Significance of white in a tartan

[Troglodyte]

Wait, what? I know I am going to hate myself for this but… that isn’t true??

No, it's not true.

The Dress Act, as it was known, was part of the pacification of the Highlands following the failed Jacobite Rising of 1745. It bans garments, not the material - not tartan per se.

The Act prohibits the wearing of Highland dress by men and boys (not women and girls) ...within that part of Britain called Scotland, other than such as shall be employed as Officers and Soldiers in His Majesty's Forces, shall, on any pretext whatever, wear or put on the clothes commonly called Highland clothes (that is to say) the Plaid, Philabeg, or little Kilt, Trowse, Shoulder-belts, or any part whatever of what peculiarly belongs to the Highland Garb; and that no tartan or party-coloured plaid of stuff shall be used for Great Coats or upper Coats, and if any such person shall presume after the said first day of August, to wear or put on the aforesaid garment or any part of them, every such person so offending ...

where such an offence shall be committed, shall suffer imprisonment without bail during the space of six months and no longer, and being confived of a second offence... to be transported to any of His Majesty's plantations beyond the seas, there to remain for the space of seven years.'

The garments mentioned were the fightng clothes - battledress if you like - of the Highlanders and tartan had become the political symbol of the Jacobite army. The fact that we are still moaning about it nearly 300 years later shows what smart move on the part of the British government it was, and how far it went to reduce the ability of the Highlander if he had any future ideas about rebellion.

Think of the Act in the same light as the disarming of Germany and Japan post-1945 and you get and understanding of the effect. And think of tartan as the same sort of symbol as the Confederate flag or the swastika and the government's reasoning becomes clear. For the time, the punishment was not very harsh.

It's not that tartan itself was banned, but few in the UK would have wanted to wear it anyway, due to its connotations, and the wide-reaching effect of the Act produced the effect of a ban.

However, it has been often written about, that demand for tartan in the New England colonies and West Indies saw a surge, which is why genuine old samples of tartan found in these places is of such value today.

Virtually the only acceptable tartan was that worn by the military - the Government Tartan or Black Watch - which would have been seen widely. There are some famous portraits of Highland gentry in tartan during the period of the ban, but if these were painted outside the Highland Line, no law would have been broken.

Samuel Johnson, on his well-documented journey through Scotland in the 1770s records how he saw Highlanders in their native dress, without fear of molestation by authority. This was 30 years (a generaion) or more after the act was introduced, so the inital fury had long-since died down by that time.