The Battle of Culloden
One of my lines of ancestors leads me to Scotland. I have been looking into my Scottish Ancestry and the different aspects of Scotland's history that would have shaped the lives of my ancestors. Having ancestors who were part of the Highlands, the Stewart clan and the Jacobites, I felt I needed to look at one of the most visited tourist sites in Scotland. Culloden.
The Battle of Culloden holds a high significance and emotional connection to many of the ancestors of the Scottish diaspora. It forever changed the culture and landscape of the Scottish Highlands and Scotland itself.
After 60 years of fighting the British to restore the ruling family that the Jacobites believed to be the rightful heirs to the throne, the Jacobites and British met for the final battle near Inverness at a place called Culloden.
Many Highlanders, including some of my ancestors, not only believed they were fighting to change the ruling family, they also believed they were fighting to keep their culture alive and to protect their homes and families.
The Jacobites, exhausted and starving, tried to surprise the British the night before the actual battle, but were not able to organize and advance quickly enough to make the attack.
On April 16,1746, the tired and exhausted Jacobite army made their last stand. Around 1pm an exchange of artillery fire occurred and the battle had begun. The British army was prepared for the much feared highland charge and within an hour the Jacobite army was defeated. Approximately 1500 Jacobite rebels laid dead on the battlefield and along with it the Jacobite rebellion.
But it did not end there. The Duke of Cumberland ordered for all of the wounded and imprisoned Jacobites to be killed. Then an estimated 3500 Jacobites were hunted down and arrested. Some of them were executed, some were imprisoned and some were shipped off to penal Colonies. My ancestor was in one of the groups to be shipped to the British Colonies.
From there, the British sought to eliminate Scottish culture and the highlander way of life. You could not wear a kilt, play the bagpipes or speak the Gaelic language anymore. Landowners began to evict Scots from the Highlands. The culture went from 30%of the population in the 1700's to 8%of the population in the 1900s. Scottish culture was being eradicated.
Ultimately the British were not successful and, although not as strong as it was before Culloden, the Scottish culture is still alive.
The Scottish people recognize the importance of their culture and are working to continue to educate the people.
We have a responsibility to keep the history of our culture alive. We must stand up to those groups who try to program us to be like them and not who we really are.
There needs to come a time on our Earth and in our Universe where we stop trying to change people because they are different from us.
We must embrace the differences as uniqueness.
The hatred by groups of people for those who are different from them and who will not conform to their way of life must go away.
The Universe and Earth are big enough for all of us to live together peacefully.
We must revisit the ways of our Ancestors.
We must learn from them and apply our learnings to our lives today. We must research them, discover who they are and understand what they went through.
The Battle Of Culloden is a reminder of what a group of people, a group of our Ancestors, sacrificed to try to prevent their culture and way of life from being eradicated. We must learn from our ancestors who perished on that battlefield that day. We must learn from our ancestors who were imprisoned, shipped away,and driven from their lands.
We have to be careful. If we are different from those in power, they will come for us next. We have to stand together and prevent that from happening.
Come join me at the Ancestor's Fire and let's be different but stand together to support our way of life!
Blessings!
By Michael Walters
The Ancestor's Fire
Writing the voices of the unheard
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