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Ruined croft houses on Fuaigh Mòr in Loch Roag. The island was cleared of its inhabitants in 1841 and is now only used for grazing sheep.

The Highland Clearances (Scottish Gaelic: Fuadach nan Gàidheal, the "expulsion of the Gael") was the forced displacement of a significant number of people in the Scottish Highlands during the 18th and 19th centuries, as a result of an agricultural revolution, that resulted in enclosures, largely carried out by hereditary aristocratic landowners.

The changes were seen to be supported by the government, which gave financial aid for roads and bridges to assist the new sheep-based agriculture and trade.^[1]

There was large-scale forced migration to the sea coast, the Scottish Lowlands and further afield to North America, Australia and New Zealand. The clearances were particularly notorious as a result of the short notice, the lack of legal protection for year-by-year tenants under Scots law, the abruptness of the change from the traditional clan system, and the brutality of many evictions.

Background

The enclosures in rural England in the British Agricultural Revolution started much earlier, during the Tudor period, and similar developments in Scotland have lately been called the Lowland Clearances by historians such as Tom Devine.^[2] But in the Highlands the impact on a Goidelic (Scottish Gaelic)-speaking semi-feudal culture that included the fulfilment of obligations of a chief to his clan, led to vocal campaigning and a lingering bitterness among the descendants of those forced to emigrate or to remain in crofting townships on very small areas of poor farming land. Crofters became a source of virtually free labour to their landlords, being forced to work long hours in activities such as harvesting and processing of kelp, an activity that reached its peak in the West Highlands between 1750 and 1815.^[3]

From the late 16th century, laws required clan leaders to appear in Edinburgh regularly to provide bonds for the conduct of anyone in their territory. This created a tendency among chiefs to see themselves as landlords. The lesser clan-gentry increasingly took up droving, taking cattle along the old unpaved drove roads to sell in the Lowlands. This brought wealth and land ownership within the clan, though the Highlands continued to be overpopulated and poor.^{[citation needed]}

The Jacobite Risings brought repeated British government efforts to curb the clans, culminating after the 1746 Battle of Culloden with brutal repression. The Act of Proscription of 1746 incorporating the Dress Act required all swords to be surrendered to the government and prohibited the wearing of tartans and kilts. The Tenures Abolition Act 1660 ended the feudal bond of military service, and the Heritable Jurisdictions Act removed the virtually sovereign power the chiefs held over their clan. The extent of enforcement of the prohibitions varied and related to a clan's support of the government during the rebellion, but overall led to the destruction of the traditional clan system and of the supportive social structures of small agricultural townships.^{[citation needed]}

From about 1725, in the aftermath of the first Jacobite Rising, Highlanders had begun emigrating to the Americas in increasing numbers. The Disarming Act of 1746 and the Clan Act made ineffectual attempts to subdue the Scottish Highlands, and eventually troops were sent in. Government garrisons were built or extended in the Great Glen at Fort William, Kiliwhimin (later renamed Fort Augustus) and Fort George, Inverness, as well as barracks at Ruthven, Bernera and Inversnaid, linked to the south by the "Wade roads" (constructed for Major-General George Wade). These had the effect of limiting organisational travel^{[clarification needed]} and choking off news^{[citation needed]}; and further isolated the clans. Nevertheless, conditions remained unsettled for the whole decade.^{[citation needed]}

"Improvements"

What became known as the Clearances were regarded by the landlords as necessary improvements. They are thought to have been begun by Admiral John Ross of Balnagowan Castle in 1762. MacLeod of MacLeod (the chief of MacLeod) began experimental work on Skye in 1732. Chiefs engaged Lowland, or sometimes English, factors with expertise in more profitable sheep farming, and they "encouraged", sometimes forcibly, the population to move off suitable land.

To landlords, "improvement" and "clearance" did not necessarily mean depopulation. At least until the 1820s, when there were steep falls in the price of kelp, landlords wanted to create pools of cheap or virtually free labour, supplied by families subsisting in new crofting townships. Kelp collection and processing was a very profitable way of using this labour, and landlords petitioned successfully for legislation designed to stop emigration, leading to the Passenger Vessels Act 1803. Attitudes changed during the 1820s and, for many landlords, the potato famine which began in 1846 became another reason for encouraging or forcing emigration and depopulation.

Year of the Sheep

Another wave of mass emigration came in 1792, known to Gaelic speaking Highlanders as the Bliadhna nan Caorach ("Year of the Sheep").^[4] The people were accommodated in poor crofts or small farms in coastal areas where farming could not sustain the population, and they were expected to take up fishing. In the village of Badbea in Caithness the conditions were so harsh that, while the women worked, they had to tether their livestock and even their children to rocks or posts to prevent them being blown over the cliffs.^[5]

Others were put directly onto emigration ships to Nova Scotia (Antigonish and Pictou counties and later Cape Breton), the Glengarry and Kingston areas of Ontario and the Carolinas of the American colonies.

There may have been a religious element in these forced removals: many Highlanders were Roman Catholic. This is reflected by the majority representation of Catholics in areas of Nova Scotia, such as in the town of Antigonish and the island of Cape Breton.

