Over the next two weeks I don’t have as much time for research & writing as I’d like, so I wanted to leave you all a bit of a challenge in my partial absence. This will also help us build our Northern Archives Library here on Skool. Details are as follows: 12 missions. Two weeks. Zero complacency. These tasks are designed to send you down purposeful rabbit holes, uncover hidden Scottish history, and help us build a community-sourced evidence library. RULES (short, strict, necessary) 1. Cite your sources. Screenshots, archive links, PDF page numbers, photographs, catalogue IDs — whatever you find, back it up. 2. Fact-check before posting. If a claim sounds spicy, verify it twice. If a source feels dodgy, treat it as suspect until proven otherwise. 3. Keep posts concise. What you found, why it matters, and where you found it. 4. Debate respectfully. We’re here to sharpen knowledge, not each other’s throats. 5. No conspiracy filler. Stick to evidence, not vibes. THE 12 MISSIONS 1. Follow the Bribes Find original lists, letters, or records naming who was paid during the 1707 Union negotiations and how much. 2. The Voices They Muted Locate any speeches, letters, or petitions from Scots who opposed the Union — and note where they vanished from the mainstream record. 3. The Last Parliament Dig up surviving documents from the last independent Scottish Parliament: motions, debates, attendance, anything. 4. The Censored Press Track Scottish printing presses, newspapers, or pamphlets that were shut down, restricted, or censored between 1680–1750. 5. Letters from the Colonies Find one Scottish voice in any colonial archive (Jamaica, India, Canada, Australia) and extract what they were doing there. 6. Cumberland’s Instructions Hunt for orders, letters, or first-hand accounts from the aftermath of Culloden. Compare “official” British claims with on-the-ground testimony. 7. The Not-Empty Glens Choose a Highland area and find hard evidence of its pre-Clearance population (rent rolls, kirk records, tenant lists, cattle counts).

People like to say “the nationalists are at it again,” as if caring about your own country were a fault to be explained away. But Scottish independence isn’t about grievance or grandeur. It’s about the simple right to call what’s ours ours — our voice, our history, our future. For centuries, Scotland’s story has been filed under someone else’s heading. The records are there — ledgers and letters, ship manifests and plantation accounts — marked “British West Indies” or “British Empire,” even when the names written in them were our own. Those signatures belonged to Scots who lived, worked, built, suffered and survived. Yet their story, like ours, was absorbed until Scotland itself became a sub-clause in someone else’s history. Independence, for many of us, isn’t rebellion. It’s restoration. It’s not about walking away from anyone; it’s about walking back toward ourselves. To reclaim the right to speak in our own voice, to write our own record, and to be answerable to the people who live here — not to a government that treats Scottish confidence as insolence. Pride in your own country shouldn’t be an insult. Ownership of your own story shouldn’t need defending. Independence, in the end, is not about separation — it’s about self-respect.