On this day: Highland clearances began

[Phil]

From today's "Hootsmon" - http://www.scotsman.com/news/on-this...egan-1-3341224 .

[tripleblessed]

Thanks for this post. Further down the page, a note on the 1956 opening of My Fair Lady, mentions that the title
is derived from the Cockney corruption of Mayfair, something few on this side of pond will have contemplated.This
forum is a constant source of education.

[McClef]

I have John Prebble's book, must dig it out again.

[jhockin]

The clearances: I was recently reading about them, and the article stated that they were a main contributing factor in the present day stat that there are 12 of Scots descent ,
Outside of Scotland, for each scot in Scotland.
Was also recently reading that the highlands continue to be depopulated.

[Downunder Kilt]

They may have begun in Sutherland on this day, but started in other places a fair bit earlier. http://www.scottishhistory.com/artic...nce_page1.html

[Machaggisnz]

My people were moved out of Sutherland and dispersed all over the world. There's a statue of the Duke of Sutherland "erected by his grateful tenants" up in the far north. The tradition in my family was for those of us who returned to Scotland to visit it when we went up north and "water" the statue, if you get my drift. My dad though took a different slant on the clearances. He left a dram on the statue because the Duke, while he booted the crofters off the land, had seen us take the journey to new lands of opportunity, to new freedoms and to a lifestyle we could never have known had we stayed. I can see his point.

[figheadair]

Here's but one example of the many empty glens to be found throughout the Highlands today.



This is the head of Glen Banchor taken on Tuesday after a great day in the hills. Some people were evicted, others moved out in search of a better life. Either way the result is the same, the glens are empty and we can but wonder what it must have been like when the Gaelic culture was at it's height. It's very easy to romanticise the clan era but like most peasant economies of the time life was hard for many and conditions were tough. A visit to the reconstructed township at the Highland Folk Museum in Kingussie is a really good insight to the living conditions c1700 and I thoroughly recommend it. Here's one of the typical Black Houses.

[georgeetta]

fyi
the CLEARANCES
were the period when .."local folks"/clans ..were pushed off the land in tip to ..sheep grazing ..I am sure it was more multi faceted as it would further separate ties form a chief or landholder ..than being ..expected to support monetarily ..tenants I can only guess --[I grew up near Albany NY the Van Rensselaer's held 2 counties for ..well say 1650-1840's resulting in the calico wars ..finally the govt ..stomped on the ..PATROONS right and took items like annual egg wheat milk .."taxes" and reverted TITLE to water rights ..than his own exclusive mill rights ..you'd have to red about all ..but here ..if you taxed mile wheat and eggs ..you made cheese and bread ..the main food of the times ..and charged milling of same for tenants ..and lumber needs ..you get a bigger picture of what ..holding folk by back of neck is really about ..] some 1750 brick dutch tenant houses survive in Cohoes 1 at least ..the Lansing and Fonda houses ..they even have ghosts !

yes the prebble book filled lots of things for myself
--outside looking in . I would hope all would read his stuff . about a chapter before bedtime will do it ..

the macgregors were outlawed in 1600's (?) by "a" King James ..they had to find ways to shift ..Buchanan lands were taken over by Graham ..some things might have changed there too . Apparently after Culloden the Govt or their reps- began to resettle en masse various clans to make the highlands a more chekerboarded ..neighborhood ..breaking the ..clannish regions ..to a multi faceted tenantry ..which was background of the APPIN MURDER . how far and what clans .. I can imagine "trouble" clans first ..whatever that means to whoever where how far I can't mind either . It seemed to've dropped off after the murder ..

I mind granda talking about it like we talk about ....the dust bowl .. I was confused by it ..

