The History Of The Highland Clearances - free ebook by Alexander Mackenzie

THE HISTORY OF THE HIGHLAND CLEARANCES

BY ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, F.S.A., Scot. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY IAN MacPHERSON , M.P. “Truth is stranger than fiction.” P. J. O’CALLAGHAN, 132-134 WEST NILE STREET, GLASGOW....

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EDITOR’S PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

Mackenzie’s History of the Highland Clearances , with its thrilling and almost incredible narratives of oppression and eviction, has been for a long time out of print. In view of the current movement, described by Mr. Asquith as an “organised campaign against the present system of land tenure,” it has occurred to the holder of the copyright, Mr. Eneas Mackay, publisher, Stirling, that, at the present juncture, a re-issue might be expediently prepared. He recognised that the story of the great up

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INTRODUCTION.

It is with great pleasure that I accede to the request that I should write a short introduction to welcome this reprint of so interesting and valuable a book as Mackenzie’s Highland Clearances . It has long been out of print, which anyone who recalls its first appearance will easily understand. It was written by a Highlander who commanded in a great measure the esteem of Highlanders, and it collected for the first time the sane and authenticated accounts of the experience of the Highlanders in t

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ALEXANDER MACKENZIE ON THE CLEARANCES.[1]

To give a proper account of the Sutherland Clearances would take a bulky volume. Indeed, a large tome of 354 pages has been written and published in their defence by him who was mainly responsible for them, called “An Account of the Sutherland Improvements,” by James Loch, at that time Commissioner for the Marchioness of Stafford and heiress of Sutherland. This was the first account I ever read of these so-called improvements; and it was quite enough to convince me, and it will be sufficient to

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THE REV. DONALD SAGE ON THE SUTHERLAND CLEARANCES.

I remained for about a year in the capacity of tutor in the family of Mr. Robert MacKid, Sheriff-Substitute of Sutherland, who lived at Kirkton, in the parish of Golspie. I shall briefly sum up what I remember of this period. It was a very short time previous to my residence in Mr. MacKid’s family that the first “Sutherland Clearance” took place. This consisted in the ejection from their minutely-divided farms of several hundreds of the Sutherlandshire aborigines, who had from time immemorial be

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GENERAL STEWART OF GARTH ON THE SUTHERLAND CLEARANCES.[4]

On the part of those who instituted similar improvements, in which so few of the people were to have a share, conciliatory measures, and a degree of tenderness, beyond what would have been shown to strangers, were to have been expected towards the hereditary supporters of their families. It was, however, unfortunately the natural consequences of the measures which were adopted, that few men of liberal feelings could be induced to undertake their execution. The respectable gentlemen, who, in so m

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HUGH MILLER ON THE SUTHERLAND CLEARANCES.[5]

So much has been already said about these disastrous Sutherland evictions that we greatly fear the reader is sickened with the horrid narrative, but as it is intended to make the present record of these atrocious proceedings, not only in Sutherland but throughout the whole Highlands, as complete as it is now possible to make it, we shall yet place before the reader at considerable length Hugh Miller’s observations on this National Crime—especially as his remarks largely embody the philosophical

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MR JAMES LOCH ON SUTHERLAND IMPROVEMENTS.[6]

No country of Europe at any period of its history ever presented more formidable obstacles to the improvement of a people arising out of the prejudices and feelings of the people themselves. To the tacksman, it is clear, from what has already been stated, such a change could not be agreeable. Its effect being to alter his condition, and remove him from a state of idle independence, in habits almost of equality with his chief, to a situation, although fully, if not more respectable, yet one in wh

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MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ON THE SUTHERLAND CLEARANCES.[7]

As to those ridiculous stories about the Duchess of Sutherland, which have found their way into many of the prints in America, one has only to be here, moving in society, to see how excessively absurd they are. All my way through Scotland, and through England, I was associating, from day to day, with people of every religious denomination, and every rank of life. I have been with dissenters and with churchmen; with the national Presbyterian church and the free Presbyterian; with Quakers and Bapt

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REPLY TO MRS. BEECHER STOWE BY DONALD MACLEOD.[8]

From the year 1812 to 1820, the whole interior of the county of Sutherland—whose inhabitants were advancing rapidly in the science of agriculture and education, who by nature and exemplary training were the bravest, the most moral and patriotic people that ever existed—even admitting a few of them did violate the excise laws, the only sin which Mr. Loch and all the rest of their avowed enemies could bring against them—where a body of men could be raised on the shortest possible notice that kings

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THE INDICTMENT.

