Highland Clearances
Highland Clearances (for example "clearing the highlands", Gaelic : Fuadach nan Gàidheal , "expulsion of the Gaelic speakers") describes the expulsion of the resident population in the Scottish highlands in favor of the widespread introduction of sheep farming , beginning in the late 18th century until the end of the 19th century. Century. It happened parallel to the rural exodus that accompanied industrialization throughout Europe . In contrast to the rural exodus, the landlords initiated the clearance . It was carried out partly with force and in a relatively short time. The landlords were in a comparatively comfortable legal situation, and the evictions hit a very traditional society. Initially, people mostly spoke of removals , the term clearances only prevailed in the 19th century.
The parties
English, but also long-established Scottish landlords from the Lowlands, who had moved here, commissioned their administrators to clear the property (English bailiff ). Local, landless small farmers and tenants ( crofter ) , who had often lived there for generations, were driven out. Often whole village communities were dissolved and their huts destroyed. Some of the expellees were forcibly brought onto emigrant ships and shipped to North America or Australia. The land then fell to a few sheep farmers from the Scottish plains or from England. Sheep farming is still sometimes referred to as the "Scourge of Scotland".
The Highland Clearances ended with the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886 .
The year of the sheep ( Bliadhna nan Caorach )
A wave of mass emigration occurred in 1792, the Gaelic-speaking highlands also known as Bliadhna nan Caorach (The Year of the Sheep). Lords (English landlords ) had lands cleared to enable sheep breeding there. In 1792 landless small tenants from Strathrusdale drove around 6,000 sheep from these lands around Ardross in protest. This action is commonly referred to as the "Ross-shire Sheep Riot ", which was also dealt with by the higher government. State Secretary Henry Dundas then deployed the military like the Black Watch . This prevented further actions and ensured that the ringleaders were sentenced. However, they later managed to escape from custody and they disappeared without a trace.
The displaced small farmers were either resettled on inferior land or were assigned to smaller farms on the coast, where agriculture could not feed the growing population. People were expected to turn to fishing as a new source of income. In the village of Badbea in Caithness, however, the weather conditions were so poor that the women were forced to tie their children and cattle to rocks or stakes so that they would not be blown over the cliffs. Other small farmers were loaded directly onto emigrant ships that sailed to America or Australia.
perception
The evictions were legal , but were considered illegitimate even then , since the law had been changed in favor of the landowners (as had been the case two hundred years earlier in England) by converting feudal rights to private property. However, there was little resistance from the expelled highlands. For the most part, the contemporary press showed contempt for the “inferior race” of the Gaelic-speaking highlands, sometimes in combination with romanticized images of the highlands of the past. Only a few expressed interest in the problem and sympathy for those affected. The trauma of displacement increasingly blended with Scottish national sentiment and led to bitter controversy since the late 19th century. There were calls for compensation; as well as allegations against the landlords of having committed genocide. For Karl Marx , the evictions were the “last great expropriation process ” in the context of the original accumulation .
Motifs
The most pressing motive of the landlords was to increase the yield of their lands. In the beginning of the industrial age , the price of wool rose so much that the smallholders 'leases could no longer keep up with the sheep farmers' income. But there is also evidence that the interest of the nobility in undisturbed deer hunting and fishing as well as the scenic beauty of the Highlands was a motive for many evictions.
A population explosion and uncertain crop yields exacerbated the situation; Time and again, regionally limited famines broke out. This also increased the expenses of the landlords who were obliged to care for the impoverished (English paupers ) on their land. Landowners who refrained from evictions went partly bankrupt, which also worsened the situation of their tenants.
Effects
By the end of the evictions, the Scottish clan system was destroyed and the Gaelic language largely died out in Scotland. It was only preserved in the Hebrides and on the west coast of the Highlands (mainly in Sutherland and Ross-shire ). As far as they survived the displacement, the affected smallholders and tenants were relocated to the barren coastal regions of Scotland, to the emerging British industrial cities or to North America, especially Nova Scotia . Cape Breton Island , where 50,000 Scots were settled, is still culturally shaped today; Scottish Gaelic was spoken here for a long time.
In some regions of the Highlands, only a tenth of the original population still lives today.
Evaluation and legal processing
The valuation as an " ethnic cleansing " is not absurd, as the Gaelic-speaking highlands were perceived by the landlords as "foreign". However, there is no evidence of the intention to destroy a cultural community. Rather, the resettlements are a testament to the European change from a feudal agrarian to a capitalist industrial society. Little speaks in favor of the idea that the highland clans could have maintained their standard of living and their way of life on an agricultural basis. The suffering of the displaced persons is thus certainly not alleviated.
