The Highland Clearances

The Highland Clearances The book Highland Clearances by John Prebble published by Penguin Books in 1969 deals with the eviction of the Highlanders from their native country. In general one can say that sheep, evictions and famine drive away the people. I will now discuss these three causes and the ones supporting them in greater detail. (1) The Sheep Prebble chooses the description of the ancient clan system as his point of departure to discuss the changes taking place in the Highland society. According to him the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 means the destruction of this ancient system. As a result of the Rebellion the chiefs no longer define themselves as warlords, who fight wars, but as landlords who are dependent on paying tenants. The former military order is in a first stage replaced by a black cattle economy. In this economy people are still needed to take care of the cattle. Although they have to pay rents to their lairds and live under poor conditions people are attached to their country and their chief. This changes in a second stage when the sons of the old chiefs, start to have a lot more sympathy for the English and their tongue, start living further south and loose interest in their people. They become aware of the fact that they can earn more money and indeed become very rich by exchanging people for sheep as the wool of the cheviot sheep which is very fine can be expensively sold. From then on more and more chiefs lease their land to southern shepherds. (2)Evictions 2.1 Key Figures In the following part of this text Prebble alludes to people who are in charge of or at least support the developments in the Highlands. The five people to be named are Lord and Lady Stafford, their Commissioner James Loch and his factors Young and Sellar. One key figure behind these developments is Lord Stafford. Lord Stafford describes himself as the great improver, planning to improve the infrastructure of the country. Neither he nor his wife speak Gaelic, the mother tongue of their people. As a result they are not able to communicate with their people and to listen to their queries without the help of an interpreter as their people speak none or only little English. Prebble comments on this very early in the book as it becomes important when Lord and Lady Stafford do not believe their people when they tell them that they are cruelly treated, but instead believe Sellar and Young who guarantee them that they treat the people well. An other key figure is Lord Stafford s Commissioner James Loch. He is convinced that the Sutherlanders who are under the jurisdiction of his master should welcome the great improvement movement his Lord has launched. In the course of the evictions, he publishes his own policy according to which children who are removed from the hills will stop remembering the habits and customs of

their fathers. Furthermore he publishes a book justifying his policy. He writes that between 5.000 and 15.000 people have been evicted, half a million pounds of wool are being exported annually and more than 20.000 sheep graze from Farr to Ross, and additionally, 90 miles of road have been constructed or are under contract. Loch, his master and all people being involved in government work maintain that it is necessary to carry out the Improvement. With Loch s approval, the factors increase rents in the fishing-villages where some people are sent to after having been evicted, when a son succeeds a father, furthermore people need the permission of the factor to marry In order to promote this movement, Loch recruits two distant kinsmen named Sellar and Young. They play a key role in the Highland Clearances as well, as they become Stafford s agents and conduct the eviction of many of the Highlanders. They operate by means of writs of removal with which they confront the tenants. Sellar is once charged with culpable homicide, oppression and real injury by a man called McKid but although guilty is then acquitted in front of a jury. Sellar takes revenge on Mc Kid and finally crushes him. 2.2 Writs of Removal Prebble states in his report that between 1785 and 1854 evictions took place in the Highlands. He uses a lot of examples to back up his statements. One such example is that for example in 1807, ninety families did not know where to sleep because Stafford s agents burnt them out and destroyed their homes. They are offered smaller lots of land at the coast which is worthless land for the Lord as no sheep can graze on those poor soils. Cottages are burnt down as soon as they are empty and sometimes even before. In some cases of old and helpless people Sellar s men set the house on fire although people are still in it. They do not care about the belongings of the former occupants which they burn as well. The former occupants are driven away like dogs. Prebble cites a lot of example that make clear that the people benefiting from the Improvement Movement do not care about the fate of the general population, only about their own wealth. In the course of the evictions, the officers who conduct them become more and more cruel. There is no compensation given for the houses burnt and neither is there any help to build new ones. In the Hebrides the eviction, different to the mainland, takes place after 1830. Until then the laird make a fortune with kelp. They need a lot of people to tear it from the rocks and only after the Napoleonic wars when they cannot sell the kelp, they start to evict people. People are evicted although they have ideas of how their happiness and prosperity might be secured without emigration. 2.3.Riots Prebble comments that the Highlander defend themselves against such intervention into their lives like the evictions only on rare occasions. One such occasion is when the men of Ross plan and enact a foray with which they want to get rid of the cheviot sheep. However the 42nd regiment stop them from

