07 January 2020

Highland and Lowland Clearances - shame, Scotland, shame


I assumed that the clearances were some of the most tragic, in­fam­ous bits of Scottish history, where heartless landowners forced suffering people from their lands and homes. The Highland Clear­ances in Scotland re­sulted from a shift from agric­ul­tural farming to sheep farming, swiftly and brut­ally. And it represented the end of hundreds of years of fiercely independent clans and of paternal land ownership! 

The Scottish Clearances (2018)  is by TM Devine. Covering the rural revolution of the 1600-1900 era, his book compared the more fam­ous Highland Clearances with those that occurred all over Lowland Scotland. Devine’s book was well supported by documentary evidence, the emph­asis being on economic and polit­ical issues during the critical era.

Between the early C18th and the late 1850s, Highland society was subjected to two long episodes of clearance. In the first cycle, up to c1815, landlords engaged in social and economic engineering to relocate population; they wanted to create extensive grazing lands for sheep so traditional townships were swept away and the people were removed. New crofting communities were created and based on fish, kelp, potato and military employment, all of which profited the landlords.

But having created the conditions for a famine in the late 1840s when the potato crop failed, this society collapsed. The ongoing clearance policy resulted in starvation and deaths of so many people, especially children and the elderly. Poverty-stricken croft­ing communities were swept away in this second cycle of clearance and emigration.

Thomas Faed,  1865, 
Last of the Clan, 
Fleming Collection, London

The Highland Clearances were much shorter lived than the Low­land Clearances, and resulted in lower overall numbers leaving Scotland. Some cleared families were fortunate enough to have their passage to a new land paid for by their land­lords. Nonetheless whole vill­ages were rem­oved from their beloved homes and ended up emigrating. Fortunately they could remain together in their new land, where they already had land, a living and a support network.

Even more importantly the book examined the forgotten history of The Lowland Clearances. The Lowland Clearances occurred from Scot­land’s Central belt down to the Borders, and affected huge numbers of people. I was grateful for the maps that gave a sense of the scale of these dispossessions.

Scottish Lowlands in white
Scottish Highlands in light grey
England in dark grey

Lowland Scots had lived off the land for centuries, until the clear­ances were triggered in response to the Industrial Rev­ol­ution. Tenant farmers or crofters rented land from the land­owners, worked the land, and paid a portion of their crop return to the landowner as rent. Tenant farmers hired cottars/day workers to do planting and harvesting, doing back-breaking work, for a subsistence wage.

I suppose at least the timing was good; the burgeoning industrial economy of Low­land Scotland absorbed some of the rural victims.  But in the clearances, carried out over a longer time, communal townships and old farms were elim­inated and a very eff­icient but heartless form of agriculture was impos­ed. Note that large-scale sheep farming encroached into this part of Scotland long before it was contemplated in the Highlands.

Lowland property-owners drew up very demanding leases for the ten­ants. At the end of the lease, many of the contracts were not ren­ewed. Or the landowner could simply terminate the lease, with­out appeal. Ind­ividual farms were replaced by larger, more com­mer­cial farms that yielded larger crops. The handful of animals were no longer put to pasture on the outskirts of the crop fields. Ins­tead large herds were grazed separately, with cottar support. An entire rung of rural society was wiped with arrival of the new leases.

TM Devine's book, The Scottish Clearances

Worse still, the option of paying rents in kind ended and the new requirement was for cash payments. Those unable to pay .. had their leases terminated. Plus the rents for the new, more mod­ern farms were much higher than they had been for the crofting fam­il­ies. This of course created another legal means of clearing people off their land.

The displaced cottars were forced into nearby towns to find work. But these men were unskilled in factory work and their adjustment to an unfamiliar life often had devastating economic effects.

The majority of Lowlanders emigrated over time, seeing that their best option for prospering was to leave Scotland and emigrate to the New World. Alas the Low­land farmers were given nothing; they were expected to pay their own passage. They had no guarantee of a job waiting for them when they arrived in the Am­ericas, although some had good luck and found available land. Large numbers of these Lowland Scots settled in Eastern Canada in the 1840s and 50s, especially in Nova Scotia, and in the USA after the mid 1850s. And given their miserable experience in Scotland, they tried to assimilate quickly.

There were 170,571 Scots documented as being ejected from their homelands. But landowners lied, and records were lim­ited. Perhaps two million Scots left their homeland in total and emig­rat­ed to lands with better opportunities, to make their mark there.

The very sad Emigrants Statue. 
Above the River Helmsdale (in the Highlands) and overlooking Helmsdale harbour 

The radical ideas of the Scot­tish Enlightenment (18th-early C19th) were always significant. But were there protests against the clearances? Yes there was extensive dist­urb­ances seen throughout the years of clearance, becoming more pol­it­icised in the Highland Land War of the 1880s. But it was very dif­ficult for powerless tenants to subvert the balance of power that favoured the landlords and the state. As well, there were endless Gaelic songs, poems and paintings.

Read a very different book review in the Irish Times.






21 comments:

Parnassus said...

Hello Hels, You have given an overall context for a history that I had heard bits and pieces of. Ironically, today Scotland is known for its woolen goods, and that industry is now considered quaint, traditional and worthy of preservation.
--Jim

Student of History said...

