and pre-1776 colonial time were motivated by escaping the vacillating religious tolerance and religion-based political uncertainty of living under a succession of British Monarchs.

At the time there were basically three churches jockeying for position as the favored (or at least tolerated) church of a British Monarch. The Roman Catholic Church, Henry the VIII's Church of England or Anglican Church, and the protestant Church of Scotland founded by John Knox based on the theology of John Calvin having a Presbyterian Polity.

A brief timeline of the historical events leading up to and during the times of the Ulster Plantation and subsequent migration from Ulster to the Crown Colonies of America is as follows:

1500

1560 - The Scottish Parliament passes three acts that essentially reject Catholicism and adopted a Reformed Confession of Faith based on the Protestant Presbyterianism theology of John Calvin and John Knox.

1600

1601 - The Siege of Kinsale was the last battle and effective end of the Irish Nine Year's War aka Tyrone's Rebellion and marked the end of the Gaelic Ireland political and social order that had existed from the pre-history era.

1603 - Signing of the Treaty of Mellifont which officially ended the Irish Nine Years' War of 1594-1603, one of the last acts authorized by Queen Elizabeth I before her death in late March 1603.

1603 - James VI of Scotland crowned James I of England and Ireland uniting the two kingdoms. James's accession meant that the three separate kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland were now united, for the first time, under a single monarch.

1604 - James VI and I styles himself as the King of Great Britain.

1605 - The founding group of English Dissenters that would become known as "The Pilgrims" formed in Nottinghamshire, England, and quit the Church of England to form Separatist Congregationalists.

1606 - The Union Flag aka the Union Jack is adopted for use at sea as the National Flag of Great Britain combining elements of the English St. George's cross and the Scottish St. Andrew's cross.

1607 - The first permanent British colony in North America is established at Jamestown in Virginia, founded by Captain John Smith.

1607 - In an event coined by a historian 200 years later as the Flight of the Earls, Ulster hereditary clan chiefs led by Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, and other chiefs with a retinue of about ninety followers, are forced to flee Ireland. They set sail in a French ship from the small port of Rathmullan on Lough Swilly in County Donegal, bound for Spain in hopes of persuading the Catholic Spanish Crown to support their uprising against the British, but fail, and find themselves in permanent exile.

1609 - The British Crown design and plans the Plantation of Ulster begins and lands in Ulster Province confiscated from native Irish were granted to Scottish and English "Undertakers" and more is Here.

1610 - The grants of land confiscated from Native Irish holders begins by royal decree to new "Undertakers" who are Scottish, English, Servitors to the Crown, and a limited and select number of Native Irish who had shown loyalty to the Crown during the Irish Nine Years' War.

1611 - The first edition of the King James version of the Bible is published.

1613 - The original grants of escheated lands confiscated from Native Irish holders begun in 1610 is largely completed in favor of new grantees by the end of 1613.

1620 - In August the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for North America from the Devonshire Port of Plymouth, aboard the 'Mayflower' to escape religious persecution in England and establish the Plymouth Colony in what is today Massachusetts.

1625 - 1630 The Anglo-Spanish War was waged between Spain and the allied forces of Great Britain and United Provinces of the Netherlands.

1641 - The Irish Rebellion of 1641 was an uprising by Irish Catholics in the Kingdom of Ireland, who wanted an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and to partially or fully reverse the plantations of Scottish and British Protestants in Ulster and elsewhere in Ireland. It began as an attempted coup d'état by the Catholic gentry and military officers, who tried to seize control of the English administration in Ireland. However, it developed into a widespread rebellion and ethnic conflict with "planted" English and Scottish Protestant settlers.

1649 - Charles I, King of England, Ireland, and Scotland is beheaded in London at the design of Oliver Cromwell and others who accused Charles I of being too Catholic 1) (purportedly due to the influence of his French Catholic wife), 2) failing to send requested aid to allied protestant forces during the Thirty Years War, and 3) forcing the Church of Scotland to adopt high Anglican Church practices.

1649 - 1660 - The Commonwealth of England led by Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard governs England, Scotland, and Ireland as Lord Protector.

1660 - The monarch is restored and Charles II, son of Charles I ascend the throne as King of England, Ireland, and Scotland.

1661 - 1665 - The Clarendon Code, a form of penal law is adopted by Great Britain under Charles II that is intended to deprive and discredit "nonconformists" (meaning protestants and other reformed reform churches) and promote only the Church of England or Anglican church as the only authorized church in Great Britain.

1665 - 1666 - A wave of bubonic plague in Great Plague of London is estimated to have killed 15% to 20% of the city of London's population.

1665 - 1700 - Early migration of groups of Protestant Presbyterian Ulster-Scots from Ulster and Chuch of Scotland Highlanders from Scotland to British American Colonies begins in face of increasing religious tolerance concerns about the British Crown.

1685 - 1688 - Reign of James VII and II as King of England and Ireland II and King of Scotland VII, the last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland inflames religious tolerance tensions and stokes fear the crown will pass to his younger son born to his second catholic wife Mary after the death of his first wife and mother of his Anglican daughter Mary. The tensions led to anti-catholic riots in England and Scotland.

1688 - 1697 - The Nine Years War.

1688 - 1689 - The Glorious Revolution in which King James II, a Catholic, was overthrown as king of England, Ireland, and Scotland and replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary and nephew and son-in-law William, ruling as joint monarchs.