Uncle Robt was working at ..Glencalvie graveyard recutting stones ..in graveyards and he relayed to ma (his sister) ..how the folks ..scrawled saying into the panes of glass about the church ..being forced to wait the churchyard ..in the rain ..

this scene was gotten and relayed to the papers at the time too.

it is also mentions in the VHS series the blood is strong and an old gael speaker is spitting nails ..talking about it ..and his family being tossed out ..I think the sentimentality might have been because of the ..Victorian Romanticism ..I bet the schemers didn't think they'd get on the papers !!

to me ..it ties in with being ..booted off after the 45 ..when they tried to resettle in new locations ..forming the APPIN MURDER ..the poverty ensued pushing young men into the regiments for the french indian war in N.A. ..then ..how the chiefs or absentee relatives wanting to be I guess jet setters of their time ..became de-tached anglicized and bought off ..till tossing those ..families and farmers off the land didn't bother them ..that's what being greedy'll do for some folks ..or do 1000's and their 1000's out of .

shame .

my own family appear to have been geographically sucked into the coal mining for 100 yrs . again ..industrial revolution needs for steel and iron .

1700-1705 I think was period of potato famine in Scotland ..and 25% mortality ..am I right ?? ..so clearance by ..weather and nematodes maybe to richer food areas ..or glens .

drawing up the young men into regiments was a polictical strategy ..to save ..English valued troops before Scots ..starting with Genl Wolfe books say ..after Culloden on ..and they never stopped sadly ..after WW1 ..100's drowned in a ship for the Hebrides ..(?) going down, the effect ..on those islands was terribly effected and their families and women ..if you have a skilled lifestyle -crofting fishing ..harvesting weaving whatever ....and draw off ..that lifestyle is gone and maybe can't come back no matter what unique AND fragile . Like NY farming .

-after culloden prebble claims some women about the Gov't forts had to ..take off the soldiers and officers to eat {feed the kids} ..likely they made their made their ways to the cities to be ..workers ..like Irish to USA ..to Glasgow where ever ..the shift in the highlanders population ..to the cities and the industrial revolution ..all put pressure to ..change the highland lifestyle ..for wool mills and clothes for example ..or cheap labor ..

be surprised how much history is dictated by upper class vs lower class

the 1738 islay settlers to Argyle NY seemed to've come to avoid all the trouble in Scotland of their times ..the ..mix of ..highland names is a real ..surprise have a loo or look up the maps of argyle ..clearance by need of security .

th
d

[KiltedKnome]

fyi
the CLEARANCES
were the period when .."local folks"/clans ..were pushed off the land in tip to ..sheep grazing ..I am sure it was more multi faceted as it would further separate ties form a chief or landholder ..than being ..expected to support monetarily ..tenants I can only guess --[I grew up near Albany NY the Van Rensselaer's held 2 counties for ..well say 1650-1840's resulting in the calico wars ..finally the govt ..stomped on the ..PATROONS right and took items like annual egg wheat milk .."taxes" and reverted TITLE to water rights ..than his own exclusive mill rights ..you'd have to red about all ..but here ..if you taxed mile wheat and eggs ..you made cheese and bread ..the main food of the times ..and charged milling of same for tenants ..and lumber needs ..you get a bigger picture of what ..holding folk by back of neck is really about ..] some 1750 brick dutch tenant houses survive in Cohoes 1 at least ..the Lansing and Fonda houses ..they even have ghosts !

yes the prebble book filled lots of things for myself
--outside looking in . I would hope all would read his stuff . about a chapter before bedtime will do it ..

the macgregors were outlawed in 1600's (?) by "a" King James ..they had to find ways to shift ..Buchanan lands were taken over by Graham ..some things might have changed there too . Apparently after Culloden the Govt or their reps- began to resettle en masse various clans to make the highlands a more chekerboarded ..neighborhood ..breaking the ..clannish regions ..to a multi faceted tenantry ..which was background of the APPIN MURDER . how far and what clans .. I can imagine "trouble" clans first ..whatever that means to whoever where how far I can't mind either . It seemed to've dropped off after the murder ..

I mind granda talking about it like we talk about ....the dust bowl .. I was confused by it ..

