Destroying Highland culture
The Act of Proscription, passed in 1748, was the British Government's systematic attempt to destroy Highland clan culture in the aftermath of the Jacobite defeat at Culloden. The act banned the wearing of Highland dress — tartan, plaid, kilts, and any garment associated with clan identity. Carrying weapons was already forbidden; now the very clothes on a Highlander's back were illegal.
The penalty for a first offence was six months' imprisonment. A second offence meant transportation to the colonies for seven years. Government soldiers enforced the ban across the Highlands. Men were forced to swear an oath: "If I do so, may I be cursed in my undertakings, family, and property... may I never see my wife and children, father, mother, or relations... may I be killed in battle as a coward."
The ban was part of a broader programme of cultural destruction. The Disarming Act banned weapons. The Heritable Jurisdictions Act stripped clan chiefs of their traditional legal authority. Gaelic language and education were suppressed. The aim was clear: to make the Highlander indistinguishable from the rest of Britain. To turn the clans from a military threat into compliant subjects.
The ban on Highland dress was repealed in 1782, largely because it had become absurd — Highland regiments in the British Army were wearing tartan and kilts in service of the very government that banned them at home. The repeal sparked a tartan revival, and by the time George IV visited Edinburgh in 1822 (orchestrated by Sir Walter Scott), tartan had been reimagined as a symbol of romantic Scottish identity rather than political rebellion. The Clearances, however, would continue to empty the glens for another century.