However almost all of the many Highland settlers in the Cape Fear region of North Carolina were Presbyterian. (This is evidenced today by the Presbyterian congregations and adherents in the region.) But "not all Highland Scots remained in North Carolina. After the Revolution, some left for Barbados, Nova Scotia, or Great Britain, because they had lost their property by either being confiscated or amerced by the local government." ^[6]

In 1792 tenant farmers from Strathrusdale led a protest by driving over 6,000 sheep off the land surrounding Ardross. This action, commonly referred to as the "Ross-shire Sheep Riot", was dealt with at the highest levels in government, with the Home Secretary Henry Dundas getting involved. The Black Watch was mobilised; it halted the drive and brought the ringleaders to trial. They were found guilty, but later escaped custody and disappeared.^[7]

Second phase of the Clearances

Ormaig was once the principal settlement on the Isle of Ulva near Mull. It had been inhabited since prehistoric times, until it was cleared by Francis William Clark in the mid 19th century.

It was only in the early 19th century that the second, more brutal phase of the Clearances began; this was well before the visit by George IV in 1822, when Lowlanders set aside their previous distrust and hatred of the Highlanders and identified with them as national symbols. However, the cumulative effect of the Clearances devastated the cultural landscape of Scotland in a way that did not happen in other areas of Britain.

In 1807 Elizabeth Gordon, 19th Countess of Sutherland, touring her inheritance with her husband Lord Stafford (later Duke of Sutherland), wrote that "he is seized as much as I am with the rage of improvements, and we both turn our attention with the greatest of energy to turnips". As well as turning land over to sheep farming, Stafford planned to invest in creating a coal-pit, salt pans, brick and tile works and herring fisheries. That year his agents began the evictions, and 90 families were forced to leave their crops in the ground and move their cattle, furniture and timbers to the land they were offered 20 miles (32 km) away on the coast, living in the open until they had built themselves new houses. Stafford's first Commissioner, William Young, arrived in 1809, and soon engaged Patrick Sellar as his factor, who pressed ahead with the process while acquiring sheep farming estates for himself.^[7] This plan has been described as a "typical example... of social engineering which met neither the hopes of the benefactors nor the needs of the beneficiaries, but produced social disaster."^[8]

The Sutherlands were responsible for brutal clearances between 1811 and 1820.^[9]^[10] Evictions of 2,000 families in one day were not uncommon. Many starved and froze to death where their homes had once been. The Duchess of Sutherland, on seeing the starving tenants on her husband's estate, remarked in a letter to a friend in England, "Scotch people are of happier constitution and do not fatten like the larger breed of animals." Sellar threw people out in person if they showed any reluctance to go, and burned down their crofts to make sure they never came back. Two old people Sellar evicted were too ill to go far. He left them exposed to the chill northern air and they died. He was acquitted on a charge of manslaughter, but the Duchess wrote: "The more I hear and see of Sellar the more I am convinced that he is not to be trusted more than he is at present. He is so exceedingly greedy and harsh with the people, there are very heavy complaints against him from Strathnaver." In due course Sellar was dismissed from his post.^[8]

Elsewhere, the flamboyant Alexander Ranaldson MacDonell of Glengarry portrayed himself as the last genuine specimen of the true Highland chief while his tenants were subjected to a relentless process of eviction.^[7]

Account by Donald McLeod

Donald McLeod, a Sutherland crofter, wrote about the events he witnessed:

The consternation and confusion were extreme. Little or no time was given for the removal of persons or property; the people striving to remove the sick and the helpless before the fire should reach them; next, struggling to save the most valuable of their effects. The cries of the women and children, the roaring of the affrighted cattle, hunted at the same time by the yelling dogs of the shepherds amid the smoke and fire, altogether presented a scene that completely baffles description — it required to be seen to be believed. A dense cloud of smoke enveloped the whole country by day, and even extended far out to sea. At night an awfully grand but terrific scene presented itself — all the houses in an extensive district in flames at once. I myself ascended a height about eleven o'clock in the evening, and counted two hundred and fifty blazing houses, many of the owners of which I personally knew, but whose present condition — whether in or out of the flames — I could not tell. The conflagration lasted six days, till the whole of the dwellings were reduced to ashes or smoking ruins. During one of these days a boat actually lost her way in the dense smoke as she approached the shore, but at night was enabled to reach a landing-place by the lurid light of the flames.^[11]

Accounts like those of McLeod and General David Stewart of Garth brought widespread condemnation.

Potato famine

As in Ireland, the potato crop failed in the mid 19th century, and a widespread outbreak of cholera further weakened the Highland population. The ongoing clearance policy resulted in starvation, deaths, and a secondary clearance, when families either migrated voluntarily or were forcibly evicted. There were many deaths of children and old people. As there were few alternatives, people emigrated, joined the British army, or moved to growing urban centres such as Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dundee in Lowland Scotland and Newcastle upon Tyne and Liverpool in the north of England. In places some people were given economic incentives to move, but in many instances landlords used violent methods.

