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Author: Alwyn Edgar Publisher: ISBN: 9781838275037 Category : Languages : en Pages : 742
Book Description
If you go to the Scottish Highlands now, you will find many valleys almost without people. Yet we know from history and archaeology that many people lived in the Highlands for thousands of years. What happened? Between about 1740 and 1900, the Highland landlords decided to clear out the people, and establish great sheep farms instead. Five volumes will tell the story, starting with volume one - "Clans and Clearance". In Highland histories, some beliefs (though clearly at odds with the evidence) re-appear regularly, all these, and other, misapprehensions are dealt with in "Clans and Clearance" e.g- * There was an enormous Highland population increase in the century after 1750: this never happened - the highest possible increase is 37% in the years 1750-1840 - during which time food production doubled or trebled.*. Some figures in original documents are clearly inaccurate, but have been accepted by writers who feel that documents cannot lie; they claim that Highland parishes averaged 400 square miles. This is clearly wrong, and can be disproved by anyone who has an atlas and a ruler: the average was about 100 square miles. * The clearances were carried out by "the English". In reality they were carried out by the clan chiefs, after the Lowlanders and the English conquered the Highlands, following the Battle of Culloden, 1746. The British state forced the private-property system on to the Highlanders; the clan chiefs were made into landowners, who suddenly realized they could make themselves rich by driving out the clansfolk and letting the land to large farmers. * Most of the Highlanders were Catholics. In fact 96% of the Highlanders were Protestant. * The old Highlanders were "crofters". In fact the Highlanders were hunter-gatherers, with a second ample food source in their vast flocks and herds. The crofters appeared only after the clearances, when some of the evicted were kindly allowed to try growing potatoes in an acre of two of barren, waste ground. * The clan chiefs were tyrants, jailing and executing clansfolk indiscriminately. No, the chiefs had no state apparatus - police, soldiers, lawyers, courts, jails, torturers, executioners etc - so had to rule with the general approval of the clansfolk. * The Highlanders' cattle lived under the same roof as the Highlanders . No, the herds far too large; this only happened after the clearances, when Herds no longer had enough pasture for their great flocks, and therefore had very few animals left - and very little grazing, so the cow had to be housed in the same building. * The clansfolk were wildly licentious, drinking enormous quantities of whisky, while at the same time they fervently believed in a strait-laced religion. No, both these opposite convulsions appeared as extreme reactions to the social misery caused by the clearances.
Author: Alwyn Edgar Publisher: ISBN: 9781838275037 Category : Languages : en Pages : 742
Book Description
If you go to the Scottish Highlands now, you will find many valleys almost without people. Yet we know from history and archaeology that many people lived in the Highlands for thousands of years. What happened? Between about 1740 and 1900, the Highland landlords decided to clear out the people, and establish great sheep farms instead. Five volumes will tell the story, starting with volume one - "Clans and Clearance". In Highland histories, some beliefs (though clearly at odds with the evidence) re-appear regularly, all these, and other, misapprehensions are dealt with in "Clans and Clearance" e.g- * There was an enormous Highland population increase in the century after 1750: this never happened - the highest possible increase is 37% in the years 1750-1840 - during which time food production doubled or trebled.*. Some figures in original documents are clearly inaccurate, but have been accepted by writers who feel that documents cannot lie; they claim that Highland parishes averaged 400 square miles. This is clearly wrong, and can be disproved by anyone who has an atlas and a ruler: the average was about 100 square miles. * The clearances were carried out by "the English". In reality they were carried out by the clan chiefs, after the Lowlanders and the English conquered the Highlands, following the Battle of Culloden, 1746. The British state forced the private-property system on to the Highlanders; the clan chiefs were made into landowners, who suddenly realized they could make themselves rich by driving out the clansfolk and letting the land to large farmers. * Most of the Highlanders were Catholics. In fact 96% of the Highlanders were Protestant. * The old Highlanders were "crofters". In fact the Highlanders were hunter-gatherers, with a second ample food source in their vast flocks and herds. The crofters appeared only after the clearances, when some of the evicted were kindly allowed to try growing potatoes in an acre of two of barren, waste ground. * The clan chiefs were tyrants, jailing and executing clansfolk indiscriminately. No, the chiefs had no state apparatus - police, soldiers, lawyers, courts, jails, torturers, executioners etc - so had to rule with the general approval of the clansfolk. * The Highlanders' cattle lived under the same roof as the Highlanders . No, the herds far too large; this only happened after the clearances, when Herds no longer had enough pasture for their great flocks, and therefore had very few animals left - and very little grazing, so the cow had to be housed in the same building. * The clansfolk were wildly licentious, drinking enormous quantities of whisky, while at the same time they fervently believed in a strait-laced religion. No, both these opposite convulsions appeared as extreme reactions to the social misery caused by the clearances.
Author: T. M. Devine Publisher: Penguin UK ISBN: 0141985941 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 496
Book Description
'A superb book ... Anybody interested in Scottish history needs to read it' Andrew Marr, Sunday Times Eighteenth-century Scotland is famed for generating many of the enlightened ideas which helped to shape the modern world. But there was in the same period another side to the history of the nation. Many of Scotland's people were subjected to coercive and sometimes violent change, as traditional ways of life were overturned by the 'rational' exploitation of land use. The Scottish Clearances is a superb and highly original account of this sometimes terrible process, which changed the Lowland countryside forever, as it also did, more infamously, the old society of the Highlands. Based on a vast array of original sources, this pioneering book is the first to chart this tumultuous saga in one volume, with due attention to evictions and loss of land in both north and south of the Highland line. In the process, old myths are exploded and familiar assumptions undermined. With many fascinating details and the sense of an epic human story, The Scottish Clearances is an evocative memorial to all whose lives were irreparably changed in the interests of economic efficiency. This is a story of forced clearance, of the destruction of entire communities and of large-scale emigration. Some winners were able to adapt and exploit the new opportunities, but there were also others who lost everything. The clearances created the landscape of Scotland today, but it came at a huge price.
