Scottish

This is not to suggest that the well to do Highland immigrants were prepared to show great hostility towards their less prosperous brothers, but there was in most communities an absence of the 'clannish brotherhood' that existed before 1746. As much as the Highlanders loved their land, this indignity was enough to make some want to leave. Of course the Highland Scots had been closely connected to one clan or another, but it seems that this clan system was not transplanted in the new world. Practicality was probably one of the other key elements of their character. There were a few Gaelic publications, however, being produced in Nova Scotia during the latter half of the nineteenth century. As a result of this the Highland Catholics were completely Gaelic speaking before arriving in the New World. Ian McKay makes such a point when attacking the myth that Highland Scots brought 'the true spirit of democracy' to the New World with them: . This Gaelic speaking settlement contained both prosperous and desperate Scots living side by side. No longer were the clansmen able to live a life of subsistence farming, military service to their chief and cattle rustling. Plagued by economic welfare the clan chieftain now became a landlord and was forced to gain an economic return from the soil. They introduced to the country their own monastic system, their own clan organization and legal code, their own forms of art, and their own Gaelic language, literature, and music.