The Clearances also resulted in significant emigration of Highlanders to North America and Australasia — where today are found considerably more descendants of Highlanders than in Scotland itself.^[12]

One estimate for Cape Breton, Nova Scotia has 25,000 Gaelic-speaking Scots arriving as immigrants between 1775 and 1850. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were an estimated 100,000 Gaelic speakers in Cape Breton, but because of economic migration to English-speaking areas and the lack of Gaelic education in the Nova Scotian school system, the numbers of Gaelic speakers fell dramatically. By the beginning of the 21st century, the number of native Gaelic speakers had fallen to well below 1,000.^[13]

A major destination for these emigrants in the 18th century and early 19th century was Glengarry County, an original settlement for Highland Scots in what is now eastern Ontario. Gaelic was the native tongue of the settlement, in which thousands of people spoke the language throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. However the number of native speakers has since decreased, with English and French migration throughout the county. In respect for their ancestors' Scottish culture, the county hosts the annual Glengarry Highland Games, one of the biggest Highland Games gatherings of its kind outside Scotland.

Aspects of the Clearances

A Highland Clearance has been defined as “an enforced simultaneous eviction of all families living in a given area such as an entire glen”. ^[14] The Highland Clearances were a complex series of such events occurring over a period of more than a hundred years. It is difficult to make generalizations about the period without oversimplifying. Eric Richards, for example, who has written extensively on the subject for over 40 years, ^[15] ^[16] ^[17] ^[18] has chosen to conclude his most recent book on the subject ^[19] with a chapter entitled “Answers and Questions”, rather than trying to wrap things neatly up with such generalizations. This section follows that example with a number of subsections on various aspects of the Clearances.

Economics

In 1851, following his tour of the Western Highlands and Isles, Sir John McNeill wrote:

The inhabitants of these distressed districts have neither capital enough to cultivate the extent of the land necessary to maintain them if it could be provided, nor have they land enough were the capital supplied to them. ^[20]

Richards ^[21] considers this observation to be “the central dilemma of the crofter economy”. There were more people than the land could support.

Yet a century earlier, before the beginning of The Clearances, there were examples of clan chiefs responding to these emerging problems before Culloden. Michael Lynch notes that:

If there was a clash within the [ Jacobites and Hanoverians who fought at Culloden ] between a supposedly backward-looking Highland society and a 'progressive', capitalist Lowland economy, it was not a clear-cut one. Cameron of Lochiel, who fought for Charles, was as much a representative of a new capitalist attitude to Highland estate management as was the house of Argyll, ever the mainstay of support for the Hanoverian regime. ^[22]

Karl Marx was living in London during the peak of the national controversy over the Highland Clearances. In Das Kapital he described them as

The spoliation of the church's property, the fraudulent alienation of the State domains, the robbery of the common lands, the usurpation of feudal and clan property, and its transformation into modern private property under circumstances of reckless terrorism ^[23]

Clan land had become the private property of individual landlords. Nevertheless many of those landlords also struggled against harsh economic realities. Quoting Richards again:

Much of the drama and tragedy of the Highlands is told in the negotiations between financially-racked landlords and their creditors, agents and trustees...The best of intentions were never enough amid the more populous and improvement-driven world of the mid-century Highlands. ^[24]

More notorious are the examples of landlords exploiting changing economic circumstances to their financial advantage by clearing uneconomical tenants from their land to make room for more profitable uses such as sheep, deer forests or tourism. Two of the best documented such clearances are those from the land of the Duchess of Sutherland carried out by her factor Patrick Sellar ^[25] and the Glencalvie clearances which were witnessed and documented by a London Times reporter. ^[26] ^[27] ^[28]

Race

There was a racial element behind some clearances based on a belief by some that the Celt was racially inferior to the Anglo Saxon.^[29] George Combe's popular and influential The Constitution of Man, published in 1828, provided a framework which would be used by some to support theories of racial superiority. In 1850 Robert Knox published “The Races of Men” which asserted the inferiority of the Celt compared to the Anglo Saxon and Nordic races.

The view that the economic failures of the Highlands were due to the shortcomings of the Celtic race was shared and expressed by the two most important Scottish newspapers, The Scotsman and the Glasgow Herald – and even the more northerly Inverness Courier.^[29]

In 1851 The Scotsman wrote that

“Collective emigration is, therefore, the removal of a diseased and damaged part of our population. It is a relief to the rest of the population to be rid of this part.”^[30]

Similar views were held by senior public officials. Sir Charles Trevelyan was cofounder with Sir John McNeill of the Highland and Island Emigration Society. In a letter to McNeill in 1852 he wrote that

“A national effort” would now be necessary in order to rid the land of “the surviving Irish and Scotch Celts”. The exodus would then allow for the settlement of a racially superior people of Teutonic stock. He welcomed “the prospects of flights of Germans settling here in increasing numbers – an orderly, moral, industrious and frugal people, less foreign to us than the Irish or Scotch Celt, a congenial element which will readily assimilate with our body politic.”^[31]

(The "flights of Germans" in the above quotation may relate to significant emigration from Germany in the years that followed the failure of the German March Revolution of 1848)

Religion

While the landlords responsible for the Highland Clearances do not seem to have targeted people for ethnic or religious reasons,^[32] anti-Catholic feeling may have supported the Clearances, which may have affected the Catholic population selectively.

