Finding historical information about the Transportation of Scottish POWS by the English after battles in the seventeenth century is proving to be an interesting challenge with unexpected discoveries and realizations, which we all know is pure joy in research.
A fitful search began early this year into the aftermath of the Battles of Culloden and Worchester, and I collected articles about the death marches followed by forced indentured servitude in Australia, the Colonies, and Barbados. But I needed something more. Unexpectedly, a novel by Ken Follette published in 1995 entitled A Journey to Freedom popped up as a side note on a search page. The story followed a labor activist convicted in 1760 England to be transported to the colonies and sold as an indentured servant. Surprisingly, not much seemed different between 1660 and 1760, so Follett’s story answered a number of my questions, which I will recount another time.
Soon after reading Follett’s novel, I stumbled upon an 1898 publication that recounts the history of the Borderland reivers, of whom I knew nothing. Reivers were, according to the Scottish Lowlander families, fierce defenders of their homes and country against constant attacks from the English. The English viewpoint describes the reivers as full-time Lowlander plunderers and destroyers (reivers and ruggers) living in the Southern Scotland Borderlands. Cruel, merciless border conflicts between the two lasted from approximately twelfth century through the seventeenth century.
King James I successfully began the end of the reivers through seriously enforced proclamations that executed them when captured, transported them to colonies, and/or dispersed their families from the Lowlands.
A focus emerges: the image of a reiver, both a fierce protector defending his home and a cruel, unmerciful brigand. How shall we judge him?
Perhaps by one of the following or by a synthesis of the three:
Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)? Concepts of good and evil (“morality”) are culturally constructed rather than inherently “true”; different cultures develop different moral laws in order to maintain social order. >>>Applying the label varies by culture.
Carl Jung (Answer to Job)? God also has a fourth side—the evil face of God, as evidenced by his treatment of Job. Job is completely innocent. He is a scrupulously pious man who follows all the religious conventions, and for most of his life, he is blessed with good fortune. This is the expected outcome for a just man in a rationally ordered universe. But then God allows Satan to work on him, bringing misfortune and misery. Being overwhelmed with questions and images of divine majesty and power, Job is silenced, but he remains faithful.
>>>Job retains his personal integrity. He is more godly than God.
Pyrrhonism? The doctrines of a school of ancient extreme skeptics, 4th c., who suspended judgment on every proposition.
>>>We cannot label an action good or evil.