<P> One exception to the high level of patriotism was the Waxhaw settlement on the lower Catawba River along the North Carolina - South Carolina boundary, where Loyalism was strong . The area experienced two main settlement periods of Scotch - Irish . During the 1750s--1760s, second - and third - generation Scotch - Irish Americans moved from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina . This particular group had large families, and as a group they produced goods for themselves and for others . They generally were Patriots . </P> <P> Just prior to the Revolution, a second stream of immigrants came directly from Ireland via Charleston . This group was forced to move into an underdeveloped area because they could not afford expensive land . Most of this group remained loyal to the Crown or neutral when the war began . Prior to Charles Cornwallis's march into the backcountry in 1780, two - thirds of the men among the Waxhaw settlement had declined to serve in the army . The British massacre of American prisoners at the Battle of Waxhaws resulted in anti-British sentiment in a bitterly divided region . While many individuals chose to take up arms against the British, the British themselves forced the people to choose sides . </P> <P> In the 1790s, the new American government assumed the debts the individual states had amassed during the American Revolutionary War, and the Congress placed a tax on whiskey (among other things) to help repay those debts . Large producers were assessed a tax of six cents a gallon . Smaller producers, many of whom were Scottish (often Scotch - Irish) descent and located in the more remote areas, were taxed at a higher rate of nine cents a gallon . These rural settlers were short of cash to begin with, and lacked any practical means to get their grain to market, other than fermenting and distilling it into relatively portable spirits . From Pennsylvania to Georgia, the western counties engaged in a campaign of harassment of the federal tax collectors . "Whiskey Boys" also conducted violent protests in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, and Georgia . This civil disobedience eventually culminated in armed conflict in the Whiskey Rebellion . President George Washington marched at the head of 13,000 soldiers to suppress the insurrection . </P> <P> Author (and U.S. Senator) Jim Webb puts forth a thesis in his book Born Fighting (2004) to suggest that the character traits he ascribes to the Scotch - Irish such as loyalty to kin, extreme mistrust of governmental authority and legal strictures, and a propensity to bear arms and to use them, helped shape the American identity . In the same year that Webb's book was released, Barry A. Vann published his second book, entitled Rediscovering the South's Celtic Heritage . Like his earlier book, From Whence They Came (1998), Vann argues that these traits have left their imprint on the Upland South . In 2008, Vann followed up his earlier work with a book entitled In Search of Ulster Scots Land: The Birth and Geotheological Imagings of a Transatlantic People, which professes how these traits may manifest themselves in conservative voting patterns and religious affiliation that characterizes the Bible Belt . </P>

Eighteenth century immigrants included scottish and scotch irish who were mostly