Roman Catholicism

By the late 1700s Roman Catholicism was illegal, identified with Jacobitism, and unacceptable in higher society; its adherents are difficult to estimate but were a definite minority of the Scottish population, though a majority in some parts of the Western Highlands. In 1755 it was estimated that there were some 16,500 communicants, mainly in the north and west.^[33] In 1764, "the total Catholic population in Scotland would have been about 33,000 or 2.6% of the total population. Of these 23,000 were in the Highlands".^[34] Another estimate for 1764 is of 13,166 Catholics in the Highlands, perhaps a quarter of whom had emigrated by 1790.^[35]

Large numbers of Catholics emigrated from the Western Highlands in the period 1770 to 1810 and there is evidence that anti Catholic sentiment (along with famine, poverty and rising rents) was a contributory factor in that period.^[36]^[37]^[38]^[39]^[40]^[41]^[42]^[43]^[44] The Catholic Bishop Alexander Macdonnell enabled a disbanded army regiment to settle, with their families, in Ontario, Canada.^[45]

Land reform

The Highland Land League eventually achieved land reform in the enactment of Crofting Acts, but these could not bring economic viability and came too late at a time when the land was already suffering from depopulation.

Memorials to the Clearances

The Highland Clearances are still remembered especially in the areas affected by the forced emigration and hardship endured by the peoples of the Highlands and their descendants across the world.^{[citation needed]}

Scotland

On 23 July 2007, the Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond unveiled a 10 ft-high bronze "Exiles" statue in Helmsdale, Sutherland, which commemorates the people who were cleared from the area by landowners and left their homeland to begin new lives overseas. The statue, which depicts a family leaving their home, stands at the mouth of the Strath of Kildonan and was funded by Dennis Macleod, a Scottish-Canadian mining millionaire who also attended the ceremony.^[46]

Canada

An identical 10 ft-high bronze "Exiles" statue has also been set up on the banks of the Red River in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.^[47]