1689 - 1689 - In an attempt to regain the throne James II allies with Catholic France and lays Siege to Derry in an attempt to take control of Ireland before mounting an offensive in Great Britain.

1689 - 1691 - The Williamite War in Ireland which immediately followed the Glorious Revolution, a failed effort to restore the British Crown to James II.

1689 - 1746 - Jacobite Unrest in Scotland.

1700

1718 - 1760 - En Masse Scotch-Irish Migrations from Ulster to Colonial America. Most arrivals are in the Southern Colonies through ports in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston with the ultimate destination to the western frontier of Virginia and the Carolinas.

1746 - The Battle of Culloden ends Jacobite unrest and a final, monumental defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Highlander-backed Jacobites.

1750 - The so-called Highland Clearances begin with the politically forced and economically driven evictions of tenant farmers from the Scottish Highlands and Islands which motivates many displaced Highlanders to emigrate to the American Colonies.

1754 - 1763 - The French and Indian War, the North American theater of the Seven Years War in Europe.

1763-10-07 - The Royal Proclamation of 1763 formally ended the Seven Years War and forbade all settlements west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains, which was defined as "reserved" for indigenous Americans.

1776

1776-07-4 - Declaration of Independence signed by the 13 colonies of British Colonial America.

1781-03-15 - The Battle of Guilford Courhouse near present-day Greensboro, Guilford County, North Carolina. A 2,100-man British force under the command of Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis defeated Major General Nathanael Greene's 4,500 Americans. The British Army, however, suffered considerable casualties (with estimates as high as 27% of their total force). The battle was the largest and most hotly contested action in the American Revolution's southern theater.

1781-09-28 - The Seige of Yorktown, Virginia, begins and 21 days later ends when British General Cornwallis surrenders British troops effectively ending major fighting of the American War of Independence.

1783 - The Treaty of Paris signed between the American colonies and Great Britain, officially ending the American Revolution and formally recognizing the United States as an independent nation.

1784 - Beginning of Mass Relocation of about 60,000 colonial Loyalists from former American colonies to Great Britain, British Colonies in the Caribbean, and to Canada.

1792 - Westward expansion and settlement begin in earnest as Kentucky (1792) becomes a state created from lands previously a part of western Virginia.

1796 - Westward expansion and settlement continue as Tennessee (1796) becomes a state created from lands previously a part of western North Carolina.

1800

1803 - Westward expansion and settlement continue as Ohio (1803) becomes a state created from lands previously a part of western North Carolina.

1845 - 1852 - The Great Famine, aka the Irish Potato Famine, kills 1 million by starvation and disease and an additional 1 million more flee Ireland never to return. American immigration offices at ports of entry are simply overwhelmed by the numbers.

Timeline for Control of Ireland

1535-1542 CE - Laws in Wales Acts - The Parliament of England passes laws which essentially annex Wales to the Kingdom of England, at the request of, and under the rule of, King Henry VIII.

1542 CE - United Crown of England and Ireland - The Irish Parliament passed the Crown of Ireland Act 1542, proclaiming King Henry VIII of England to also be King of Ireland.

1603 CE - The Union of the Crowns - On the death of Elizabeth I of England, unmarried and childless with no heir, the English crown passed to the next available heir, her cousin James VI the then sitting King of Scotland. England and Scotland now shared the same monarch under what was known as a union of the crowns. James VI continued to rule Scotland and simultaneously ruled and styled as "James I King of England and Ireland" from 1603 to his death in 1625. He attempted but failed to gain parliamentary support to unite the Kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland under one crown. During his reign, the Plantation of Ulster and colonization of the Americas began.

1610 CE - King James I of England Ireland fixes the number and delimitation of Irish Provinces at four: Connacht, Leinster, Munster, and Ulster. The provinces of Ireland no longer serve administrative or political purposes but function as historical and cultural identities.

1707 CE - Union of England and Scotland - The Acts of Union were two Acts of Parliament: the Union with Scotland Act 1706 passed by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act 1707 passed by the Parliament of Scotland. The two Acts, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland—which at the time were separate states with separate legislatures, but with the same monarch—were, in the words of the Treaty, united into one Kingdom by the Name of Kingdom of Great Britain.

1801 CE - Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - The Acts of Union 1800 were parallel acts of the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland which united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with effect on 1 January 1801.

1921 CE - The Partition and Northern Ireland - The Government Of Ireland Act of 1920 passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom created the country of Northern Ireland from six (6) historical northeastern counties, all taken from the Province of Ulster, effective on the 3rd of May 1921. Those six counties Antrim Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, and Tyrone became a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

1922 CE - The Irish Free State - The three other northeastern counties that made up the original Ulster Province, namely counties Donegal, Monaghan, and Cavan voted to NOT join Northern Ireland in becoming a part of the United Kingdom and instead elected to remain with the other 23 historical Irish counties of the so-called south. On the 6th day of December 1922 the remaining 26 counties became known as the Irish Free State in accordance with the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty and became a self-governing dominion of the British Empire, a commonwealth status then shared by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa.

1949 CE - The Republic of Ireland - On 21 December 1948 the Irish Oireachtas signed into law The Republic of Ireland Act which came into force effective on 18 April 1949. The Act created changed the name from Irish Free State to the Republic of Ireland and terminated the Commonwealth relationship with the British Empire.

2022 CE - On the death of his mother on 8 September 2022, Charles became Charlies III King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.