PATRICK SELLAR, now or lately residing at Culmaily, in the parish of Golspie, and shire of Sutherland, and under factor for the Most Noble the Marquis and Marchioness of Stafford. You are indicted and accused, at the instance of Archibald Colquhoun of Killermont, his Majesty’s Advocate for his Majesty’s interest: That albeit, by the laws of this and of every other well-governed realm, culpable homicide, as also oppression and real injury, more particularly the wickedly and maliciously setting on

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GLENCALVIE.

Great cruelties were perpetrated at Glencalvie, Ross-shire, where the evicted had to retire into the parish churchyard. There for more than a week they found the only shelter obtainable in their native land. No one dared to succour them, under a threat of receiving similar treatment to those whose hard fate had driven them thus among the tombs. Many of them, indeed, wished that their lot had landed them under the sod with their ancestors and friends, rather than be treated and driven out of hous

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THE EVICTION OF THE ROSSES.

In a “Sermon for the Times,” the Rev. Richard Hibbs of the Episcopal Church, Edinburgh, referring to these evictions, says:—“Take first, the awful proof how far in oppression men can go—men highly educated and largely gifted in every way—property, talents, all; for the most part indeed, they are so-called noblemen. What, then, are they doing in the Highland districts, according to the testimony of a learned professor in this city? Why, depopulating those districts in order to make room for red d

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KINTAIL.

During the first years of the century a great many were cleared from Kintail by Seaforth at the instigation of his Kintail factor, Duncan Mor Macrae, and his father, who themselves added the land taken from the ancient tenantry to their own sheep farms, already far too extensive. In Glengarry, Canada, a few years ago, we met one man, 93 years of age, who was among the evicted. He was in excellent circumstances, his three sons having three valuable farms of their own, and considered wealthy in th

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COIGEACH.

The attempt to evict the Coigeach crofters must also be mentioned. Here the people made a stout resistance, the women disarming about twenty policemen and sheriff-officers, burning the summonses in a heap, throwing their batons into the sea, and ducking the representatives of the law in a neighbouring pool. The men formed the second line of defence, in case the women should receive any ill-treatment. They, however, never put a finger on the officers of law, all of whom returned home without serv

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STRATHCONON.[13]

From 1840 to 1848 Strathconon was almost entirely cleared of its ancient inhabitants to make room for sheep and deer, as in other places; and also for the purposes of extensive forest plantations. The property was under trustees when the harsh proceedings were commenced by the factor, Mr. Rose, a notorious Dingwall solicitor. He began by taking away, first, the extensive hill-pasture, for generations held as club-farms by the townships, thus reducing the people from a position of comfort and ind

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THE BLACK ISLE.

Respecting the estates of Drynie and Kilcoy, a correspondent, who says, “I well remember my excessive grief when my father had to leave the farm which his forefathers had farmed for five generations,” writes:— “All the tenants to the east of Drynie, as far as Craigiehow, were turned out, one by one, to make room for one large tenant, Mr. Robertson, who had no less than four centres for stackyards. A most prosperous tenantry were turned out to make room for him, and what is the end of it all! Mr.

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THE ISLAND OF LEWIS.

No one was evicted from the Island of Lewis, in the strict sense of the term, but 2231 souls had to leave it between 1851 and 1863. To pay their passage money, their inland railway fares on arrival, and to provide them with clothing and other furnishings, the late Sir James Matheson paid a sum of £11,855. Notwithstanding all this expenditure, many of these poor people would have died from starvation on their arrival without the good offices of friends in Canada. In 1841, before Mr. Matheson boug

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LECKMELM. MR. ALEXANDER MACKENZIE ON THE LECKMELM EVICTIONS.

