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The Highland Clearances - An Introduction

by Steve Blamires

Copyright 1996 Steve Blamires. Permission has been obtained for the inclusion of this material on the Clannada na Gadelica website. Contact the author for further permission.

"The plough is put away. The land it once ploughed is empty, a waste. The land of our ancestors stolen away from us."

The story of the Scottish nation is ancient, intricate and complex, and often contradictory. To this day it is not fully explained or taught even in Scotland, where the people surely have the right to know their own history. One dreadful episode in the history of the Scottish people has become known simply as The Clearances. This short paper attempts to explain in simple terms exactly what The Clearances were, how they were carried out, by whom and why. It is not intended to be a full and complete account of these complicated and inter-tangled events. A bibliography is given at the end of this paper for those interested in researching further into The Clearances. It is amazing that this very nearly successful attempt at genocide has not attracted more comment or criticism from society, both within and without Scotland. But then, if nobody is told about it, nobody can complain about it.

The old Scottish clan society was a natural development of the earlier Celtic tribal society and proved to be a stable, lasting and fair way of living. Each clan had a chief to whom the people owed allegiance, and he in turn would protect them, and would make binding decisions in the case of dispute between clan members. It was the chief's responsibility to ensure that all members of the clan had sufficient land to maintain him or her self. Under the clan system nobody owned the land. Everyone was free to farm and graze the land in order to survive. This equal and fair distribution of the land was honoured by all succeeding monarchs and clan chiefs.

This basic subsistence style of living had existed for countless centuries in the Scottish Highlands and Islands and had naturally developed and evolved its own culture, language, customs, sense of identity and unique character by those living it. The Lowlands of Scotland had lost this simplistic lifestyle by the late 18th century and had become very much an Anglicised people and community. The Highlands and Islands at this time were still very remote and very difficult to access and few people south of the Highland glens had ever been there. Throughout the rest of Britain the popular image of the Highlander was that he was dirty, lazy, untrustworthy and without honour. Exactly the same misrepresentations which were circulated regarding the Irish, another Celtic and Gaelic speaking people.

In the 18th century the English Army was waging war in various foreign lands, mainly against the French. Many of the soldiers fighting these foreign wars were in fact Highlanders and all contemporary writings on the Army of the day note that the Highland regiments were the bravest, toughest and most loyal of the entire British Army. They had an exemplary discipline record, with no soldier of any of these regiments ever having been disciplined. The complete opposite of the commonly held view of the lazy, untrustworthy, dishonourable Highlander. Despite this, the very new "United" Kingdom was in a fragile state, with many Scots being anti-union and wishing to maintain their independence, especially in the Highlands where the clan society was in danger of being lost. There was also a very fierce animosity between Protestant and Catholic and this had a much wider effect on the events of those days than most writers realise. Its effects can still be seen and felt in a very tangible way in Northern Ireland to this day. Many clans looked for a saviour through their own ancient royal blood line to lead them to victory in a final defeat of the English, Protestant oppressors. This is where Charles Edward Stuart, the Bonnie Prince Charlie of song and story, comes in.

His followers and supporters were known as Jacobites, and when the king-to-be landed at Glenfinnan on the 19th of August 1745, an armed rebellion was started against the English. It was very nearly successful with the Jacobite army making in-roads deep into England.

They turned back however, and eventually a last stand was made on the field of Culloden on the 16th April 1746. They were massacred. In excess of 1,200 Highlanders died compared to a mere 76 government troops. The English forces under the direction of the Duke of Cumberland were ordered to spare no one. Every last wounded Highlander was to be slaughtered. The Field of Culloden has become the Wounded Knee of the Gael. 1,150 survivors were rounded up and sent to Barbados to end their days in slavery.

Following Culloden, and the massacre of the common Highlanders and the hereditary chieftains, the removal of the old clan way of life was just about complete. All that remained was to seize the clan lands.

The English government was not content with just the military defeat and the seizing of the land of these Gaelic rebels. Soon after the Bonnie Prince Charlie fled the country, the Act of Proscription was passed in 1747 which banned the wearing of tartan, the playing of bagpipes (which were regarded as instruments of war), the right to bear arms, the gathering of Highland people and the teaching of the Gaelic language. This period became known as "the time of grey" because the traditional bright colours of the clan tartans were outlawed. The penalty for breaking these laws was seven years transportation "to any of His Majesty's plantations beyond the sea." In a very clever move though provision was made in the Act that stated the only legal way to display the tartan was by joining the "Scottish" regiments in the British army. They knew that they would need the skills and discipline of the Highland clansmen at some time in the future.

In the same year the 1747 Heritable Jurisdictions Act was passed which stated that those who did not accede to English jurisdiction were to have their lands forfeited and placed in the hands of the government appointed surrogates. The few remaining Highland landlords had no option but to accede to English domination. This was the final nail in the coffin of the clan system and way of life. This approach, coupled with the broken spirit of the people, was so successful in Scotland that by the end of the 18th century three fifths of Hebridean landlords were already absentees, preferring the soft life in London society to looking after their own people in the wild and barren Highland glens and rain swept islands. J. Hunter in his book The Making of the Crofting Community notes, "Many chiefs were as at home in Edinburgh or Paris as they were in the Highlands, and French and English rolled off their tongue as easily as - perhaps more easily than - Gaelic. While away from his clan moreover the typical chief, conscious since childhood of his immensely aristocratic status in the Highland society whence he came, felt obliged to emulate or even surpass, the lifestyle of the courtiers and nobles with whom he mingled. And it was at this point that the 18th century chief's two roles came into irreconcilable conflict with one another. As a southern socialite, he needed more and more money. As a tribal patriarch he could do very little to raise it."

The demand for beef was high at this time to feed the large armies still fighting foreign wars. The absentee chieftains made a little income from their still faithful clansmen rearing great shaggy Highland cattle in the remote hills and glens of the Highlands and Islands. The market for meat dropped sharply once the wars ceased and these new noblemen faced imminent bankruptcy. The small rents they received from their tenant farmers was not sufficient to meet their new lavish lifestyle. Things were starting to look bleak.

In 1782, the repressive Act of Proscription was finally repealed. But the damage had been done. Because the Gaelic language had not been taught for a generation most of the young men and women of the clan were illiterate. Many of the new clan chiefs had been born in the fine houses of London and the south of England and had never seen the land nor the people they now lorded over. Most could not speak the language of their people and clan, having been brought up speaking English and being told that Gaelic was for the inferior classes. A notion which still exists in Lowland Scotland to this day.

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