Talk:Highland Clearances
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"legislation was introduced which was apparently designed to destroy the way of life of the Highlanders." The legislation may have been utterly insensitive, but this sentence is not history. Wetman 08:53, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I thought the Highland clearences brought settlers to Ulster but there is no reference to this in the article.GordyB 22:12, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Feel free to put it in then, if you know something about it. : )
TonyClarke 20:44, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- A note of caution, this sounds like the early 17th century policy expanded under King James VI & 1 of the Scots Presbyterian "Plantation of Ulster". While Highland regiments served in putting down the Irish rebellion of 1798, by the time of the clearances both Scots and Irish (including Ulstermen) were being forced by famine and potato blight etc. to emigrate to the colonies and the US: I've not heard of migration to Ulster then, but if you can find a source then add it in - dave souza 00:37, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
In trying to find some dates for 1st Countess Southerland, i came across Clearance Chronology which might help to counteract the lack of any thread of time in the article. --Jerzy~t 05:14, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
Hey there, this section "it is probable that the Clearances should be considered as genocide, but from McLeod's accounts they would certainly appear to be an early instance of ethnic cleansing" should that be "... should notbe considered as genocide, but from McLeod's accounts ..." or "... should be considered as genocide, from McLeod's accounts ..." it reads a bit wierd and not sure which would be correct
[edit] Intro
I can't understand the intro section very well; it think it needs a rewrite. ike9898 00:38, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
- Hope that helps. ..dave souza, talk 10:48, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
- Yep! That is MUCH clearer. Thanks. ike9898 16:12, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Verbal Clearances
I've edited this piece to remove some of the worst solecisms; but overall it still remains akward and badly worded. One sentence read
From 1725 clansmen had been emigrating to the Americas with clan gentry looking to re-establish their lifestyle, or as victims of raids on the Hebrides looking for cheap labour. (sic)
Make of that what you will!
I've also removed the nonsensical and unhistorical reference to genocide. This debate is emotive enough without this kind of terminology. The point here is that the cleared and the clearers were largely of the same blood and race, and some of the worst outrages were perpetrated by Scots against Scots. By the mid ninteenth century the chiefs of the western Highlands may have lost all sense of identity with their tenants and clansmen, but they were of the same ethnic and cultural background nontheless.
Aside from the akward prose and misplaced terminology the author-or authors-display a very poor understanding of the process at work in the Highland Clearances. All of the chief elements are there, but in a muddle-headed way. To clarify the issues there were two stages at work:
DISPLACEMENT. The clan system remained viable for several years after the collapse of the Jacobite Rebellion, despite the efforts of the government; but the 1760s saw the beginnings of a serious decline. What had been for many decades a self-contained economy was subject more and more to external pressures. From the 1760s onwards the Great Cheviot and the Linton, new and hardier breeds of sheep, began their steady advance into the Highlands, undermining a traditional farming economy based on black cattle. Lowland sheep farmers could afford to pay higher rents than the local people. Many of the richer inland pastures were let to sheep men, but the local people tended to be displaced rather than removed altogether. The old farming communities were based on a shared use of land known as runrig. By the early ninteenth century this was giving way to crofting, small landholdings usually located in less fertile coastal areas. Those who refused to accept this set out for the New Worlds-of their own volition, it has to be stressed, and not by the will of the landlord. For the chiefs this had become a serious concern, for if they cared little for clan they had a healthy interest in profit, which was to be found in the harvesting of kelp. This demanded labour and lots of it, hence of the introduction of the Passenger Vessel Act in 1803, intended to stop the Peoples Migration.
CLEARANCE. After the introduction of this Act the Highland population increased even faster than before, helped by the cultivation of the potatoe crop in ever more marginal lands. The collapse in the price of kelp after the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars and the later spread of the potatoe blight from Ireland created a crisis in the Highland economy. It was only from this point that wholesale clearance became the favoured option.
Rcpaterson 02:16, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
"and some of the worst outrages were perpetrated by Scots against Scots. By the mid nineteenth century the chiefs of the western Highlands may have lost all sense of identity with their tenants and clansmen, but they were of the same ethnic and cultural background nonetheless." That sounds like a breathtaking oversimplification. To call a Gael and a Lowlander the same thing is pretty absurd and misleading- those were two distinct ethnicities, languages and cultures.
The argument of clansmen vs clansmen is further complicated by the fact that many of these chiefs had been educated away from their ancestral culture, had come to the title through marriage or had even bought the title. Their behaviour and attitudes were not compatible with traditional clan society. So, it's not really so simple to make the equation: surname + surname= clansman. To extend that position would to state that there was no race issue in the Holocaust because of the fact that Jews were involved in carrying out the oppression and murder.
The fact of the matter is that if the Clan chiefs had not been assimilated into or replaced by an Anglicised system, the Clearances would likely not have occurred. And if the resurgence of population was so great, why is the area still so thinly populated? Have you even been to the Highlands? The problems of Gaelic population loss are still ongoing- arguably because there isn't enough population to sustain local economies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.20.81 (talk) 16:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Genocide?