This small property, in the Parish of Lochbroom, changed hands in 1879, Mr. A. C. Pirie, paper manufacturer, Aberdeen, having purchased it for £19,000 from Colonel Davidson, now of Tulloch. No sooner did it come into Mr. Pirie’s possession than a notice, dated 2nd November, 1879, in the following terms, was issued to all the tenants:— “I am instructed by Mr. Pirie, proprietor of Leckmelm, to give you notice that the present arrangements by which you hold the cottage, byre, and other buildings, t

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LOCHCARRON. By ALEXANDER MACKENZIE.

The following account was written in April, 1882, after a most careful enquiry on the spot:—So much whitewash has been distributed in our Northern newspapers of late by “Local Correspondents,” in the interest of personal friends who are responsible for the Lochcarron evictions—the worst and most indefensible that have ever been attempted even in the Highlands—that we consider it a duty to state the actual facts. We are really sorry for those more immediately concerned, but our friendly feeling f

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THE 78TH HIGHLANDERS.

In connection with the evictions from the County of Ross, the following will appropriately come in at this stage. Referring to the glorious deeds of the 78th Highlanders in India, under General Havelock, the editor of the Northern Ensign writes:—All modern history, from the rebellion in 1715, to the Cawnpore massacre of 1857, teems with the record of Highland bravery and prowess. What say our Highland evicting lairds to these facts, and to the treatment of the Highlanders? What reward have these

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THE REV. DR. JOHN KENNEDY ON THE ROSS-SHIRE CLEARANCES.[17]

Dr. John Kennedy, the highly, deservedly respected, and eminent minister of Dingwall so long resident among the scenes which he describes, and so intimately acquainted with all classes of the people in his native county of Ross, informs us that it was at a time when the Highlanders became most distinguished as the most peaceable and virtuous peasantry in the world—“at the climax of their spiritual prosperity,” in Ross-shire—“that the cruel work of eviction began to lay waste the hill-sides and t

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GLENGARRY. By ALEXANDER MACKENZIE.

Glengarry was peopled down to the end of last century with a fine race of men. In 1745, six hundred stalwart vassals followed the chief of Glengarry to the battle of Culloden. Some few years later they became so disgusted with the return made by their chief that many of them emigrated to the United States, though they were almost all in comfortable, some indeed, in affluent circumstances. Notwithstanding this semi-voluntary exodus, Major John Macdonell of Lochgarry, was able in 1777, to raise a

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STRATHGLASS. By ALEXANDER MACKENZIE.

It has been shown, under “Glengarry,” that a chief’s widow, during her son’s minority, was responsible for the Knoydart evictions in 1853. Another chief’s widow, Marsali Bhinneach —Marjory, daughter of Sir Ludovick Grant of Dalvey, widow of Duncan Macdonnell of Glengarry, who died in 1788—gave the whole of Glencruaich as a sheep farm to one south country shepherd, and to make room for him she evicted over 500 people from their ancient homes. The late Edward Ellice stated before a Committee of th

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GUISACHAN. By ALEXANDER MACKENZIE.

The modern clearances which took place within the last quarter of a century in Guisachan, Strathglass, by Sir Dudley Marjoribanks, have been described in all their phases before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1872. The Inspector of Poor for the parish of Kiltarlity wrote a letter which was brought before the Committee, with a statement from another source that, “in 1855, there were 16 farmers on the estate; the number of cows they had was 62, and horses, 24; the principal farmer had 2000

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GLENELG. By ALEXANDER MACKENZIE.

In 1849 more than 500 souls left Glenelg. These petitioned the proprietor, Mr. Baillie of Dochfour, to provide means of existence for them at home by means of reclamation and improvements in the district, or, failing this, to help them to emigrate. Mr. Baillie, after repeated communications, made choice of the latter alternative, and suggested that a local committee should be appointed to procure and supply him with information as to the number of families willing to emigrate, their circumstance

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GLENDESSERAY AND LOCHARKAIG

Great numbers were evicted from the Cameron country of Lochaber, especially from Glendesseray and Locharkaig side. Indeed it is said that there were so few Camerons left in the district, that not a single tenant of the name attended the banquet given by the tenantry when the late Lochiel came into possession. The details of Cameron evictions would be found pretty much the same as those in other places, except that an attempt has been made in this case to hold the factor entirely and solely respo

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NORTH UIST.

