Our new MPS first speech in westminster :

[cptdodger]

There is a lot of information on here Rob, regarding the Caithness Clearances, including at the bottom of the page the references, as to where the info came from - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances. Honestly if you type Highland Clearances into Google, there must be hundreds of different websites, also if you look at Clans, a lot of them will make reference to the Clearances.

[moureen]

Thank you all for information on Highland Clearances,link to Charles Kennedy's maiden speach,and all the info regarding my history! I am a MacLeod from Skerray and will read Donald MacLeod's book. Where can I buy it???

[rob murray]

There is a lot of information on here Rob, regarding the Caithness Clearances, including at the bottom of the page the references, as to where the info came from - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances. Honestly if you type Highland Clearances into Google, there must be hundreds of different websites, also if you look at Clans, a lot of them will make reference to the Clearances.

Many thanks, Im honestly really enjoying this thread ( for a change ! ) educational and informative, will certainly look at references, if I find something then I will post it : one thing that always flumoxed me was the lack of aggression shown in the sutherland clearances, ok people were shell shocked and the landowners were exercising their legal rights, but later in the 19th century more organised agitation and violent clashed between crofters ( largely women ! ) and police / sheriff officers is widely recorded, I wondered why none hit back at the start ie 1809- 1820, then I tracked the formation of the sutherland highlanders, 93rd Sutherland Highlanders, first mustered, in Strathnaver in August 1800, ( tremendous irony here, mustered in the very place whihc was utterly destroyed, burnt to the ground several years later ) and containing hundreds of men from sutherland and caithness. During the period of the initial brutal clearances these men were deployed in the cape colony, america, Ireland and the West Indies......so many of the men involved couldnt have been abreast I would imagine on the clearances, nor got leave to go home so the bulk of manhood were conviently away from home....just summising... would they have made any difference if they were home in standing up to the landlords ??


Last quick one : during the crimean war a recruiting team came to Golspie to get as Queen Victoria put it "her brave highlanders" to enlist ( she didnt know what had been going on as regards the clearances and de population ) .....they were told stick their red coats on the damn sheep and get them to fight...or words to that effect

[rob murray]

Thank you all for information on Highland Clearances,link to Charles Kennedy's maiden speach,and all the info regarding my history! I am a MacLeod from Skerray and will read Donald MacLeod's book. Where can I buy it???

Thanks Moureen, Im passionate about highland history and have learned some good interesting facts from other posters on here, really enjoying the thread : Donald Macleod : Yoou'll get it on Amazon see this link http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...loomy+Memories
Prose, is as you would accept from a book written in the 1850's, heavyish, actually the book is really based around letters and corrospondence Donald Macleod wrote to the Edinburgh Weekly Chronicle whilst still in Scotland, heres a letter below :

I AM a native of Sutherlandshire, and remember when the inhabitants of that country lived comfortably and happily, when the mansions of proprietors and the abodes of factors, magistrates, and ministers, were the seats of honour, truth, and good example—when people of quality were indeed what they were styled, the friends and benefactors of all who lived upon their domains. But all this is changed. Alas, alas! I have lived to see calamity upon calamity overtake the Sutherlanders. For five successive years, on or about the term day, has scarcely anything been seen but removing the inhabitants in the most cruel and unfeeling rnanner, and burning the houses which they and their forefathers had occupied from time immemorial. The country was darkened by the smoke of the burnings, and the descendants of those who drew their swords at Bannockburn, Sheriffmuir, and Killicrankie—the children and nearest relations of those who sustained the honour of the British name in many a bloody field—the heroes of Egypt, Corunna, Toulouse, Salamanca, and Waterloo—were ruined, trampled upon, dispersed, and compelled to seek an asylum across the Atlantic; while those who remained from inability to emigrate, deprived of all the comforts of life, became paupers beggars—a disgrace to the nation whose freedom and honour many of them had maintained by their valour and cemented with their blood.

Im sure youll agree very powerful emotive writing !!