The evictions on the extensive lands of Earl Gower and later First Duke of Sutherland were particularly cruel, who became the richest Briton of the 19th century at the cost of displacing 15,000 inhabitants from almost 800,000 acres , i.e. about 3,200 square kilometers of land, of which that for his successor, ornate Dunrobin Castle , still bears witness to today. In the valley of the River Naver, the historical province of Strathnaver , Earl Gower's administrator Patrick Sellar had numerous farmhouses in various places not only demolished by his helpers, but also set on fire, which resulted in the death of several families. In 1816 he was charged with murder, arson and the unlawful destruction of someone else's property in Inverness . Numerous noblemen and sheriffs vouched for his character and thereby invalidated the available testimony, which led to his acquittal. Similar incidents were repeated in 1819 under his successor Francis Suther. To "compensate" the displaced received 6,000 acres of poor soil, around 24 square kilometers and thus not even one percent of the area they previously (albeit extensively) cultivated. When Sellar died, the press celebrated him as a benefactor. It was not until 1883 that a commission was set up to investigate clearances in the region. In 1919 it was finally stated that they should not have been allowed. Admittedly, by this time the income from sheep breeding had long since sunk again.
Similar relocations took place much earlier in England and across the continent. The fact that the events in Scotland have found resonance in the contemporary press may also be due to the fact that the modern rule of law was emerging in urban society in England.
On the European mainland, the rural population was also protected against displacement on such a scale that depopulated areas could arouse the covetousness of neighboring states. Here the sovereigns rather lured colonists to deserted border areas with the help of privileges, for example the Habsburgs the Banat Swabians to the south of their empire.
present
Today in many places there is a picture of stone ruins and flocks of sheep on treeless pastures. The remains of the Badbea settlement in Caithness are particularly vivid : here, displaced highland residents tried to make a living on the steep coast for a few years. In the distance you can see a monumental statue of the Duke of Sutherland , who excelled in driving out the highlands. The effects of the clearings on land ownership in Scotland are shown by the figures compiled by Whighman: in 1998 66 landowners owned a quarter of the land area of Scotland, and another 1252 owned 66 percent of the land.
report
The Scottish geologist Archibald Geikie describes in his memoirs decades later the evacuation of Suishnish on Skye in 1854:
- "It was a miscellaneous gathering of at least three generations of crofters. There were old men and women, too feeble to walk, who were placed in carts; the younger members of the community on foot were carrying their bundles of clothes and household effects, while the children, with looks of alarm, walked alongside. […] When they set forth once more, a cry of grief went up to heaven, the long plaintive wail, like a funeral coronach, was resumed, and after the last emigrants had disappeared behind the hill, the sound seemed to re-echo through the whole wide valley of Strath in one prolonged note of desolation. The people were on their way to be shipped to Canada. I have often wandered since then over the solitary ground of Suishnish. Not a soul is to be seen there now, but the greener patches of field and the crumbling walls mark [a place] where an active and happy community once lived. "(Quoted from Richards)
- “It was a diverse collection of at least three generations of small farmers. There were old men and women too weak to walk who were put in carts, the younger members of the ward on foot carrying their bundles of clothes and their household items. Children ran next to them with fearful eyes. [...] When they started moving again, a cry of wailing echoed up into the sky, the long, wailing wailing like that of the mourning for the dead at a funeral, and it was continued and when the last displaced persons disappeared behind the hill, it seemed as if it would Echoes echoed throughout the wide valley of Strath as a cry of desperation. People should be shipped to Canada! I have hiked the deserted grounds of Suishnish many times since then. Not a soul can be seen there, except for the greener spots in the fields and the collapsed walls, which point to a [place] where a living and happy community once lived. "
(freely translated)
Monuments
On July 23, 2007, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond unveiled a three meter high bronze statue entitled Exiles in Helmsdale , Sutherland , to commemorate the people who were evicted by landowners and forced to leave their homes for a new one To begin life overseas. The statue, which shows a family leaving their home, stands at the mouth of the Strath of Kildonan and was sponsored by Dennis Macleod , a Scottish-Canadian mining millionaire, who also attended the ceremony.
An identical bronze statue titled Exiles stands on the banks of the Red River in Winnipeg , Manitoba , Canada.
swell
- ^ Derick S. Thomsom: The Companion to Gaelic Scotland . Oxford: Basil Blackwater Publisher Lim. 1983, p. 237.
- ↑ John Prebble: The Highland Clearances, Penguin Books, London 1963, pp. 60-61.
- ↑ James Campbell: Invisible Country: A Journey through Scotland. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984, ISBN 0-297-78371-8 , p. 81.
- ^ Krisztina Fenyő: Contempt, Sympathy and Romance - Lowland Perceptions of the Highlands and the Clearances During the Famine Years, 1845–1855 . East Linton: Tuckwell Press 2000.
- ^ Karl Marx: Das Kapital , Vol. I, Seventh Section, Chapter 24, in: Marx-Engels-Werke, Dietz Verlag, Berlin / DDR 1968, pp. 756ff. ( online )
- ^ JG Leith: The Man Who Went to Farr: Patrick Sellar and the Sutherland Experiment. Elgin 2010, ISBN 978-0-9565985-0-9 .
- ^ "Memorial statue marks clearances" BBC. Read October 5th, 2008.
- ^ The Scotsman. July 7th, 2007, Read October 5th, 2008
literature
- Tom Devine: Clanship to Crofters' War: The social transformation of the Scottish Highlands . Manchester 1994.
- Tom Devine: The Scottish Clearances: A History of the Dispossessed, 1600-1900 . London 2018.
- Eric Richards: The Highland Clearances . Edinburgh 2005.
