What were the Highland Clearances?

Between the mid-18th and mid-19th century, many inhabitants of the Highlands and Western Islands were forcefully evicted from their homes in an event which later became known as the Highland Clearances. At the time, it was generally referred to as ‘removal’.

The clearances happened in several phases, leading to the destruction of traditional clan society in the Highlands, and rural depopulation.

The first phase largely took place between 1760 and 1815, and it started with the dismantling of traditional townships known as ‘bailtean’. These were multiple tenant farms, and they were the key to land management in the region. However, it was decided that this system would be replaced by individual crofts, with shared access to common grazing for the animals. The people who had previously lived on the shared farms were moved to the coast and the properties they’d previously lived and worked in were turned into large holdings for sheep.

The second phase is more likely what you think of if you imagine the clearances. This second phase started between 1815-1820, and continued until the 1850s, and during this time, landlords forcibly removed people from their estates. Many Highlanders’ homes were burned down, particularly in Sutherland. One local, Donald MacLeod, at the time reported that he saw 250 homes from one district ablaze, with fires lasting six days. However, Patrick Sellar, the factor for the Countess (later Duchess) of Sutherland, was acquitted on charges of arson and culpable homicide.

In some instances, forced eviction was accompanied by assisted emigration, where the landlords paid for the travel to North America or Australia of the families they’d evicted.

Most Highlanders didn’t own their own land but rented it from wealthy landowners like the Duke of Sutherland. Essentially, these landowners discovered that they could earn more money by having sheep on their land than they could by having people there, so they decided to turn the crofters out of their homes.

Of course, there’s more historical context to be considered than that, although these economic reasons were probably the biggest driver for landlords. Using the land to farm sheep meant that they could collect much higher rents than using their land for crofting, and it also meant that the landowner had to collect rent from far fewer people, meaning there wasn’t such a big administrative burden on them. Many landowners were in debt, so the prospect of collecting higher rents from sheep farmers, and the fact that they’d no longer have to support tenants who were in financial difficulties, was highly attractive to them.

Some landlords believed that they were actually working to improve the lives of their tenants when they evicted them. Patrick Sellar, for example, was the factor for the Countess of Sutherland, and his grandfather had been cleared from his rented land some years before. This led to social upward mobility for the Sellars, enabling Patrick Sellar to attend Edinburgh University to become a lawyer, and he thought that this proved there were benefits to being evicted, as families were forced to make a new start.

The potato famine was also a contributing factor. A severe potato blight hit Scotland in 1846, one year after the Irish potato famine, and it seriously affected the potato crop until around 1856. There was widespread financial devastation, disease and starvation, with serious food shortages in the Highlands and Islands. Some richer landlords, like the Duke of Sutherland, were able to support their tenants for a while. Others already had far too many debts to help their tenants out. Although the government had set up a charitable fund, the Central Board for Highland Destitution, the money couldn’t last forever.

There was a choice to be made between indefinitely continuing with charitable support or removing tenants from the land. Many Highlanders moved to the Lowlands of Scotland where they could find factory work, and many others emigrated abroad. Nearly 11,000 people were given ‘assisted passages’ by their landlords between 1846 and 1856, and an additional 5,000 people went to Australian through the Highland and Island Emigration Society.

In 1883, the Napier Commission was established to investigate the condition of the Highlanders, and the Highland Land Law Reform Association (usually known as the Land League) was also established. In 1886, the Crofters Holdings Act was made into law. This was focused on fair rent, free sale (which allowed tenants to become owner-occupiers) and fixed tenures. However, it’s fair to say that it was too little, too late as the Highlands and Islands had been irrevocably changed.

The Clearances had a profound impact on the cultural landscape of the Scottish Highlands, which became one of the most sparsely populated areas in the whole of Europe. It’s thought that, in 1755, 51% of the Scottish population lived in the Highlands, but by 1981, this had fallen to just 21%. It’s believed that 150,000 Highlanders and Islanders were cleared from their lands during the entire period of the Clearances, which had an impact on the economic prosperity of the Highland region.

Additionally, the Crofters Act didn’t break up the large estates owned by wealthy landlords, meaning that to this day the Scottish Highlands has an unequal distribution of land. More than half of the country is owned by fewer than 500 people.

It’s also the main reason that there are people with Scottish heritage all around the world, particularly in Canada, American and Australia.