The Map of General Wade’s Clans (1731), or Map of the Highlands Loyalties

The article is prepared with the support of London School of Economics and Political Sciences in the scope of implementation of research projects “Imperial Identity in Britain and Russia: Scotland and Ukraine, 1707?1914” (2010) and “Modernizing Empires: Regular State on the Margins of Europe ? Britain and Russia in the Age of Reason” (2013). The article analyzes the attempts of the British Military responsible for the appeacement of the Scottish Highlands in the first half of the 18th century, to localize rebellion with the help of military topography and ethnic cartography. The material deals with the representation, interpretation and use of cartographic information about the Highlands. Rhetoric strategies of the military cartographers, their aims and role are also the objects of the analysis.In the light of the evidence provided by the most famous analysts on the state of Scottish Highlands and, respectively, on the “the Highland Problem” (support for the second restoration of the Stuart dynasty on the British throne from the disaffected clans which were armed and loyal only to their chiefs), with the help of the analysis of official and non-official documentary on the “Highland Problem” and keeping in mind sense of active corporative unity which was spread among the Military during the first half of the XVIII century, respecting colonial questions and policy on the other imperial margins, the author sought to concentrate research of military topography and ethnic cartography of the “Highland Problem”, represented in this article, on the data represented in “The Description of the Highlands of Scotland” (1731) by Clement Lemprière. In the end it is possible to conclude that the data collected and arranged by Clement Lemprière was not sufficient for the military aims during campaigns against the rebels in the Highlands and served as a frame for account of General Wade on his deeds as Commanderin-Chief in Scotland since 1725. The construction of ethnographic map, invention of historical tradition and pretension on the knowledge about ethnography of the Highlanders and geography of the Highlands helped to make empirical issues more concrete from the administrative point of view and to move up to the new level of colonial knowledge. In such circumstances the military topography and ethnic cartography were used to integrate military and political geography and administrative ethnography for the solution of the “Highland Problem”.