Read about how Scottish Americans bought America.
By randomguy. Filed in Random |
Scots are known as some of the most careful canny buyers in the world so much so that people think it is part of our Scottish culture to be mean with money.
We make fun of ourselves continually calling it meanness but those who have ever studied the annual reports of the UK Charities Commission will know that on a basis of money donated that Scotland gives more to Charity per head of population than any other part of the UK. And we are keeping that a secret so don't tell anyone else.
The most prosperous bank in the UK is the Royal Bank of Scotland no longer directly associated with the UK Royal Family. I can tell you however that the British Queen does have an account with Coutts Bank which is a subsidiary of RBS. For that matter so does the King of Soccer David Beckham and his wife! Many of the most influential investment groups have either their headquarters or a main office in Scotland They want to capitalize on the money handling and investment skills of the Scottish people.
Could this be the reason why two people of Scottish American descent were chosen by President Jefferson to handle perhaps one of the most important financial land transactions that America ever entered into? If not the most important real estate deal in USA history it was almost certainly the largest.
One of the people sent by Jefferson was Robert Livingston a descendant of Lord Livingston who had served Guardian to the young Mary Queen of Scots after she was born 1542 so he clearly had a strong Scottish culture in his family background.However Livingston was also a strong influence in early American politics even to being one of the five people who had drafted the American Declaration of Independence with Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. Some people have pointed to the very strong resemblance of the American Independence Declaration to the Scottish cultural equivalent the Declaration of Arbroath drawn up in 1320 claiming independence from the English conquerors.
Although Livingston was not one of the original people to publicly sign that Declaration of Independence due to other business commitments back in New York he was the person who administrated the oath of allegiance to the new president so he was definitely a Scottish American with a strong Scottish culture with a foot in both camps.
Together with fellow Scottish American James Munro he was sent by Jefferson to purchase 828,000 square miles of land from France. This land comprised of the states we now know as Iowa, Nebraska, Louisiana and Arkansas as well as most of Kansas, the two Dakotas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and Minnesota. Considering the total price paid was only $15 million these two Scottish Americans maximising their inherited Scottish culture background doubled the size of America at a cost of less than 3 cents an acre.
These Scottish Americans partly because of their Scottish culture knew the value of land and were willing to invest in it.We have established a special website specially for Scottish Americans and others interested in their Scottish cultural connection on http://ScottishJerk.com Check out another unique gift idea but very limited offer on land based on a strong Scottish culture by going to http://Become-a-Lord.co.uk right now.