The National Holiday For All Scottish Americans

The first Tartan Day in the United States was observed at the national level on April 6, 1997. Previously, there had been observances by individual states, counties and other regional entities, but the year 1997 was the first time the observance swept across the nation. April 6 commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320, which asserted Scotland's sovereignty over English territorial claims, and which was an influence on the American Declaration of Independence.

Many cities now celebrate Tartan Day with parades and other festivities to honor Scottish heritage. People of Scottish heritage are encouraged to wear their tartan to show that proud heritage.

Some say that Scotland's greatest export has been her people -- certainly they were part of a tradition of trade, enterprise and settlement noted as early as the days of William Wallace. (He wrote to the authorities in Hamburg in 1297 thanking them for their protection of Scottish merchants.) Of course, many Scots who settled abroad to improve them lot never became famous. After all, there are now over 40 million people worldwide who claim Scots ancestry. However, there were also many pioneers and people of energy—and it is some of their names we recognize today. Some are enshrined in place names and geographical features, others remembered for their inventions or the place they hold in history. No less than 13 presidents of the United Sates have claimed Scots ancestry, while 25 signatures on the Declaration of Independence were also of those of Scots descent.

Some pioneering stories are just downright extraordinary. Take Indian Peter for instance. Real name Peter Williamson (1730-1799), he was born in Aboyne in Royal Deeside, Scotland. One day, visiting his aunt in nearby Aberdeen he was kidnapped on the quayside and then shipped across the Atlantic and forced to work as a slave in Philadelphia. Later, he settled in Pennsylvania but was captured by Cherokee Indians and forced to work for them. He didn't seem to have a lot of luck. Though he escaped and enlisted in the army he was then captured by the French but taken back to the UK in a prisoner exchange. Eventually he triumphed over his adversities, successfully taking legal action against his original kidnappers, and opened a coffee shop in Edinburgh. He even started Edinburgh's postal service. The whole bizarre tale became the inspiration for the movie "A Man Called Horse" (1970).

And who would have guessed that a small red-haired boy who grew up in difficult circumstances in Glasgow would go on to be a bodyguard of Abraham Lincoln, found a world-famous detective agency and be the origin of the phrase "private eye"? But such was the story of Allan Pinkerton (1819-1884). He emigrated to the U.S. In 1842, founded Pinkerton's Detective Agency in Chicago in 1852 and as Head of the Secret Service foiled a presidential assassination plot in 1861.

A name familiar to most Americans is that of Scottish pioneer John Muir. From Dunbar in East Lothian, he left with his family for the U.S. in 1848 when he was ten years old. The family farmed in Wisconsin. Muir was well educated and went on to establish a huge reputation as a naturalist and writer, and most importantly, a pioneer of nature conservation. He is associated with the creation of the Yosemite National Park and influenced President Theodore Roosevelt in establishing other National Parks. His life-long championing of wild places and wildlife merited his title of "Father of Our National Parks".

Muir was just one among many in this huge wave of emigration to the new nation. Fortunes were made by pioneers such as Dunfermline born Andrew Carnegie, a steel magnate. Meanwhile, the son of a poor tailor in north-east Scotland also became a millionaire. Bertie Charles Forbes went on to found the still high profile financial journal Forbes Magazine.

Canada also had its share of Scottish pioneers. After all, it even has a province called Nova Scotia (New Scotland) which became the first permanent North American colony north of Florida after King James granted Sir William Alexander territories there in 1621. Scots arrived there in great numbers and pushed west to the interior of the vast country. Canada has famous pioneers such as Alexander MacKenzie who blazed an overland trail to the Pacific in 1793 and Simon Fraser who explored the river that is now named after him to the to the west coast in 1808.

Scots did not just go westwards across the Atlantic. They went throughout the world and around the globe. Thomas Glover, born in Fraserburgh, Scotland, ended up in Japan and became involved with shipbuilding. He ended up associated with the founding of the giant Mitsubishi Corporation. Those pioneering Scots can be found everywhere.