Author: Alexander Mackenzie Publisher: Mercat Press Books ISBN: Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 592
Book Description
The tragedy of the Clearances, brought about by cynical, often absentee landlords, is a black page in Scotland's history. Written while the effects it describes were still unfolding, Mackenzie's history brings the distress before the reader.
Author: John McGrath Publisher: A&C Black ISBN: 1472537327 Category : Drama Languages : en Pages : 111
Book Description
Strathoykel, Sutherland. "When the Sheriff and his men arrived, the women were on the road and the men behind the walls. The women shouted 'Better to die here than America or the Cape of Good Hope'. The first blow was struck by a woman with a stick. The gentry leant out of their saddles and beat at the women's heads with their crops." (John McGrath)
Author: Iain Crichton Smith Publisher: Birlinn ISBN: 0857907379 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 198
Book Description
The eviction of the crofters from their homes between 1792 and the 1850s was one of the cruellest episodes in Scotland's history. In this novel Iain Crichton Smith captures the impact of the Highland Clearances through the thoughts and memories of an old woman who has lived all her life within the narrow confines of her community. Alone and bewildered by the demands of the factor, Mrs Scott approaches the minister for help, only to have her faith shattered by his hypocrisy. She finds comfort, however, from a surprising source: Donald Macleod, an imaginative and self-educated man who has been ostracised by his neighbours, not least by Mrs Scott herself, on account of his atheism. Through him and through the circumstances forced upon her, the old woman achieves new strength.
Author: David Craig Publisher: ISBN: 9781841583259 Category : Crofters Languages : en Pages : 192
Book Description
The Highland Clearances is one of the most emotive episodes in Scottish history. In this book, David Craig and photographer David Paterson provide a written and visual record of around 25 of the communities throughout the Highlands and Islands that were abandoned.
Author: Kathleen Fidler Publisher: Floris Books ISBN: 1782500901 Category : Juvenile Fiction Languages : en Pages : 128
Book Description
Twins Kirsty and David Murray are forced to leave their crofting home in the north of Scotland, and struggle to cope with life in Glasgow, where the work is hard and dangerous. Then comes a chance for a new adventure on a ship bound for Canada. Will they survive the treacherous Atlantic crossing, and what will they find in the strange new land? The Desperate Journey is Kathleen Fidler's best-known story, a true Scottish classic whose thrilling plot will keep children gripped till the end.
Author: James Y. Bartlett Publisher: ISBN: 9780985253790 Category : Languages : en Pages : 458
Book Description
SCOTLAND, 1805 The clan chief wants to remove the people living in the Highland glens and straths, replacing them with thousands of black-face Cheviot sheep and a few herders. The people of the glens, who have lived there peacefully for hundreds of years, do not wish to go. That was the essential conflict of the Highland Clearances, a dark and distressing time in Scotland's history. But in the pages of Year of the Sheep, James Y. Bartlett's epic retelling of the Clearances in Sutherland in Scotland's far North, the conflict is even starker. Both the clan chief and the people fighting back were women. Elizabeth Gordon was the 19th chief of Clan Sutherland, and landlord over one million acres of Scotland. She married George Granville Levenson-Gower, termed 'the Leviathan of Wealth, ' who was far and away the richest man in Great Britain. Together, they planned and executed the systematic removal of most of the inhabitants of the interior lands and replaced them with sheepwalks. But the plan of removal ran into resistance in Glencullen, an isolated village along the River Cullen, deep in the rolling hills and mountains of Sutherland. Most of the inhabitants of the glen were women--their husbands and fathers and sons had been sent off to fight in the King's wars in Europe against Bonaparte. Left on their own and told to obey their clan's leader as they always had, the women of Glencullen instead chose to fight back. Led by their village shaman and healer, Mute Meg; organized by the schoolteacher Anna Kenton, the niece of Lady Elizabeth; and inspired by the ferocious leadership of the almost shape-shifting outlaw known as Billy Hanks, the women of Glencullen decided to make a fateful stand to defend their way of life. Based on actual events, Year of the Sheep is an epic novel that runs from the Battle of Culloden Moor through the French Revolution in Paris, and from the swanky mansions of London to the rude huts of Glencullen, fated to be set to the fire as a way of life that lasted almost a thousand years was extinguished. As in all stories about the Highland Clearances, there are no happy endings. The people of the Highland glens were removed from their crofts and farms, over a period of almost fifty years, replaced by flocks of sheep. Nevertheless, Year of the Sheep is an inspirational story of bravery, sisterhood, community and love.
Author: Alwyn Edgar
Author: Alwyn Edgar
Author: T. M. Devine
Author: Alexander Mackenzie
Author: Sarah Fraser
Author: John McGrath
Author: Keith Branigan
Author: Iain Crichton Smith
Author: David Craig
Author: Kathleen Fidler
Author: James Y. Bartlett