Scotland.

The emigration of individuals from Scotland, regardless of their destination, was a product of conditions at home and the aftermath of various wars and rebellions against England. Scotland was roughly divided into the Lowlands, the flatter and rolling lands closest to northern England along the east coast, and the Highlands to the North and the West, which were mountainous. Lands were poor and growing seasons short. Almost any traveler visiting Scotland was struck by its poverty: "The ordinary country houses are pitiful cots built of stone and covered with turves [sod], having in them but one room, many of them no chimneys." In the Lowlands, which furnished the majority of the settlers to America, most of the land was owned by a small group of the wealthy who rented it out to farmers. These tenants raised oats and barley and kept a...