References

^ Prebble, John (1963) The Highland Clearances, Penguin Books, London pp. 60-61
^ Houston, Robert, Allan Whyte, Ian D., Scottish Society, 1500-1800, Cambridge University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-521-89167-1, pp. 148-151.
^ Richards, Eric (1982). A History of the Highland Clearances: Agrarian Transformation and the Evictions, 1746-1886. London: Croom Helm. p. 132. ISBN 085664496X.
^ http://unionsong.com/u401.html
^ Campbell, James (1984). Invisible Country: A Journey through Scotland. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. p. 81. ISBN 0-297-78371-8.
^ North Carolina History Project
^ ^a ^b ^c The Highland Clearances, John Prebble, Penguin Books, 1963, ISBN 0-14-002837-4.
^ ^a ^b Michael Fry. Clearances? What Clearances? Scottish Review of Books. Volume 1 Issue 2 2005. Published on Wednesday, 28 October 2009 09:36 http://www.scottishreviewofbooks.org/index.php/back-issues/volume-1/volume-one-issue-two/158-clearances-michael-fry accessed 22nd January 2014
^ "George Granville Leveson-Gower (1st Duke of Sutherland)". Gazetteer for Scotland. Retrieved 2008-02-01.
^ Noble, Ross "The Cultural Impact of the Highland Clearances" BBC History. Retrieved 7 July 2008.
^ "Highland Clearances by Janet Mackay".
^ "Scotland's DNA: Tartan export". The Scotsman. 3 March 2011. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
^ MacNeil, Hector. "Our Living Celtic Culture".
^ Watson, A. and Allan, E., ‘Depopulation by clearances and non-enforced emigration in the north-east Highlands’, Northern Scotland 10 (1990), Edinburgh University Press, http://www.euppublishing.com/journal/nor
^ Richards, Eric & Clough, Monica. Cromartie: Highland Life 1650-1914. Aberdeen University Press, 1989.
^ Richards, Eric (2000). Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 1902930134.
^ Richards, Eric (1982). A History of the Highland Clearances: Agrarian Transformation and the Evictions, 1746-1886. London: Croom Helm. ISBN 085664496X.
^ Richards, Eric (1985). A History of the Highland Clearances: Vol 2, Emigration, Protest, Reasons.
^ Richards, Eric (2008). The Highland Clearances: People, Landlords and Rural Turmoil. Edinburgh: Birlinn Ltd.
^ Day, J.P. (1918), Public Administration in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, London{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ Richards, Eric (2008). "Chapter 18, Section VI - The Act". The Highland Clearances: People, Landlords and Rural Turmoil. Edinburgh: Birlinn Ltd.
^ Lynch, Michael (1992). "Chapter 19, The Forty-Five and its aftermath". Scotland: A New History. London: Pimlico Ltd.
^ Marx, Karl, "Chapter 27: Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land", Das Kapital
^ Richards, Eric (2008). "Chapter 19, Section III - The landlords". The Highland Clearances: People, Landlords and Rural Turmoil. Edinburgh: Birlinn Ltd.
^ Richards, Eric (1999), Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances, Polygon at Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 978-1902930138
^ "London Times of Tuesday, May 20, 1845".
^ "London Times of Monday, June 2, 1845".
^ "London Times of Thursday, October 22, 1846".
^ ^a ^b Devine, Tom (2011). "Chapter 5, Human Selection and Enforced Exile, Section 2". To the Ends of the Earth: Scotland's Global Diaspora, 1750-2010. Smithsonian Books. ISBN 1588343170.
^ The Scotsman. 26 July 1851. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
^ Trevelyan, Charles (14 August 1852 and 30 June 1852), "Letterbook of Highland and Island Emigration Society (2)", National Archives of Scotland, vol. HD4/2 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ G. Dawson and S. Farber, Forcible Displacement Throughout the Ages: Towards an International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Forcible Displacement (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012), ISBN 9004220542, p. 31.
^ J. D. Mackie, B. Lenman and G. Parker, A History of Scotland (London: Penguin, 1991), ISBN 0140136495, pp. 298-9.
^ Toomey, Kathleen (1991) Emigration from the Scottish Catholic bounds 1770-1810 and the role of the clergy, PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6795, Chapter 1.
^ Lynch, Michael,Scotland, A New History, (Pimlico: London, 1992) p. 367.
^ Richards, Eric (2008). "Chapter 4, Section VI: Emigration". The Highland Clearances: People, Landlords and Rural Turmoil. Edinburgh: Birlinn Ltd. p. 81.
^ Toomey, Kathleen (1991) Emigration from the Scottish Catholic bounds 1770-1810 and the role of the clergy, PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh.
^ Prebble, John (1961) Culloden, Pimlico, London pp. 49-51, 325-326.
^ "Appreciation: John Prebble'". The Guardian. 9 February 2001. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
^ "The Cultural Impact of the Highland Clearances". Noble, Ross BBC History. 7 July 2008. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
^ "Toiling in the Vale of Tears: Everyday life and Resistance in South Uist, Outer Hebrides, 1760-1860". International Journal of Historical Archaeology. June 1999. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)JSTOR 20852924
^ Prebble, John (1969) The Highland Clearances, Penguin, London p. 137.
^ Kelly, Bernard William (1905) The Fate of Glengarry: or, The Expatriation of the Macdonells, an historico-biographical study, James Duffy & Co. Ltd, Dublin pp. 6-11, 18-31, 43-45.
^ Rea, J.E. (1974) Bishop Alexander MacDonell and The Politics of Upper Canada, Ontario Historical Society, Toronto pp. 2-7, 9-10.
^ Kelly, Bernard William (1905) The Fate of Glengarry: or, The Expatriation of the Macdonells, an historico-biographical study, James Duffy & Co. Ltd, Dublin
^ "Memorial statue marks clearances " BBC. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
^ "Worldwide plan for Clearances memorials". The Scotsman. 2007-07-07. Retrieved 2008-10-05.

External links

Narratives in a Landscape: Monuments and Memories of the Sutherland Clearances dissertation on the landscape of the Clearances
Highland Clearances by Janet Mackay
The Tragic Highland Clearances, a history
Abandoned communities - the clearance of Strathnaver 1814-1819
The Cultural Impact of the Highland Clearances, a BBC History article by Ross Noble
The Highland Clearances. Article by Thomas Devine, published in Refresh 4, Spring 1987.
The impact of the Highland Clearances on one Mull family and their aftermath - a linear case study. http://www.blackshouse.demon.co.uk/knockan.htm
Badbea Descendants Website
Clanship, Duthchas & Culloden: The Prelude to Clearance