[rob murray]

heres a copy of the book free on line https://archive.org/stream/donaldmcl...euoft_djvu.txt

[cptdodger]

Many thanks, Im honestly really enjoying this thread ( for a change ! ) educational and informative, will certainly look at references, if I find something then I will post it : one thing that always flumoxed me was the lack of aggression shown in the sutherland clearances, ok people were shell shocked and the landowners were exercising their legal rights, but later in the 19th century more organised agitation and violent clashed between crofters ( largely women ! ) and police / sheriff officers is widely recorded, I wondered why none hit back at the start ie 1809- 1820, then I tracked the formation of the sutherland highlanders, 93rd Sutherland Highlanders, first mustered, in Strathnaver in August 1800, ( tremendous irony here, mustered in the very place whihc was utterly destroyed, burnt to the ground several years later ) and containing hundreds of men from sutherland and caithness. During the period of the initial brutal clearances these men were deployed in the cape colony, america, Ireland and the West Indies......so many of the men involved couldnt have been abreast I would imagine on the clearances, nor got leave to go home so the bulk of manhood were conviently away from home....just summising... would they have made any difference if they were home in standing up to the landlords ??


Last quick one : during the crimean war a recruiting team came to Golspie to get as Queen Victoria put it "her brave highlanders" to enlist ( she didnt know what had been going on as regards the clearances and de population ) .....they were told stick their red coats on the damn sheep and get them to fight...or words to that effect

It is hard to say whether the men being there would have made any difference at all, as you say it was the landowners legal right to remove tenants. Although not on the same scale, the only thing I can equate this to is what Hitler did to the Jewish people, Gypsies and anybody else he did'nt like the look of, there was millions of them. Now, the men must have been present then, and it still happened, but it really is difficult to say whether their presence would have made any difference at all.

There is a connection between a Lord (I think) in Dundee and the clearances, I belong to the Lamont Clan, and I am sure he had something to do with that, but I can't find the reference. However, I did read about the Highlanders saying that about the sheep when I was looking for the reference about Dundee.

[moureen]

Thank you Rob.

[sids]

[QUOTE=rob murray;1123879]

Your quite correct, and it is very ironic

It is ironic. Victims of clearances here went to Australia and America and perpetrated worse on the locals there.

[rob murray]

[QUOTE=sids;1123904]

It is ironic. Victims of clearances here went to Australia and America and perpetrated worse on the locals there.

Well I would imagine that landowners would have done that, emigres wouldve worked on farms to start with as most arrived there with the clothes they stood in as they left the north because they had nothing, thats not to say that already established landwoners and yes probably some were scottish, cleared the aborigines but I dont know the extent of their involvement. If you go the museum in Ullapool you can read letters from people who left the area in the 1860's + to go to Australia the general tone is to invite locals ( ie back home ) to come to Australia because there were no ties, if you didnt like one sheep farm then there were plenty others looking for good men, hence men werent tied into jobs / houses like back home and had more freedom and control over their lives. What I did find out was a white austalian policy dening aboriginies the vote : "following the establishment of autonomous parliaments, a rise in nationalism and improvements in transportation, the Australian colonies voted to unite in a Federation, which came into being in 1901. The Australian Constitution and early parliaments established one of the most progressive governmental systems on the earth at that time, with male and female suffrage and series of checks and balances built into the governmental framework. National security fears had been one of the chief motivators for the union and legislation was quickly enacted to restrict non-European immigration to Australia - the foundation of the White Australia Policy - and voting rights for Aborigines were denied across most states. A shameful state of affairs, aboriginies are still mistreated in Australia, mind a recent documentary about a Golspie based doctory ( Mary Patience ? ) who went to work with poor aborigines a cople of years back, breath taking shameful !

[rob murray]

[QUOTE=sids;1123904]

It is ironic. Victims of clearances here went to Australia and America and perpetrated worse on the locals there.

Aborigine massacres were very widepread in 19th century and involved a cross selection of european settlers : see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...us_Australians a comprehensive breakdown of acts of violence, some scots were bound to have been involved, shameful indeed. Im not trying to be whiter than white nor ignore sitiations like this, I can see the irony all over the place but my focus / interest is on Highland / Gael history to which my knowledge especially the full extent of the Caithness clearances has been increased by postings on this thread.

[sids]

The Highland Clearances were a good example of social injustice.

Something similar took place in Ireland, with a bit more acute hunger and even the once largely rural population of England somehow ended up in slums of industrial cities. English regions didn't have the complication of being on the losing side of the Jacobite rebellion.