The Immigration Museum examined the Scottish immigration to Victoria in the 1850s, reaching an amazing total of 61,000 by 1861. Australia was big, but Melbourne was small and new.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Hels - I'm sure TM Devine's book will enlighten many as to the ghastly effects of the Clearances ... I know a very little, and equally about Scotland and its history ... so thank you for this brief update and the introduction to Devine's book. Cheers Hilary

Anonymous said...

That a country forces its people to leave is both sad and terrible. Of course there are plenty of examples. I suppose it is to Australia's benefit.

Hels said...

Parnassus

nod..the clearances were great for the wool industry, most of the Scottish economy, and the landlords' incomes. And perhaps there wasn't a choice i.e the Scottish events were simply part of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolution taking place across Europe etc. But it was handled brutally.

Hels said...

Student

Victoria never allowed convicts to live here so I am sure the authorities were delighted to accept tens of thousands of hard working, free settlers. Thank you to the Immigration Museum that collected great material, showing how well Scots integrated.

Hels said...

Hilary

I did a lot of British history at school and uni, but I don't remember Scotland's Lowland Clearances at all. Happily Devine handled this rather sad topic very well.

Hels said...

Andrew

quite correct... not the first country to starve or expel its unwanted citizens. So while the parents would have been heartbroken at the loss of their families and homes, the recipient British Empire nations and the USA were delighted with the shiploads of new immigrants. New Zealand in particular.

mem said...

This is very interesting . My family in part were lowland Scots .They came out to New Zealand in the 1850s and were farmers so I guess that was why . The others charted a boat and sailed out to Williamson in the 1850s. On The Irish side they also came but I suspect that was more to reinvent themselves as the original immigrant had married the family's maid and been excommunicated from their Irish family .It horrible to contemplate the ripples that this selfish dispossession of generations of Scots and Irish had fro the Aboriginal and Maori as well as the native population of Canada and the USA. The consequences are still rolling on .

Joseph said...

Helen look at Britannica. After the Battle of Culloden of 1746, the British government imposed restrictive laws to ruin the power of the clan chiefs and their Gaelic culture, including clan tartans and bagpipes. The government also cleared the way for landlords to acquire much of the land in the Highlands, replicating capitalist agriculture models employed in the Lowlands.

Is it possible that the Clearances had more to do with destroying clan power than improving the sheep industry.

Hels said...

mem

it is fascinating to know where out our parents, grandparents and earlier ancestors came from, why they left their old homes and how they chose their ultimate homes. Sometimes there was a family member already in the New World who could help with the immigration and integration process. Other times people sat in a European refugee centre for years, and left only when the first visas arrived. Some countries sent families out to work in the colonies on plantations, building projects or trade routes.

Devine talked about the hard work Scots put into integrating themselves in the New World, but he did not discuss the dispossession of indigenous populations that generations of Scots (and others) had in their new countries.

Hels said...

Joseph

The clan system of the Highlands and Islands really WAS seen as a challenge to the Scottish kings’ military and legal power. From 1584-1603, King James VI had to establish effective royal government and peace among the lords. But note that the first phase of the Highland Clearances didn’t occur until the 1760-1815 era, a very long time after James. In fact the Highland Clearances seemed to be the end of the clan system.



CherryPie said...

It sounds a really interesting if painful book to read.

Hels said...

CherryPie

Isn't that the truth. Sometimes we find a book, journal article or blog post in old age that changes everything we thought we knew.

bazza said...

The Enclosures Acts of 1750 onward saw this kind of thing happening all over the UK, not just in Scotland:
They hang the man, and flog the woman,
That steals the goose from off the common;
But let the greater villain loose,
That steals the common from the goose.
(English Folk Poem)
CLICK HERE for Bazza’s suspiciously Spasmodic Blog ‘To Discover Ice’

Hels said...

bazza

Good on you for mentioning that. The land in many countries was simply grabbed by greedy landlords. In Britain the first outcome was to increase the land holdings of the new capitalists. The second was to drive the local population into poverty; then drive workers off the land.

But the English Enclosures came first. I'd argue that the Scottish Clearances would not have happened, had Scotland and England not been a united country by the time the Scottish Clearances started. No wonder the Scots talk about the brutality of the Clearances still, and have never really forgiven the English for emptying Scottish landscape. No wonder in the Brexit vote in Scotland, 62% wanted to remain in the EU.

bazza said...

In our house it was 100% for remain!

Hels said...

bazza

after centuries of Europeans butchering each other, bombs, fires, famines and epidemics, especially devastating wars in the 20th century, it was long overdue that the EU should unify as one, moral force in the modern world. It is unthinkable to me that Britain would leave the EU, perhaps to see France, Germany, Italy etc as the enemy once again, or economies to exploit.

Unknown said...

Well put Joseph! The aftermath of the battle of Culloden was indeed the prelude to the intended genoside of the English/British government of the time. In my opinion this is eternally unforgiveable. Alba ghu brah!

Hels said...

Unknown

Agreed...to impose restrictive laws to ruin the power of the clan chiefs and to clear the way for landlords to acquire Highlands lands were urgent political imperatives.

But not genocide (i.e the deliberate killing of all the people of a particular nation or ethnic group).

Anonymous said...

So true...my research led me to the same concerns. Context for what played out in the colonies is helpful.