How the Scots-Irish Invented Fundamentalism

The Scots-Irish migration to America in the 1700s helped prepare the way for the explosive growth of evangelicalism in the 1800s and the birth of modern fundamentalism in the early 1900s.The character of fundamentalism was shaped by the experience of the Scots-Irish over centuries of conflict and deprivation, and it included a profound love of democracy, a passion for individual rights, and a paradoxical capacity to advocate either for the abolition of slavery or the defense of slavery.