Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1500 men killed or wounded compared to the Duke of Cumberland's 300 or so. After
the battle, many of the wounded Jacobites were slaughtered, an atrocity that earned
Cumberland the nickname “Butcher”.
In the aftermath of the uprising, the wearing of tartan, the bearing of arms and the
playing of bagpipes were all banned. Rebel chiefs lost their land and the Highlands
were placed under military occupation. Most significantly, the government prohibited
the private armies of the chiefs, thereby effectively destroying the clan system.
The Highland Clearances
Once the clan chief was forbidden his own army, he had no need of the large tenantry
that had previously been a vital military asset. Conversely, the second half of the
eighteenth century saw the Highland population increase dramatically after the
introduction of the easy-to-grow and nutritious
potato
. Between 1745 and 1811, the
population of the Outer Hebrides, for example, rose from 13,000 to 24,500. he clan
chiefs adopted different policies to deal with this. Some encouraged emigration, and as
many as six thousand Highlanders left for the Americas between 1800 and 1803.
Others developed alternative forms of employment for their tenantry, mainly fishing
and gathering kelp (seaweed), while some developed
sheep runs
on the Highland
pastures, introducing hardy breeds. But extensive sheep farming proved incompatible
with a high peasant population and many landowners decided to clear their estates of
tenants, some of whom were forcibly moved to tiny plots of marginal land, where they
were to farm as
crofters
.
he pace of these
Highland Clearances
accelerated after the end of the Napoleonic
Wars in 1815, when the market price for kelp, fish and cattle declined, leaving sheep as
the only profitable Highland product. he most notorious Clearances took place on
the estates of the countess of Sutherland, who owned a million acres in northern
Scotland. Between 1807 and 1821, around 15,000 people were thrown off her land,
often with considerable brutality. As the dispossessed Highlanders scratched a living
from the acid soils of tiny crofts, they learnt through bitter experience the limitations
of the clan. Famine forced large-scale emigration to America and Canada, leaving the
huge uninhabited areas found in the region today.
However, not all landowners acted cruelly or insensitively and many settlements
around Scotland, from Inveraray in the west to Portsoy in the northeast, owe their
existence to so-called “improving landlords”, who invested in infrastructure such as
fishing harbours, decent housing and communities of sustainable size. hey brought
economic prosperity to previously disadvantaged areas. hose left crofting, however,
still led a precarious existence, often taking seasonal employment away from home. In
1886, in response to the social unrest, Gladstone's Liberal government passed the
Crofters' Holdings Act
, granting three of the crofters' demands: security of tenure, fair
rents to be decided independently and the right to pass on crofts by inheritance. But
Gladstone did not increase the amount of land available for crofting and shortage of
land remained a major problem until the
Land Settlement Act
of 1919 made provision
for the creation of new crofts. Nevertheless, the population of the Highlands has
continued to decline since then, with many of the region's young people finding life in
the city more appealing, and work opportunities there much greater.
1715
1746
1759
1762
Jacobite uprising
against the accession
of Hanoverian King
George I.
Bonnie Prince Charlie's
Jacobite army is
defeated at the Battle
of Culloden.
Scotland's National
Poet, Rabbie Burns,
is born in Alloway.
Beginning of the
Highland Clearances.
