Today’s SPECIAL WEEKEND EDITION comes from Nicola Martin, a third-year, AHRC-funded Ph.D. candidate at the University of Dundee and the University of Stirling. Nicola holds a B.A. and MSc. from the University of Strathclyde, and is currently working with Colin Nicolson and Matthew Ward. Her dissertation is tentatively titled “The Cultural Paradigms of British Imperialism in the Militarisation of Scotland and North America, 1715–1776.” Her research investigates how warfare and pacification affected eighteenth-century British imperialism, and she can be found @NicolaMartin14. This is her first post for The Junto, a fitting occasion—it commemorates the Battle of Culloden (April 16, 1745).
On April 16, 1746, the British army defeated its much smaller Jacobite counterpart in a battle on Culloden Moor, Scotland. The conflict lasted less than half an hour, but it left over 1,500 Jacobites dead. In the days and weeks following the battle, hundreds of Highlanders were killed as the British army, under the orders of the Duke of Cumberland, implemented draconian measures to punish those who they held responsible for the rising. Shortly thereafter, the British imperial elite embarked on a systematic pacification of the region that lasted for decades and evolved over time from punishment toward measures designed to civilize the “barbarous” Highlanders and assimilate them more closely within the British state and empire. Continue reading