In 1849 Lord Macdonald determined to evict between 600 and 700 persons from Sollas, in North Uist, of which he was then proprietor. They were at the time in a state of great misery from the failure of the potato crop for several years previously in succession, many of them having had to work for ninety-six hours a week for a pittance of two stones of Indian meal once a fortnight. Sometimes even that miserable dole was not forthcoming, and families had to live for weeks solely on shell-fish picke

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BORERAIG AND SUISINISH, ISLE OF SKYE.

His lordship’s position in regard to the proceedings was most unfortunate. Donald Ross, writing as an eye-witness of these evictions, says— “Some years ago Lord Macdonald incurred debts on his property to the extent of £200,000 sterling, and his lands being entailed, his creditors could not dispose of them, but they placed a trustee over them in order to intercept certain portions of the rent in payment of the debt. Lord Macdonald, of course, continues to have an interest and a surveillance over

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A CONTRAST.

Before leaving Skye, it will be interesting to see the difference of opinion which existed among the chiefs regarding the eviction of the people at this period and a century earlier. We have just seen what a Lord Macdonald has done in the present century, little more than thirty years ago. Let us compare his proceedings and feelings to those of his ancestor, in 1739, a century earlier. In that year a certain Norman Macleod managed to get some islanders to emigrate, and it was feared that Governm

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SOUTH UIST AND BARRA.

Napoleon Bonaparte, at one time, took 500 prisoners and was unable to provide food for them. Let them go he would not, though he saw that they would perish by famine. His ideas of mercy suggested to him to have them all shot. They were by his orders formed into a square, and 2000 French muskets with ball cartridge was simultaneously levelled at them, which soon put the disarmed mass of human beings out of pain. Donald Macleod refers to this painful act as follows:— “All the Christian nations of

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THE ISLAND OF RUM.

This island, at one time, had a large population, all of whom were weeded out in the usual way. The Rev. Donald Maclean, Minister of the Parish of Small Isles, informs us in The New Statistical Account , that “in 1826 all the inhabitants of the Island of Rum, amounting at least to 400 souls, found it necessary to leave their native land, and to seek for new abodes in the distant wilds of our colonies in America. Of all the old residenters, only one family remained upon the Island. The old and th

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THE ISLAND OF MULL.

according to the Government Census of 1821, was 10,612; in 1841, 10,064. In 1871, we find it reduced to 6441, and by the Census of 1881, now before us, it is stated at 5624, or a fraction more than half the number that inhabited the Island in 1821. Tobermory , we are told, “has been for some time the resort of the greater part of the small crofters and cottars, ejected from their holdings and houses on the surrounding estates, and thus there has been a great accumulation of distress.” Then we ar

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ARDNAMURCHAN.[23]

“ Uaine gu’m mullach ” (green to their tops!). So Dr. Norman Macleod described the bens of Ardnamurchan in his inimitable sketch, the “Emigrant Ship,” and so they appear even to this day. Their beautiful slopes show scarcely a vestige of heather, but an abundance of rich, sweet grass of a quality eminently suitable for pasturage. As the steamboat passenger sails northward through the Sound of Mull, he sees straight ahead, and stretching at right angles across his course, a long range of low hill

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GLENORCHY.