[rob murray]

The Highland Clearances were a good example of social injustice.

Something similar took place in Ireland, with a bit more acute hunger and even the once largely rural population of England somehow ended up in slums of industrial cities. English regions didn't have the complication of being on the losing side of the Jacobite rebellion.

In Engalnd in the 18th century there was what was called the practise of enclosure, where basically small holdings ( crofts ) were combined together creating larger enclosed fields, changing farming from small holdings to large more industrialised farms, so small holders had to either work on farms or move to newly industrialised cities. Jacobite rebellion...depends on how you see it. Apart from atrocities committed in the immediate aftermath of Culloden, the highlands was occupied by the military up to 1752 ish, thereafter the powers that be concluded that things had settled down and there was no chance of another rebellion. Forts at Ardersier / Fort George Fort AUgustus and Fort William all were garrisoned with Fort George becomming a permanent military fixture proving a permanent powerful sign of "power"...just in case. In any case the structure of the highlands had changed with chiefs involved in the 45 stripped of estates etc ( some hanged ) and mass deportations of surviving clans men who took part in the rebellion all put paid to any futher chance of re offending. Charles Stuart abandonded his army after culloden with the order...every man for himself....and threw the towel in. He came back to the UK once. incognito, to visit London briefly in the 1750's but the STuart cause for restoration died at Culloden. The clearances were 100% down to the chiefs / or land owners, the clan system fragmented, arguably in some parts of the highlands pre 1745, the old order was changing, they owned the land, they took the decision that sheep were a better return than rents paid and they using the law, cleared their lands of people.....thats one take on it

[sids]

Maybe little is heard about clearances in Caithness because we don't hold a grudge.

[Rheghead]

Pitty he did not mention the black slave trade Scotland was involved with :-)

Seeing as you mention it, why not? Perhaps we need to pay some reparations in respect of the injustice? It would only be right? Our UK grew fat on the back of slavery. You only have to go to certain Caithness graveyards to see that there a strong connection with 18th century West Indies.

[cptdodger]

Maybe little is heard about clearances in Caithness because we don't hold a grudge.

I have to disagree, I got it chapter and verse when I moved to Caithness, as I said before, because I mentioned in passing I was going to Dunrobin Castle.

[pinotnoir]

Can I ask where you got the information on as regards the Caithness Clearances as I would really like to read up on this aspect of highland local history that I knew very little about : is there anything on line or a book available ?

There are two books for sale in Caithness Horizons one an encyclopedia which you will get lost in researching further. I found this article- available online- very evocative too...

The Crofters’ Party - 1885 to 1892
The first British independent common people’s political party

D.W.Crowley

Scottish Historical Review, Volume 35, 1956

[rob murray]

There are two books for sale in Caithness Horizons one an encyclopedia which you will get lost in researching further. I found this article- available online- very evocative too...

The Crofters’ Party - 1885 to 1892
The first British independent common people’s political party

D.W.Crowley

Scottish Historical Review, Volume 35, 1956

Thanks very much will look forward to tracking the info down.

[rob murray]

Maybe little is heard about clearances in Caithness because we don't hold a grudge.

I would suggest that the Caithness clearances were over shadowed by the infamous and world reknown Sutherland clearances, hence has faded into the mists of time,not many people therefore knew of the extent of the Caithness clearances Ive never seen any books published on the issue, from a historical viewpoint Im just interested, as whats past is past, but I find it personally ( and speaking personally ) a fascinating era of Highland history

[sids]

I have to disagree, I got it chapter and verse when I moved to Caithness, as I said before, because I mentioned in passing I was going to Dunrobin Castle.

You must have mentioned it to some ill-mannered hothead.

Lots of Caithness people visit Dunrobin.

[cptdodger]

You must have mentioned it to some ill-mannered hothead.

Lots of Caithness people visit Dunrobin.

No, generally she was very nice, I worked with her, and we were dealing with the general public. But that was my first impression of how people here felt about the Clearances, and I have to say, it was'nt just her that felt that way, as I was asking other people to try and find out about the Clearances. And that was the impression I was left with, these people hold a grudge. This is from 2011, but I am sure I have read about more recent incidents - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...lands-15924649