Once again I have to take issue with the use of the word 'genocide'in relation to the Highland Clearances. The form of words some might feel it should be considered as genocide merely reintroduces this whole question through the back door, hidden in a cloak of pseudo-neutrality. As a matter of urgency we need to know who these mysterious 'some' are. I my view it would not be good enough simply to make reference to the opinions of those on the outer fringes of contemporary political debate.
On a more philosophical plain there is a wider issue to be considered concerning the use-and misuse-of language. If we start throwing around words like 'genocide' without a real understanding of what this entails, they loose all power and meaning. Not even the worst of the clearers set out to kill the Highlanders, or to obliterate them as a race. Either this should be removed in the very near future, or some credible reference supplied. Rcpaterson 00:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks for the reminder. The request for a citation has been up for a few days now without response, and the point can be discussed here if someone wants to bring it up again. As well as removing the unsourced allegation I've changed the heading to the more neutral Modern condemnation of the Clearances which states what the section's about rather than introducing one particular allegation...dave souza, talk 08:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
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- It is most insae for this being called Genocide, if it was genocide ot intended genocide they would not make flame haired man move country, but would actually take big gun and kill all falme haired man, easily done and this would be genocide, not just putting on ships for new place. YESYESandmanygoals 09:06, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
"Genocide" is too strong of a word. There were no actual genocide per say, and I'm not discounting or down-playing the enormous plight on the people who had to go through these ordeals. There were, in actuality, a few deaths as a direct cause of the clearances. What you had was greedy proprietors and a lack of legislation, at that time, to protect the tenants and the sub-tenants.--Aalzaid (talk) 19:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Well I think that "ethnic cleansing" despite being a modern word certainly applies retrospectively to the Clearances. Much of the dispossession of the Gaels were a direct result of Lowland & English culture driving out Gaelic Clan culture. One ethnicity picking on the other. To argue that "they were all Scots" is incredibly naive given that they were in effect two different ethnicities (cultures and languages).
Genocide is a tough one. I don't quite know how someone can say "few" deaths. The figure will likely remain inestimable and certainly way above any recorded deaths- plus more modern attitudes of accounting for population loss need also to be considered.
I think however there is much to be pondered in the semantics of 'genocide'. To my ear, genocide implies a concerted effort to wipe out a "race". Perhaps, I'm wrong about that? We could perhaps argue some racially-motivated murder, more racially-motivated manslaughter and most prolifically also racially-motivated criminal negligence. Race was an issue for sure, the question seems more about how much of one when weighed up against the unbridled dehuamanised greed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.71.157.11 (talk) 23:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
I think the ethnic cleansing and genocide were more a feature of the Pacification of the Highlands than the Highland clearances. Not many of the general public seem to even know about the Pacification? Does it have its own wiki page? Lianachan (talk) 10:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Needs checking for neutrality and accuracy
The anon who keeps adding a link to his website and/or blatantly biased statements may have a point. "The landowners were generally kind to those evicted" is as much of a sweeping, over-simplified and possibly untrue statement as are claims of ethnic cleansing, and in general this article is embarrassingly sparse for one of the most important episodes in Scottish history. I don't know if the {{POV-check}} and {{expert}} tags will achieve anything, but if nothing else they'll alert readers to take the article critically. --Blisco 19:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
- Too true, it is a terribly biased. and ps, to say you are unbiased and I am unbiased is a view, that you ha ve no right to claim what so ever, and it is simply wrong to say so. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.131.96.31 (talk • contribs) .
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- No, its more than that. There are of course strongly differing views about the Highland Clearances, and the article should reflect that. But it is possible to represent different viewpoints without descending into highly biased language as your edits have done. Please remember that this is an encyclopedia and should always be written in a neutral tone even when presenting opposing points of view. Thanks, Gwernol 20:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The Gaelic diaspora
I've just changed the bit about Highlanders arriving in Cape Breton "in such numbers that it is now one of the few areas outside Scotland where Scottish Gaelic is spoken." The estimate I found was for 25,000 immigrants over 75 years (including my own ancestors). Also, while Gaelic is still spoken on Cape Breton Island, there are only a few hundred native speakers, most of them quite elderly. I included a reference, though this may be more about Cape Breton than the current article needs. I couldn't yet figure out how to make sense out of the "Appalachian" sentence that follows; many people in that part of the U.S. acknowledge "Scotch-Irish" roots; many others don't have a clue. These things happen in a nation of immigrants. — OtherDave 20:46, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Modern condemnation
The reference to Ross Noble; is it the stand-up comic of that name we're talking about? And what did he actually say? And is 'coruscating' really the right word? ('Excoriating' would make sense, but there's no source or quote or anything) Swanny18 12:54, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
- What he wrote is linked: it's here. And not Ross the comedian, it is "Ross Noble, curator of the Highland Folk Museum at Kingussie" I think. Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:11, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
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- Awww. For just a few seconds there I was admiring just how many strings Ross Noble had in his bow! Not just a successful stand-up comedian, but also an expert in 18th century Scottish history ... --Plumbago 14:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Many more sheep than people??