@@ Line 173: / Line 173: @@
 {{See also|Religion in Scotland|Scottish religion in the eighteenth century|History of religion in Scotland}}
+While the landlords responsible for the [[Highland Clearances]] do not seem to have targeted people for ethnic or religious reasons,<ref>G. Dawson and S. Farber, ''Forcible Displacement Throughout the Ages: Towards an International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Forcible Displacement'' (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012), ISBN 9004220542, p. 31.</ref> anti-Catholic feeling may have supported the Clearances, which may have affected the Catholic population selectively.
 ====Roman Catholicism====
 {{See also|Roman Catholicism in Scotland}}
+By the late 1700s Roman Catholicism was illegal, identified with [[Jacobitism]], and unacceptable in higher society; its adherents are difficult to estimate but were a definite minority of the Scottish population, though a majority in some parts of the Western Highlands. In 1755 it was estimated that there were some 16,500 communicants, mainly in the north and west.<ref name=Mackieetal1991pp298-9>J. D. Mackie, B. Lenman and G. Parker, ''A History of Scotland'' (London: Penguin, 1991), ISBN 0140136495, pp. 298-9.</ref> In 1764, "the total Catholic population in Scotland would have been about 33,000 or 2.6% of the total population. Of these 23,000 were in the Highlands".<ref>Toomey, Kathleen (1991) ''Emigration from the Scottish Catholic bounds 1770-1810 and the role of the clergy'', PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6795, Chapter 1.</ref> Another estimate for 1764 is of 13,166 Catholics in the Highlands, perhaps a quarter of whom had emigrated by 1790.<ref> Lynch, Michael,''Scotland, A New History'', (Pimlico: London, 1992) p. 367.</ref>
+Large numbers of Catholics emigrated from the Western Highlands in the period 1770 to 1810 and there is evidence that anti Catholic sentiment (along with famine, poverty and rising rents) was a contributory factor in that period.<ref>
-=====Background=====
+{{cite book|last=Richards|first=Eric|year=2008|title=The Highland Clearances: People, Landlords and Rural Turmoil|publisher=Birlinn Ltd|location=Edinburgh|chapter=Chapter 4, Section VI: Emigration|page=81}}</ref><ref>Toomey, Kathleen (1991) [http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6795 ''Emigration from the Scottish Catholic bounds 1770-1810 and the role of the clergy''], PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh.</ref><ref>Prebble, John (1961) ''Culloden'', Pimlico, London pp. 49-51, 325-326.</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Appreciation: John Prebble' |url=http://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/feb/09/guardianobituaries |newspaper=The Guardian|date=9 February 2001 |accessdate=5 February 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=The Cultural Impact of the Highland Clearances |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/scotland_clearances_01.shtml |newspaper=Noble, Ross BBC History |date=7 July 2008 |accessdate=5 February 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Toiling in the Vale of Tears: Everyday life and Resistance in South Uist, Outer Hebrides, 1760-1860 |newspaper=International Journal of Historical Archaeology |date=June 1999 |accessdate=7 February 2014}}{{jstor|20852924}}</ref><ref>Prebble, John (1969) ''The Highland Clearances'', Penguin, London p. 137.</ref><ref>Kelly, Bernard William (1905) ''The Fate of Glengarry: or, The Expatriation of the Macdonells, an historico-biographical study'', James Duffy & Co. Ltd, Dublin pp. 6-11, 18-31, 43-45.</ref><ref>Rea, J.E. (1974) ''Bishop Alexander MacDonell and The Politics of Upper Canada'', Ontario Historical Society, Toronto pp. 2-7, 9-10.</ref> The Catholic Bishop [[Alexander Macdonell (bishop)|Alexander Macdonnell]] enabled a disbanded army regiment to settle, with their families, in Ontario, Canada.<ref>Kelly, Bernard William (1905) ''The Fate of Glengarry: or, The Expatriation of the Macdonells, an historico-biographical study'', James Duffy & Co. Ltd, Dublin</ref>
-Following [[Scottish Reformation|The Scottish Reformation]], practicing [[Roman Catholicism]] was illegal under the Scottish Penal Laws, and severe restraint put on any member of the Roman Catholic Church from participating in civil society. Notwithstanding, especially in The Highlands, Roman Catholics were proving a continual problem for the civil authorities' implementation of the Reformation settlement.
-Prominently, at the [[Battle of Culloden|The Battle of Culloden]], Roman Catholic Highland clans, and those clans with a tolerant policy on private conscience (including those with Protestant chiefs), fought on the side of [[Jacobitism|the Jacobites]] against the pro-Reformation-settlement [[House of Hanover|Hanoverians]]. By the end of The Clearances, commencing shortly after, Roman Catholicism would no longer be the dominant religion in the Highlands.<ref>[[Religion in Scotland]]</ref>
-=====Pre-Early Catholic Emancipation=====
-After [[Scottish Reformation|The Reformation]], Roman Catholicism's illegal status had a devastating impact on The Church's fortunes, although a significant congregation did continue to adhere in the Gaelic-speaking areas of the Highlands and Islands amongst other places. Numbers probably reduced in the seventeenth century and organisation had deteriorated.<ref name=Koch2006p416-7>J. T. Koch, ''Celtic Culture: a Historical Encyclopedia, Volumes 1-5'' (London: ABC-CLIO, 2006), ISBN 85109-440-7, pp. 416-7.</ref> In the 1960s popular historian John Prebble's stated that Roman Catholicism flourished "[w]here there were deep glens, protected by the broadsword or the earth itself".<ref name=Prebble1961p50>John Prebble, ''Culloden'', (Pimlico: London, 1961), p. 50.</ref>
