What the government, the landlords and the Press totally failed to understand was that the crofters did not want ownership of the land - they had never personally owned it anyway, being clan land, but what they did want was the imposition of certain standards of conduct and responsibility on the landlords. They never received this.

It was not until 1976, ninety years later, that the crofters were eventually given the right to buy the freehold of their croft if they so wished. The price though was fifteen times the holding's controlled rent. Incredibly it was not until 1991, 105 years after the passing of the Crofter's Act, that crofters were eventually given the right to plant trees on their land. Up until then trees planted on crofts were considered the property of the landlord.

In 1866, onehalf of Scotland belonged to 10 people. Today in Scotland 0.08% of the present-day population own 80% of the land; 17 people own 70% of Caithness; 38 people own 84 % of Sutherland; 76 people own 84% Ross-shire; the Countess of Sutherland owns 158,000 acres and another 359000 acres are owned by a mere 6 people. A 1976 study showed that 35 families or companies own on third of the Highland's 7.39 million acres of privately owned land.

In 1993 two farmers on the Isle of Arran were evicted from their family farms to make way for more deer. In the same year managers on the Wester Ross estate of the absentee landlord, Sheik Mohammed Bin Radhid al Maktoumm of Dubai, bulldozed houses on the estate allegedly because the tenants had been poaching. Twelve family homes were reduced to rubble in an area where there already 800 applicants on the local authority's housing waiting list. Despite the legislation the Clearances haven't stopped.

The question has often been asked as to whether the Clearances were an act of attempted genocide against the Gaelic people. Certainly the earlier Act of Proscription was a blatant attempt at cultural genocide. It is interesting, with this in mind, to note that the vast majority of Clearances only occurred in Gaelic Speaking areas. As late as 1820 the Highlanders were commonly regarded as an aboriginal fringe of the British nation, still awaiting civilization. This notion was prevalent in English-speaking Lowland Scotland too. The main Sutherland Clearances between 1811-182 were definitely seen as racial as the in-coming landlord, the Duke of Stafford, was English and many of his gents were English or Southern Scots who had no Gaelic and who hated the Highlanders. One of his more infamous factors, James Loch, commented in 1820, "They (the hills) are getting so much greener, especially those under sheep, in fifty years heathing hills and the Gaelic tongue will be rarities in Sutherland."

Just as the truth behind the Irish Famine is till not full explained in Irish schools today so too is the history of the Scottish Clearances glossed over in Scottish, Canadian, American schools - if it is taught at all. I was certainly never told anything about the Clearances during my whole time at school in Scotland. The brothers Calum and Rory MacDonald of the tremendously poplar Gaelic rock group "Runrig" wrote a song called "Fichead Bliadhna" which is Gaelic for "Twenty years". Calum and Rory were born and raised on the Isle of Skye where the worst of the Clearances took place, where the people rioted and had the troops turned out against them and where a stand was finally made against the injustices of the Clearances. Yet Calum was twenty years old before he ever heard of these events.

In 1995 a proposal was made to have the statue of the Duke of Sutherland, which still stands in the Sutherland today, removed. The "subscriptions" which paid for this statue were forced out of the destitute crofters on pain of further eviction if they did not comply. The present day local people were totally opposed to the suggestion, which had come from "outsiders" not living in Sutherland to remove, the statue. These outsiders are in fact the survivors of the families Cleared by the Duke and now settled in America and Canada. The local people have already forgotten what a monster this old Duke was whereas the people who are now considered to be outsiders remember and acted upon that memory. That is how quickly the truth can be lost if we are not taught and made aware of our history and culture.

Written and published by the Highland Clearances Memorial Fund

Back to Highland Clearances Memorial Fund Series Main Page

Part One: Background
Part Two: Highland Portrait
Part Three: Bonnie Prince Charlie
Part Four: The Clearances
Part Five: The Improvements
Part Six: The Sutherland Estate
Part Seven: The People and the Church
Part Eight: US Slave-Owners
Part Nine: Queen Victoria and Red Deer
Part Ten: 1840-1880 Eyewitness Accounts
Part Eleven: Famine!
Part Twelve: Famine Immigration
Part Thirteen: Forced Eviction to the Cities
Part Fourteen: Changing Ways
Part Fifteen: Things Change Yet Remain The Same
Appendix A: Highland Clearances, Dates & Places
Appendix B: Bibliography