A Brief Family History

In doing some research on the Littles, I found out a few things I'd like to share about their background. While the people in Scotland were discriminated against by the Church of England, which was the church of state, most did not leave their homeland for religious reasons but rather for economic reasons.


Thomas Little's family probably went to Ulster (Northern Ireland) around 1754 because before that there would not have been any reason to go. The area had experienced economic failure due to restrictions put on the linen industry by the English government and by a severe drought. Many at that time went to America, but by 1754, conditions started to improve, leaving room for more to come from Scotland. Scots probably were forced out of their homes because laird (landowners) were beginning to improve their lands and enclosing their fields. Enclosed fields meant fewer people could live on the land and the owners made the tenants leave.


Ulster was the place the Scottish people went because it was mostly inhabited by Protestants, and what's more, the English government encouraged them to go. The Irish Catholics had been run off a century before. But living in Ulster was not what they thought it would be. They were not permitted to practice their Presbyterian faith. In 1771 leases on large estates expired and the rents were doubled. Many of these "Scotch-Irish" were evicted at a time when ship owners were roaming the country side and "selling" America to the poor farmers. Nearly all of them came as indentured servants, which was looked on favorably because it gave them time to learn the ways of America. Those who indentured themselves usually received money and supplies when the time of service was up (4-7 years).


Therefore, it was the Anglican church that provided the oppression, but the reasons for coming to America were mainly economic. The people in Ulster, Ireland (which contains County Down where Nancy Little is reported to have been born) were Scotch-Irish, although they considered themselves Irish since many had lived there for a couple of generations. The Scotch-Irish, or Irish Presbyterians as they are sometimes called, were a very different sect of people than the Irish Catholics who immigrated in the nineteenth century. Very few Irish Catholics came to America at the time the Littles did.


Also interesting to note is that the Scotch-Irish from Ulster were active participants in the Revolutionary War; no records indicate Loyalists in this group. They were Indian fighters who pushed into the West to settle it.


They were known as a restless group, unwilling to stay put, which does seem to describe our Littles. Even though they were poor, education was important to them--their ministers were required to be college educated, and the Scotch-Irish were the main source of the push of education in the early days our country. Not all of this family kept their Presbyterian heritage due mostly to a lack of ministers in this country. But I believe many of our line did because they were active in the Presbyterian church in Indiana.