-The Pope appointed [[Thomas Joseph Nicolson|Thomas Nicolson]] as the first [[Vicar Apostolic]] over the Scottish Mission in 1694,<ref name="Lynch1992p365">M. Lynch, ''Scotland: A New History'' (London: Pimlico, 1992), ISBN 0712698930, p. 365.</ref> the first recognisable Vatican missionary appointment since [[John Ogilvie (saint)|John Ogilvie]] 79 years earlier. The country was organised into districts and by 1703 there were thirty-three Catholic clergy. Further government legislation against practicing Roman Catholics was put in place after the Jacobite rebellions, and Catholicism was reduced to little more than a poorly-run mission.<ref name=Koch2006p416-7/> In 1733 it was divided into two vicariates, one for the Highlands and one for the Lowlands, each under a bishop. Clergy entered the country secretly and although services were illegal they were maintained.
-Despite being illegal, the Roman Catholic seminary of [[Scalan]], in [[Glenlivet]], was the preliminary centre of education for Catholic priests in the area; though it was burnt to the ground on several occasions by soldiers sent from beyond The Highlands.<ref>Prebble, John (1961) ''Culloden'', Pimlico, London p. 50</ref>  Beyond Scalan, there were [[Lismore Seminary#Preceding seminaries|six attempts]] to found a seminary in the Highlands between 1732 and 1838, all suffering financially under the Penal Laws and the ongoing Clearances.<ref name="Lynch1992p365"/>
-At the initiation of The Clearances, in The Highlands and [[Aberdeenshire]]<ref>Kelly, Bernard William (1905) ''The Fate of Glengarry: or, The Expatriation of the Macdonells, an historico-biographical study'', James Duffy & Co. Ltd, Dublin p. 20</ref> Roman Catholicism was (from the various estimates) the religion of about 10 to 15% of the population.<ref name="Lynch, Michael 1992 p. 367">Lynch, Michael,''Scotland, A New History'', (Pimlico: London, 1992) p. 367.</ref> In 1755 it was estimated that there were only 16,500 communicants, mainly in the north and west, although the number is probably an underestimate.<ref name=Mackieetal1991pp298-9>J. D. Mackie, B. Lenman and G. Parker, ''A History of Scotland'' (London: Penguin, 1991), ISBN 0140136495, pp. 298-9.</ref> Another source, based on contemporary records, estimates that in 1764, "the total Catholic population in Scotland would have been about 33,000 or 2.6% of the total population. Of these 23,000 were in the Highlands".<ref>Toomey, Kathleen (1991) ''Emigration from the Scottish Catholic bounds 1770-1810 and the role of the clergy'', PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6795, Chapter 1.</ref> Further to this, Michael Lynch states, '[i]n 1764, it had been estimated that there were 13,166 Catholics in the Highlands; perhaps a quarter of them had emigrated by 1790.'<ref name="Lynch, Michael 1992 p. 367"/>
-=====Following the “Relief Act“ of 1791=====
-There is evidence of anti-Catholicism in the thoughts of some who were responsible for the clearances.<ref>Prebble, John (1961) ''Culloden'', Pimlico, London pp. 49-51, 325-326.</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Appreciation: John Prebble' |url=http://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/feb/09/guardianobituaries |newspaper=The Guardian|date=9 February 2001 |accessdate=5 February 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=The Cultural Impact of the Highland Clearances |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/scotland_clearances_01.shtml |newspaper=Noble, Ross BBC History |date=7 July 2008 |accessdate=5 February 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Toiling in the Vale of Tears: Everyday life and Resistance in South Uist, Outer Hebrides, 1760-1860 |newspaper=International Journal of Historical Archaeology |date=June 1999 |accessdate=7 February 2014}}{{jstor|20852924}}</ref><ref>Prebble, John (1969) ''The Highland Clearances'', Penguin, London p. 137.</ref><ref>Kelly, Bernard William (1905) ''The Fate of Glengarry: or, The Expatriation of the Macdonells, an historico-biographical study'', James Duffy & Co. Ltd, Dublin pp. 6-11, 18-31, 43-45.</ref><ref>Rea, J.E. (1974) ''Bishop Alexander MacDonell and The Politics of Upper Canada'', Ontario Historical Society, Toronto pp. 2-7, 9-10.</ref> However, Grant Dawson and Sonia Farber note that "although the landlords did not target people for ethnic or religious reasons, the effect of the Clearances was to destroy much of the Gaelic culture, which was dispersed along with the people that fled.<ref>G. Dawson and S. Farber, ''Forcible Displacement Throughout the Ages: Towards an International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Forcible Displacement'' (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012), ISBN 9004220542, p. 31.</ref>
-Whether or not there was tacit approval from the then Edinburgh establishment, the Catholic diaspora of The Highlands either made settlements en masse in places like [[Nova Scotia]], or over a much wider dispersion throughout what would become [[The Commonwealth]].
-In particular, large numbers of Catholics emigrated from the Western Highlands in the period 1770 to 1810 and there is evidence that anti Catholic sentiment (along with famine, poverty and rising rents) was a contributory factor in that period.<ref>
-{{cite book|last=Richards|first=Eric|year=2008|title=The Highland Clearances: People, Landlords and Rural Turmoil|publisher=Birlinn Ltd|location=Edinburgh|chapter=Chapter 4, Section VI: Emigration|page=81}}</ref><ref>Toomey, Kathleen (1991) [http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6795 ''Emigration from the Scottish Catholic bounds 1770-1810 and the role of the clergy''], PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh.</ref>
-Noteworthy figures in the late stages of the specifically Catholic clearances and immigration from Scotland include Bishop [[Alexander Macdonell (bishop)|Alexander Macdonnell]], who, against the odds, made possible a settlement in Ontario, Canada, of an army regiment, and their families, after its disbandment.<ref>Kelly, Bernard William (1905) ''The Fate of Glengarry: or, The Expatriation of the Macdonells, an historico-biographical study'', James Duffy & Co. Ltd, Dublin</ref><ref>Rea, J.E. (1974) ''Bishop Alexander MacDonell and The Politics of Upper Canada'', Ontario Historical Society, Toronto</ref>
 ==Land reform==

