The Live The Adventure Letter 
When freedom is hard fought to obtain, it becomes a most precious commodity to maintain.
The Scottish knew this to be true in the 14th century when they were struggling to overcome the rule of England. In fact, the impact of their struggle has a direct relation to the struggle and ultimate victory of the colonists in the American Revolution. The parallel can be seen in America’s Declaration of Independence and that of the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320. Let’s look at the corollary points.
According to Linda McDonald-Lewis, author of Warriors and Wordsmiths of Freedom: The Birth and Growth of Democracy, much of the mindset for the forming of this country’s declaration document has considerable influence from the Scottish concept of independence and freedom.
“If Americans want to understand their history, they need to look to Scotland, because that is where their ideals come from,” she says. “And Scots should look across the Atlantic to see where their homegrown doctrines and ideas have been most fully embraced.”
About half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were of Scottish descent, including Thomas Jefferson himself; in fact a few of the signers were former ex-patriates of the Jacobite rebellions (uprisings intended to re-install James II of Scotland as king of England.)
Among the colonists that fought in the Revolutionary War and gave the ultimate sacrifice, a large number were of Scottish ancestry.
The Declaration of Arbroath was presented to the pope in 1320 to affirm Scottish independence from England.
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“A lot of Scots who had to leave Scotland after the failed Jacobite rebellion ended up dying on American battlefields, fighting the same enemy on a different field,” McDonald-Lewis says. “The research I have done tracing these stories has really joined up a lot of dots in the intertwining histories of these two great nations.”
Among the most curious connections: George Washington owned a wood “snuff” box supposedly made from the same tree where Scottish hero William Wallace hid from his pursuers.
But it is the fight for freedom – and the respective founding documents – that carries the strongest ties.
With roughly half the signers being of Scottish descent, including Jefferson, who wrote the first Declaration of Independence drafts, it isn’t difficult to imagine the Declaration of Arbroath playing a key role, particularly in inspiration.
It reads in part: “As long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.”
The Declaration of Independence reads, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
No, Jefferson didn’t lift out entire sentences or phrases, but the basic concept – freedom from English rule – is identical.
So the next time you sing the National Anthem at a ballgame or watch fireworks explode on a warm Fourth of July night, say a prayer of thanksgiving not only for the Founders, but for the 14th-century Scots, too.
