Scots, capitalism, and the colonial countryside: Impressions from nineteenth‐century Cape Breton

In Cape Breton during the second half of the nineteenth century, rural labor from the nearby countryside, often the children of settlers who had emigrated from the western Isles and Highlands of Scotland earlier in the century, was decisive in shaping the mining workforce that developed on the island's Sydney coalfield. The importance of this distinctive Highland influence upon the working‐class culture that developed in Cape Breton's “country of coal” was suggested decades ago by labor historians, and more recently it has been addressed in the region's rural historiography. It is a history that, nonetheless, remains obscure and has lingered in the blind spots of various subfields of study, including in historical investigations of “Highland enclave settlements” and “Scottishness” in northern North America. This essay suggests the need to approach the subject in terms of a broader transformation of the colonial countryside, one which takes into account the interconnected histories of capitalism and settler colonialism.