Glenorchy, of which the Marquis of Breadalbane is sole proprietor, was, like many other places, ruthlessly cleared of its whole native population. The writer of the New Statistical Account of the Parish, in 1843, the Rev. Duncan Maclean, “Fior Ghael” of the Teachdaire , informs us that the census taken by Dr. Webster in 1755, and by Dr. MacIntyre forty years later, in 1795, “differ exceedingly little,” only to the number of sixty. The Marquis of the day, it is well known, was a good friend of hi

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ARRAN. DUGALD MACKENZIE MACKILLOP ON THE ARRAN CLEARANCES.[27]

Once upon a time—and the time was 1828—Alexander, tenth Duke of Hamilton, decided that he would make large farms on his estate, and, of course, the will and wish of a duke in his own domains must be respected, even though—as in one instance—the land rented by twenty-seven families was converted into one farm. For various reasons, the islanders had for many years been discontented, and there seemed no hope of a change for the better. If a man worked his place in a progressive way and made improve

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RANNOCH. By ALEXANDER MACKENZIE.

Regarding the state of matters in this district a correspondent writes us as follows:—I am very glad to learn that you are soon to publish a new edition of your “Highland Clearances.” You have done good work already in rousing the conscience of the public against the conduct of certain landlords in the Highlands, who long ere now should have been held up to public scorn and execration, as the best means of deterring others from pursuing a policy which has been so fatal to the best interests of o

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BREADALBANE.

Mr. R. Alister, author of Barriers to the National Prosperity of Scotland , had a controversy with the Marquis of Breadalbane in 1853, about the eviction of his tenantry. In a letter, dated July of that year, Mr. Alister made a charge against his lordship which, for obvious reasons, he never attempted to answer, as follows:— “Your lordship states that in reality there has been no depopulation of the district. This, and other parts of your lordship’s letter, would certainly lead any who know noth

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The Rev. Dr. MACLACHLAN.

The late Rev. Dr. Maclachlan, Edinburgh, wrote a series of articles in the Witness , during its palmy days under the editorship of Hugh Miller. These were afterwards published in 1849, under the title of “The Depopulation System of the Highlands,” in pamphlet form, by Johnston and Hunter. The rev. author visited all the places to which he refers. He says:— “A complete history of Highland clearances would, we doubt not, both interest and surprise the British public. Men talk of the Sutherland cle

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A HIGHLAND SHERIFF.

Mr. Robert Brown, Sheriff-Substitute of the Western District of Inverness-shire, in 1806, wrote a pamphlet of 120 pages, now very scarce, entitled, “Strictures and Remarks on the Earl of Selkirk’s ‘Observations on the Present State of the Highlands of Scotland,’” Sheriff Brown was a man of keen observation, and his work is a powerful argument against the forced depopulation of the country. Summing up the number who left from 1801 to 1803, he says:— “In the year 1801, a Mr. George Dennon, from Pi

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THE WIZARD OF THE NORTH.

Sir Walter Scott writes:—“In too many instances the Highlands have been drained, not of their superfluity of population, but of the whole mass of the inhabitants, dispossessed by an unrelenting avarice, which will be one day found to have been as shortsighted as it is unjust and selfish. Meantime, the Highlands may become the fairy ground for romance and poetry, or the subject of experiment for the professors of speculation, political and economical. But if the hour of need should come—and it ma

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A CONTINENTAL HISTORIAN.

M. Michelet, the great Continental historian, writes:—“The Scottish Highlanders will ere long disappear from the face of the earth; the mountains are daily depopulating; the great estates have ruined the land of the Gael, as they did ancient Italy. The Highlander will ere long exist only in the romances of Walter Scott. The tartan and the claymore excite surprise in the streets of Edinburgh; the Highlanders disappear—they emigrate—their national airs will ere long be lost, as the music of the Eo

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MR. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE.

In his work on the Nationalisation of Land, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, in the chapter on “Landlordism in Scotland,” says to the English people:— “The facts stated in this chapter will possess, I feel sure, for many Englishmen, an almost startling novelty; the tale of oppression and cruelty they reveal reads like one of those hideous stories peculiar to the dark ages, rather than a simple record of events happening upon our own land and within the memory of the present generation. For a parallel

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A FRENCH ECONOMIST.

The following remarks by the celebrated French economist, M. de Lavaleye, will prove interesting. There is no greater living authority on land tenure than this writer, and being a foreigner, his opinions are not open—as the opinions of our own countrymen may be—to the suspicion of political bias or partisanship on a question which is of universal interest all over the world. Referring to land tenure in this country, he says:— “The dispossession of the old proprietors, transformed by time into ne

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MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN.

