Hard Neighbors: The Scotch-Irish Invasion of Native America and the Making of an American Identity by Colin G. Calloway

Colin Calloway offers an intricate portrait of the early American settlers who came to be known as Scotch-Irish — from their origins on borderlands on one side of the Atlantic to their crucial part in conquering borderlands on the other. “Hard neighbors,” as they were called, the Scotch-Irish were the tip of the spear of white colonial expansion into Indian lands, earning a reputation first as Indian killers and then as embodiments of the American pioneer spirit.