The Clearances

[Jaggy thistle]

To a certain extent forcing people to emigrate to USA and Canada was the best thing that could have happend to them ,If you have wandered in the hills and glens where they lived it is easy to see that they could never have had more than a bare existance there . A much better life could be had abroad after the very great hardship of the long voyage and getting estabished , some chiefs even subsidised the fares so it was not all bad

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

I think that if one is going to frame the causes of the Highland clearances solely in terms of some sort of "post Culloden" Highland experience, then I'd have to reluctantly agree with Henry Ford's oft quoted line that "history is bunk". For some land owners the clearances were due, in great measure, to an economic shift in government policy occasioned in part by the staggering costs of the Napoleonic Wars. In other words, taxes. Agrarian blight on a scale comparable to that in Ireland also played its role in the depopulation of the Highlands and also in other parts of rural Scotland.

While it is popular to blame the clearances on "greedy land owners", to the point that this anti-land owing mantra has achieved an almost theological status, the real causes go far beyond the actions of a few factors acting on the instructions of those in control of encumbered estates.

I'm sorry, but "pop histories" and novels about the plight of "the poor Highlander" -- as emotionally stirring as they may be -- are as poor a substitute for real, in depth, history as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" would be if one wanted to actually know the root causes of the American war between the States.

[macwilkin]

I think that if one is going to frame the causes of the Highland clearances solely in terms of some sort of "post Culloden" Highland experience, then I'd have to reluctantly agree with Henry Ford's oft quoted line that "history is bunk". For some land owners the clearances were due, in great measure, to an economic shift in government policy occasioned in part by the staggering costs of the Napoleonic Wars. In other words, taxes. Agrarian blight on a scale comparable to that in Ireland also played its role in the depopulation of the Highlands and also in other parts of rural Scotland.

While it is popular to blame the clearances on "greedy land owners", to the point that this anti-land owing mantra has achieved an almost theological status, the real causes go far beyond the actions of a few factors acting on the instructions of those in control of encumbered estates.

I'm sorry, but "pop histories" and novels about the plight of "the poor Highlander" -- as emotionally stirring as they may be -- are as poor a substitute for real, in depth, history as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" would be if one wanted to actually know the root causes of the American war between the States.

If anything, Scott, you've actually proved Mr. Ford wrong with this post -- real history is never bunk, regardless of what some may think.

As an aside, did you know that Harriett Beecher Stowe was a good friend of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, and wrote a very glowing account of them in a book entitled Sunny Memories?

T.

[Phil]

I think there were a variety of landowners when it came to evicting people from their lands and to tar them all with the same brush is perhaps an injustice. While there were, undoubtedly, dreadful injustices such as the poor souls cleared out of the Sutherland Estates in the north, where women and children were burnt out of their homes in Strathnaver, there were other people elsewhere who were encouraged to uproot and emigrate to other lands where they might, and probably did, flourish much more than their impoverished country would have allowed them. Where would America, Canada and Australia be nowadays without these hardy immigrants who had nothing to lose and everything to gain?

[macwilkin]

I think there were a variety of landowners when it came to evicting people from their lands and to tar them all with the same brush is perhaps an injustice. While there were, undoubtedly, dreadful injustices such as the poor souls cleared out of the Sutherland Estates in the north, where women and children were burnt out of their homes in Strathnaver, there were other people elsewhere who were encouraged to uproot and emigrate to other lands where they might, and probably did, flourish much more than their impoverished country would have allowed them. Where would America, Canada and Australia be nowadays without these hardy immigrants who had nothing to lose and everything to gain?

An excellent point, Phil -- that is why so many of us "colonials" are proud of the contributions of our Scottish ancestors to our own nations.

T.

[ThistleDown]

I think that if one is going to frame the causes of the Highland clearances solely in terms of some sort of "post Culloden" Highland experience, then I'd have to reluctantly agree with Henry Ford's oft quoted line that "history is bunk". For some land owners the clearances were due, in great measure, to an economic shift in government policy occasioned in part by the staggering costs of the Napoleonic Wars. In other words, taxes. Agrarian blight on a scale comparable to that in Ireland also played its role in the depopulation of the Highlands and also in other parts of rural Scotland.

While it is popular to blame the clearances on "greedy land owners", to the point that this anti-land owing mantra has achieved an almost theological status, the real causes go far beyond the actions of a few factors acting on the instructions of those in control of encumbered estates.

I'm sorry, but "pop histories" and novels about the plight of "the poor Highlander" -- as emotionally stirring as they may be -- are as poor a substitute for real, in depth, history as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" would be if one wanted to actually know the root causes of the American war between the States.

Two better sources for the history of that lengthy emigration process than those popular writers who regurgitate the romantic belief in the cruel and uncaring land owner: Prof J'M Bumsted's "The People's Clearnce, 1770-1815" and Prof R.A. Dodgshon's "From Chiefs to Landlords". The first finds fault with the tale of an oppressed, impoverished peasantry driven off the estates to make way for sheep. The second shifts the emphasis from the popular notion of a lawless warrior society to the far more realistic and understandable one of relationship changes between chiefs and their tenant-clients, development of new farming systems, production strategies and marketing methods.

Bumsted and Dodgshon both claim the clearances were far more protracted than the period 1745 to 1820 and had their roots in the mid-17C, if not earlier. They don't ignore those landlords who forcibly evicted their tenants, but insist that this process long preceded the '45 in many parts of the Highlands and happened not at all in just as many parts during the so-called clearance years.

[###KILTEDKIWI###]

On the flip side, without the Clearances much of North America's, Australia's, and New Zealand's recent histories would be significantly different.

You would of thought then, if they had themselves been displaced, they wouldnt of gone to (for Example NZ) and assisted the Government (Crown etc) in dispossessing another group of native people (Maori) of their land.

And having taken / purchased and or used other means to get the land, they wouldnt let them turn it in the exact same thing, after all, NZ is one big dairy and sheep farm...

Where is the ironry in that...

(This coming from some whos Irish family members were some of the orginal Fencible settlers in NZ)

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

*****

[###KILTEDKIWI###]

Right ok then, I have purchased through a local Uni', a copy of (for my own continuing education)

Lands for the People?
The Highland Clearances and the Colonisation of New Zealand
A biography of John McKenzie, by Tom Brooking.

And from the back of the book.

"...Tom Brooking traces McKenzies background as a child who witnessed the highland clearances, and as an immigrant of modest means who believed strongly in the right of ordinary people to own land. He points to the paradox that his legislation advanced the process by which Maori were dispossed of their lands..."

Hhmmm, this sounds like my above post...funny that.

But on a side note, obviously MAc' Rath' was upset by my comment, and deleted his post, if you would like to continue this discusiion in private please feel free to PM me, and I assure you it will be an open and honest converstaion between us.

Phil C

[Bruno]

One thing I do know for certain is that no one living now has any right to judge historical people and their actions. The fact is the world is a very different place every 50 years changes thing immensely.

What our grand parents held as the norm (racism was institutionalised as was sexism, homosexuals were locked up and or chemically castrated etc) we would find terrible. What we hold as the norm now, one day will be judged by others.

Its easy to sit here in our ivory towers and judge the clearances, but they were different times with different values and different people.