In a speech delivered at Inverness, on 18th September, 1885, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain said:— “The history of the Highland clearances is a black page in the account with private ownership in land, and if it were to form a precedent, if there could be any precedent for wrong-doing, if the sins of the fathers ought to be visited upon the children, we should have an excuse for more drastic legislation than any which the wildest reformer has ever proposed. Thousands of industrious, hard-working, God-fe

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HARDSHIPS ENDURED BY FIRST EMIGRANTS. By Alexander MACKENZIE.

The reader is already acquainted with the misery endured by those evicted from Barra and South Uist by Colonel Gordon, after their arrival in Canada. This was no isolated case. We shall here give a few instances of the unspeakable suffering of those pioneers who left so early as 1773, in the ship Hector , for Pictou, Nova Scotia, gathered from trustworthy sources during the writer’s late visit to that country. The Hector was owned by two men, Pagan and Witherspoon, who bought three shares of lan

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AN EVICTING AGENT.

Giving evidence before the Deer Forest Commission of 1892, the late Mr. Æneas R. Macdonell of Camusdarroch, Arisaig, made an interesting statement. After mentioning that he was a member of the Scottish Bar, and had previously been proprietor of Morar, he proceeded:— I am able to speak generally as to the population there used to be in Arisaig in my young days,—in fact, the whole tract of country seemed to be populated and to have numerous houses on all parts of it; but I want to confine my evide

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AN OCTOGENARIAN GAEL.

In his interesting volume entitled Reminiscences and Reflections of an Octogenarian Gael , Mr. Duncan Campbell, for over twenty-six years editor of the Northern Chronicle , writes as follows with regard to the Breadalbane Evictions:— As second Marquis, “the son of his father,” contrary to all prognostications, became, as soon as expiring leases permitted it, an evicting landlord on a large scale, and he continued to pursue the policy of joining farm to farm, and turning out native people, to the

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STATISTICAL STATEMENT.

Population in 1831, 1841, 1851, 1881, and 1911, of all the Parishes in whole or in part in the County of Perthshire. Population in 1831, 1841, 1851, 1881, and 1911, of all the parishes in whole or in part in the County of Argyll. Population in 1831, 1841, 1851, 1881, and 1911, of all the Parishes in whole or in part in the County of Inverness. Population in 1831, 1841, 1851, 1881, and 1911, of all the Parishes in whole or in part in the Counties of Ross and Cromarty. Population in 1831, 1841, 18

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NOTE A. (See Page 115.)

The following pertinent observations appeared in the Dundee Advertiser , of 10th January, 1914. They are from the pen of a notable Dundee lawyer, Mr. John Walker, who has made a special study of the legal aspects of the Highland Clearances:— At the time of Patrick Sellar’s trial the ruthless evictions carried out by the Stafford family had been so long in process of execution that no one had the slightest doubt of the facts of these taking place. The question tried was not whether they took plac

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NOTE B. (See Page 218.)

The following interesting letter has been handed to the Editor by Mr. J. Stewart Bannatyne, solicitor, Glasgow: “ Castlebay, Barra. “ September 21st, 1912. “Dear Sir, “In reply to your letter of the 6th inst., and after consulting the older inhabitants, I beg to inform you that it was John Bannatyne who rescued Mrs. J. M’Kinnon, her sister and another woman, from compulsory emigration, but it was John Crawford who rescued John M’Lean. I know the women and M’Lean as well as I know my two fingers,

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NOTE C. (See page 234.)

In the Inverness Courier for 11th October, 1837, appears the following:— A large body of emigrants sailed from Tobermory, on the 27th September, for New South Wales. The vessel was the “Brilliant,” and its size and splendid fittings were greatly admired. “The people to be conveyed by this vessel are decidedly the most valuable that have ever left the shores of Great Britain. They are of excellent moral character, and, from their knowledge of agriculture, and management of sheep and cattle, must

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