succeeding and the cheviot sheep returns. In general the Highlanders do not manage to fight a regiment successfully as they lack leadership and in the end are overpowered by the military. Prebble gives details which concern an incident in Strathcarron his special attention. In this incident 35 constables from Dingwall and Fort William break the skulls and kick the breasts of the women of Strathcarron. These women do not want to accept the writs of removals. In contrast to their husbands who flee into the hills, the women oppose the military. They are able to drive away the sheriffs twice. But when they return for the third time the police assault the women brutally and bloodily. The police kick and beat the women while these are lying in their blood. They kick them with nailed boots in the face, the breasts and shoulders. When the assault is over, the sheriff, fiscal and law agents march over the bloody earth and execute their summonses. The policemen are never charged for their crime but the victims are charged in court and sentenced. 2.4. The position of the church Prebble repeatedly comments on the fact that church officials keep silent about the injustice done to the tenants or even side with the landlords. During the whole period of eviction and later also famine they ask the people to obey the officers and because of the fact that the people are religious they in turn obey the minister. Only around 1841, people begin to lose their fear of their ministers, seeing them now as being on the landlords side. 2.5.People who fight alongside their people Between 1849 and 1853, Thomas Mulock, an Irish journalist attacks the Clearances in the Inverness Advertiser. He says that Loch s book is a laboured attempt to blacken a people whom it was resolved to oppress, and in order to justify tyranny he seeks to vilify those who were foredoomed to slavery. A Times man charges the proprietors that they are only reluctant to pay their share under the Poor Law. Donald Ross, a Glasgow advocate, speaks up on behalf of the evicted people. He writes to The Northern Ensign and publishes articles in which he describes the suffering of the people of Knoydart. He brings the matter to the attention of one member of Parliament but even his attention does not save the people from finally being evicted and getting no help. (3) Famine In 1845 and the years after that, the potato famine occurs in Scotland. As a result of this famine the people are suffering from starvation on a great scale. The local authorities do their best in the absence of direct government relief to propose schemes of road mending that would give employment of the tens of thousand of unemployed. However, the money the people earn cannot save them from starvation as there is no place where they can buy food for their money. Only a few people who can be classified within the laws of paupers are receiving help. The Law of Paupers only applies to those with

none family member employed. The others can only obtain food with their minister s certifications to declare that they are objects of charity, which were very hard to obtain. A lot of money is collected for charity but even that is only a drop in the ocean. Especially the men in the Eastern Highlands are very violent in the time of the famine. They try to stop the grain shipments, which are heading southwards, and can only be prevented from stealing them by military intervention. The soldiers, who also receive help from their Irish colleagues, drive the people back at gunpoint. (4) Emigration According to Prebble emigration already began in the late 18 th century. The American Revolution temporarily halted the flow of emigrants but it began again at the beginning of the 19 th century, stimulated by a great famine, a growing population, a decaying economy and families finding themselves in bitter poverty and suffering from starvation. A lot of promises are made to the Heighlanders concerning conditions of emigration, however most promises are deceiving. As long as the Highlanders are needed to fill the uniforms emptied by French musketry or West Indian fevers the government declares emigration to be an evil. The government thoughts about it change soon. The people who are told to emigrate are not informed that death from fever, dysentery and other diseases is inevitable for some of them. As the cost of a voyage is high and the Highlanders money small, tenants indenture themselves and their families in order to meet the costs. Even the 4 Passengers Acts passed by the government to improve conditions of emigration do not make any impression on the speculators and the indifference of authorities to change the alarming conditions on board. The conditions are bad, there is neither enough food nor space and if there is food it is often rotten so that people contract diseases. Especially the 1830s are the great years of emigration. In 1851 the Skye Emigration Society is founded. One can say that something like a planned emigration evolves. The society becomes a machinery by which thousands of Highland poor leave for Australia and Canada. Each one of them is first examined by Commissioners from the Colonial land and the Emigration department to determine his or her constitution, circumstances and character and presumably to satisfy the government that the applicant falls under the society s own definition of a deserving case. Australia is happy to welcome the emigrants and sends them to sheep farms. Prebble quotes figures according to which15.000 people from Gordon s estates emigrate to Canada. 600 are accepted as paupers and are supported by the colony. Many more beg for bread and bury their dead in Quebec.

(5)After the evictions In Scotland around the middle of the 19th century, democratic thinking is starting to be aired, questioning the landowner s right to dispose of their acres and their people at will. Prebble alludes to the different points of view from which people and nobles have seen the years of evictions when he describes how Lord Stafford tries to recruit men for his army and cannot understand why they do not want to join the army of a man who has so bitterly betrayed them. (6) Comparison between Prebble and The Inverness Courier If one compares Prebbles description with Alexander Mc Kenzie s book The Highland Clearances published by Geddes and Grosset in 2001 about the same issue, one notices that they do not concur in their way of description. Mc Kenzie refers to an account of the Inverness Courier which was a newspaper reporting about the eviction in the Highlands whereas Prebbel has many different sources. The accounts I compare about an incident in Ross where people obstruct to the writs of removal differ in the number of people involved.according to Prebble sixty or seventy women, with a dozen or less men standing behind them (P.p.230) are involved whereas according to the Inverness Courier three hundred persons, two- thirds of whom were women (p.85)are involved. In addition, what the Courier does not writes is that Alexander Munro the tacksman ( P.p. 230) has told the people that he has no knowledge of warrants issued in his name (P.p.230). This little elision leads to a totally different assessment of the scene. Prebble writes that Taylor orders his officicers to clear the way (P.p.230) and knock them down (P.p.230) whereas the Courier writes that the Sheriff makes efforts to employ peaceable means (p. 85) and only after this seems to be fruitless he employs means of force (p.85). The Courier moreover does not write as Prebble does that the Officers kick the women by nailed boots on the face, the breasts and the shoulders (P.p.231) or that they kicked them while weltering in their blood (P.p.231). All in all one can say that the differing description of the incident arises from the different point of view the authors have. The Inverness Courier is known to take the side of the landlords whereas Prebble writes this some time after the evictions. The people who are in positions of power in Scotland at this time are more interested in moneymaking and the so called Improvement. The right of people not to be disposed as the Lord wishes are unpopular. Democracy has not come to Scotland at this time. I am of the opinion that when one compares the two accounts, one notices that the account of the courier is written under the influence of progress and capitalism and Prebble s one is influenced by the values of humanity and democracy.