Uncle Robt was working at ..Glencalvie graveyard recutting stones ..in graveyards and he relayed to ma (his sister) ..how the folks ..scrawled saying into the panes of glass about the church ..being forced to wait the churchyard ..in the rain ..

this scene was gotten and relayed to the papers at the time too.

it is also mentions in the VHS series the blood is strong and an old gael speaker is spitting nails ..talking about it ..and his family being tossed out ..I think the sentimentality might have been because of the ..Victorian Romanticism ..I bet the schemers didn't think they'd get on the papers !!

to me ..it ties in with being ..booted off after the 45 ..when they tried to resettle in new locations ..forming the APPIN MURDER ..the poverty ensued pushing young men into the regiments for the french indian war in N.A. ..then ..how the chiefs or absentee relatives wanting to be I guess jet setters of their time ..became de-tached anglicized and bought off ..till tossing those ..families and farmers off the land didn't bother them ..that's what being greedy'll do for some folks ..or do 1000's and their 1000's out of .

shame .

my own family appear to have been geographically sucked into the coal mining for 100 yrs . again ..industrial revolution needs for steel and iron .

1700-1705 I think was period of potato famine in Scotland ..and 25% mortality ..am I right ?? ..so clearance by ..weather and nematodes maybe to richer food areas ..or glens .

drawing up the young men into regiments was a polictical strategy ..to save ..English valued troops before Scots ..starting with Genl Wolfe books say ..after Culloden on ..and they never stopped sadly ..after WW1 ..100's drowned in a ship for the Hebrides ..(?) going down, the effect ..on those islands was terribly effected and their families and women ..if you have a skilled lifestyle -crofting fishing ..harvesting weaving whatever ....and draw off ..that lifestyle is gone and maybe can't come back no matter what unique AND fragile . Like NY farming .

-after culloden prebble claims some women about the Gov't forts had to ..take off the soldiers and officers to eat {feed the kids} ..likely they made their made their ways to the cities to be ..workers ..like Irish to USA ..to Glasgow where ever ..the shift in the highlanders population ..to the cities and the industrial revolution ..all put pressure to ..change the highland lifestyle ..for wool mills and clothes for example ..or cheap labor ..

be surprised how much history is dictated by upper class vs lower class

the 1738 islay settlers to Argyle NY seemed to've come to avoid all the trouble in Scotland of their times ..the ..mix of ..highland names is a real ..surprise have a loo or look up the maps of argyle ..clearance by need of security .

th
d

Georgetta
I would really like to be able to read what you wrote, but this is really difficult to decipher. Could you please try to rewrite and put in punctuation and other such important features of written English?

[Mike_Oettle]

There is an item in that “On this day” unrelated to Scotland, but glaringly incorrect. It reads:
“1921: Ruanda, East Africa, was ceded to Britain by Belgium.”
Rwanda and Burundi had been part of German East Africa. Because Belgium (in the shape of its colony, the Belgian Congo) had assisted in the campaign against the Germans under General Von Lettow-Vorbeck, it was decided at Versailles that these two kingdoms (as they then were) should become a Belgian Mandate.
Together they were termed Ruanda-Urundi.
The 1921 cession would have been to Belgium, not the other way around.
The rest of German East was then renamed by Britain, which also held it under a League of Nations Mandate, as Tanganyika.
The mainland territory of Tanganyika remains the core of the Republic of Tanzania, which additionally incorporates the autonomous island group of Zanzibar.
During the war, Belgian forces occupied parts of German East, but held no clearly defined territory. Overprinted Belgian Congo postage stamps were issued for use in occupied German territory (perhaps a way of hitting back at the German use of Belgian stamps overprinted Belgien in Gothic letters).
Von Lettow-Vorbeck was the only German commander not defeated during the First World War. He and his troops (which included large numbers of native troops, called Askaris) managed to stay one step ahead of the British (including South African forces), the Belgians and the Portuguese until, following the Armistice in Europe, he surrendered to British forces at Abercorn in the Northern Rhodesia Copper Belt.
Regards,
Mike