From the article - "To this day, the population in the Scottish Highlands is sparse and the culture is diluted, and there are many more sheep than people."
Although of course the population density of the Scottish Highlands is low in comparison to the rest of the UK and Europe, I am quite surprised that there would be many more sheep than people with the rapid increase in urbanisation of Inverness and surrounding areas. Does somebody have a source? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.108.153.132 (talk) 01:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC).
[edit] Glens, trees - relationship to forestry & to pasture land
Travelling through the Highlands last year, I learned that less than 1% of the natural Scottish forests (glens) have continued to exist as such. There are obviously large stretches of commercially planted forests, mostly with non-native tree species. There is much land devoted to fields for agriculture, and even much more in the way of pasture areas for sheep and cattle.
How does all this land use relate to the Clearances? I'm pretty certain there would be a relationship, and not only having to do with the conversion of fields for use as sheep pastures.
What happened to the glens? Who got control of the forests? Who cut them, and who decided to use them as pasture or fields, or to replant them (but with particular fast-growing commercial species)?
I suspect these questions relate very much to the story this article attempts to tell. Joel Russ 22:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Origin of the Clearances
The clan system was of course a tribal one, with the chief being the focal point. As in all tribal systems, clans were self-contained and, erm, clannish. The clanfolk supported the chief, who collected and redistributed wealth as needed, and they followed him when called out in defence of their traditional lands. This is one of the standard cultural patterns, well-documented by, e.g., Marvin Harris.
This system of personal loyalties and family-feeling gradually decayed as England, a nation-state, moved in and took over between the 1707 Act of Union and the vicious repression that followed the failure of The '45.
Now there was no longer any need for a chief to maintain ties with the members of the clan, because England could supply elements of its standing army to (e.g.) drive any invading Campbells out of MacDonald lands. The men of Clan Donald as men of Clan Donald were surplus to the chief's military requirements. (This same dynamic played out in Massachusetts during Shays's Rebellion -- there was no standing army, so the ruling class had to come up with money from their own pockets to fee mercenaries to crush the rebellion. But after the Constitution was put in place, the ruling class could tax their victims to pay for the army victimising them, as they did during the Whisky Rebellion.)
In 1776, with this loosening of clan loyalties well underway, Adam Smith (a Scot) wrote bitterly in The Wealth of Nations that when kings, chiefs, and similar had felt ties of kinship and responsibility they had used wealth to support other people. But now they ignored those traditional relationships and used their wealth, increasingly obtained through commerce with foreigners rather than the traditional redistributive system, to buy "a pair of diamond buckles, perhaps, or for something as frivolous and useless".
Chiefs were given sassenach titles, and the clan lands became, in sassenach law, their lands rather than the common wealth of the clan. Very few chiefs were able to resist that lure, and eventually came to see their role as one of regional landowner and ruler rather than the "representor" and war-leader of an extended family. From there it was hardly even a small step to seeing their 'tenants' as low-value nuisances to be evicted and replaced by more profitable sheep.
Genocide? No. "Ethnic cleansing"? Not technically, but a good argument could be made that that's what it was in essence, since by then the erstwhile chiefs' perception of class was so anglicised that their people seemed virtually a different species (rather like the situation in Tsarist Russia and in The Lebanon before the civil war, where the privileged spoke French better than they spoke Russian/Arabic, and regarded the common people as hardly better than non-human animals.).
Bean fidhleir 21:46, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm pretty new to wikipedia, but it seems quite inaccurate to say that the majority of highlanders were Roman Catholic. Aside from the populations of the tiny islands of Barra and South Uist, and a few small areas on the mainland the majority of them would have been Presbyterians or Nonjurant Episcopalians. Even amongst the clans on the Jacobite side of the 1745 rebellion only the Chisholms, Gordons, Macneils from Barra and some MacDonalds from Glengarry and Glencoe are listed as Roman Cathloic according to John Prebble in Culloden. I'm not going to change that part of this article, but it would be good for someone to have a look at it since its not true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smacl (talk • contribs) 12:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Don't know about the rest but Glencoe certainly paid lipservice to catholicism- though it is debatable how truly Christian many clans really were at those times. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.71.157.11 (talk) 23:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Roman Catholicism
There's a point made here about how religion might have had a role to play in the clearances. I've always wondered this, being from Nova Scotia, since almost all of the Scottish-descendant families that I've known are Catholic. Are there any figures to back this up? --vckeating (talk) 16:04, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the most obvious religious factor was that the protestant church ministers who were kept by the land "owners" were manipulating the Highlanders with lectures against uprising and resistance and for resettlement and emigration. They Highlanders got wise to this (far too late) and established the Free Church, which survives to this day. I am unclear what role the Catholic church may have played. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.20.81 (talk) 16:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Highland Clearances !
The Highland Clearances seem to be very bad and to the Crofters they must have been hurt and worried about where they were going to live after they were forced out of thier houses by the factors ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.97.63.79 (talk) 17:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Sort it out!
Just one glimpse of this shows some people have been fiddling with it. for example, did the Clearances all take place in the 18th century? Or start when WWI was over? This is a dog's dinner!--MacRusgail (talk) 17:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