v t e Scottish clans
List of Scottish clans
Clans with chiefs	Agnew Anstruther Arbuthnott Arthur Bannerman Barclay Borthwick Boyd Boyle Brodie Broun Bruce Buchan Buchanan Burnett Cameron Campbell Carmichael Carnegie Carruthers Cathcart Charteris Chattan Chisholm Cochrane Colquhoun Colville Cranstoun Crichton Cumming (Comyn) Cunningham Darroch Davidson Dewar Drummond Dunbar Dundas Durie Elliot Elphinstone Erskine Farquharson Fergusson Forbes Forsyth Fraser Fraser of Lovat Gordon Graham Grant Gregor Grierson Gunn Guthrie Haig Haldane Hamilton Hannay Hay Henderson Home Hope Hunter Irvine Jardine Johnstone Keith Kennedy Kerr Kincaid Lamont Leask Lennox Leslie Lindsay Livingstone Lockhart Lumsden Lyon MacAlister MacBean MacDonald Macdonald of Clanranald Macdonald of Sleat MacDonell of Glengarry MacDonald of Keppoch MacDonald of Glencoe MacDougall MacDowall MacIntyre Mackay Mackenzie Mackinnon Mackintosh Maclachlan Maclaine of Lochbuie MacLaren Maclean MacLennan MacLeod MacLeod of Lewis MacMillan Macnab Macnaghten MacNeacail MacNeil Macpherson MacTavish MacThomas Maitland Makgill Malcolm (MacCallum) Mar Marjoribanks Matheson Menzies Moffat Moncreiffe Montgomery Morrison Munro Murray Napier Nesbitt Nicolson Ogilvy Oliphant Primrose Pringle Ramsay Rattray Riddell Robertson Rollo Rose Ross Ruthven Sandilands Scott Scrymgeour Sempill Shaw Sinclair Skene Spens Stirling Strange Stuart of Bute Sutherland Swinton Trotter Urquhart Wallace Wedderburn Wemyss Wood
Armigerous clans	Abercromby Abernethy Adair Adam Aikenhead Ainslie Aiton Allardice Anderson Armstrong Arnott Auchinleck Baillie Baird Balfour Bannatyne Baxter Bell Belshes Bethune Beveridge Binning Bissett Blackadder Blackstock Blair Blane Blyth Boswell Brisbane Butter Byres Cairns Calder Caldwell Callender Campbell of Breadalbane Campbell of Cawdor Cheyne Chalmers Clelland Clephane Cockburn Congilton Craig Crawford Crosbie Dalmahoy Dalrymple Dalzell Dennistoun Don Douglas Duncan Dunlop Edmonstone Fairlie Falconer Fenton Fleming Fletcher Forrester Fotheringham Fullarton Galbraith Galloway Gardyne Gartshore Gayre Ged Gibsone Gladstains Glas Glen Glendinning Gray Haliburton Halkerston Halket Hepburn Heron Herries Hogg Hopkirk Horsburgh Houston Hutton Inglis Innes Kelly Kinloch Kinnaird Kinnear Kinninmont Kirkcaldy Kirkpatrick Laing Lammie Langlands Learmonth Little Logan Logie Lundin Lyle MacAlpin(e) MacAulay Macbrayne MacDonald of Dunnyveg MacDuff MacEwen MacFarlane Macfie MacGillivray MacInnes MacIver Mackie MacLellan MacPhail Macquarrie Macqueen Macrae Masterton Maule Maxton Maxwell MacCorquodale MacCulloch MacKerrell Meldrum Melville Mercer Middleton Moncur Monteith Monypenny Mouat Moubray Mow Muir Nairn Nevoy Newlands Newton Norvel Ochterlony Orrock Paisley Paterson Pennycook Pentland Peter Pitblado Pitcairn Pollock Polwarth Porterfield Preston Purves Rait Ralston Renton Roberton Rossie Russell Rutherford Schaw Seton Skirving Somerville Spalding Spottiswood Stewart Stewart of Appin Stirling Strachan Straiton Sydserf Symmers Tailyour Tait Tennant Troup Turnbull Tweedie Udny Vans Walkinshaw Wardlaw Watson Wauchope Weir Whitefoord Whitelaw Wishart Young
Culture and society	Scotland Lord Lyon Court of the Lord Lyon Croft Clan chief Septs Clan badge Clan crest Clan battles Tartan Bagpipes Clearances Kilt Manrent The Highlands Battle of Culloden Highland games Border reivers Lowland Scots language Scottish Gaelic language Scottish heraldry Scottish surnames Seanchaidhe Independent Highland Companies Sgian-dubh
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