 The Border Reaver clans on the Anglo-Scottish border have a fascinating history that connects to so many other parts of the world. In fact, Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, bears a variation of one of the most notable Border Reaver clans, Clan Johnston. He is not the only American President to bear the name Johnson, however, more on that later. I will also detail the Scott's Irish ancestry of Andrew Jackson. The Border Reavers were raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border from around the 13th to the 17th century. I will link a video above and also in the description below where I go into a wee bit more detail on the Border Reavers themselves. In the 17th century, however, King James VI, also known as King James I, the King of Scotland, England and Ireland in 1603, had finally had enough of the instability caused by the Border Reavers on the English-Scottish border. He even went so far as to China ballast the term Borders and replace it with Middle Shires. To help unify his emerging regal kingdom, which wasn't politically unified however yet, his island Scotland and England were all separate kingdoms in the early 17th century. King James also had a problem in Ireland and he wanted to increase his popularity back in Ireland. Thus, to kill two birds with one stone, solve the Border Reavers problem and also increase his popularity in Ireland. Many people from the lowlands of Scotland and Northern England were incentivised to move into Ulster in Ireland and were given land of the native population. This was done to serve the crown's own ends as most of these people that moved into Ulster were Protestant and were seen to be loyal to the crown. Ulster at that time was a strong Gaelic area and these settlers, colonisers or imperial pawns, depending how you view things, were given land of the native population to incentivise them to move. A number of people from Clan Johnston, a Border Reavers clan, moved into Ulster in the early 17th century. Other surnames associated with the Border Reavers include Armstrong, Eliot, Dixon and Bell. Incidentally, this wasn't the first time that Border Reavers were in Ireland, as they had been used as mercenaries at various points down through history, including in Ireland, given their skills as light cavalry. The point of this video, however, isn't to go into detail on the Ulster plantation, a highly complex historical event that deserves a video on its own. It's simply to detail the geopolitics of power and how hordes of people were moved from one location into another location purely for the crown's own ends. People in many regards can be viewed as pawns on a grand chessboard, moved about by the king and his advisors to suit and advance their own interests. The story doesn't end here, however. Many of those same people and the descendants of those people that moved into Ulster from Scotland did not stay long in Ulster. After around a century or even less, many of these people in the 18th and 19th century and descendants of these people moved to North America and travelled across the North Atlantic to both Canada and America, which was obviously still a British colony until 1776. Today, descendants of these people are known as Scots Irish or Scotch Irish in America, and it partly explains why there are so many people of Scottish descent in North America. Between 1710 and 1775, over 200,000 people emigrated from Ulster into the 13 American colonies. Most went to Pennsylvania at first and then spread out from there. Many ended up in the Appalachian Mountains region of America. In Canada, many people settled at first at least in Nova Scotia. Two presidents of the United States were Johnsons and others had Scots Irish ancestry, including Andrew Jackson. Lyndon B. Johnson obviously we touched on, who was the President of the United States in the 1960s and bears a variation of the Johnston clan name. Less well known, however, and a good pub quiz question if it ever came up and well done if you knew this earlier in the video, Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States. From 1865 to 1869, another American president of Scots Irish ancestry was Andrew Jackson, the 7th President of the United States between 1829 and 1837. His parents, Andrew Jackson and Elizabeth Hutchinson emigrated from Ulster in 1765 and settled in America. His father was born in Ireland and their ancestors came to Ireland from Scotland after the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Future videos will go into more detail on these stories of migrations and how these Scots Irish people were received and the conflicts they fought in their new lands. In this video, however, a simple look to detail how these clans from the wild borderland region of Scotland and England went on to traverse the world and how descendants of these clans, still bearing variations of the clan name, went on to such positions as the President of the most powerful country in the world. Thanks for watching. If you would like to support this work through Patreon, buymeacoffee.com or donate through PayPal, please find the links in the description below. Please like this video, subscribe and hit the bell and tell your friends and family about this channel. Please also feel free to share this content on social media and essentially do whatever you want with it as long as you give Celtic history decoded credit. Thanks again for watching and I'll speak to you next time.