Sawyers - Bearing the people away: the portable Highland Clearances companion

Bearing
the People
Away

The Portable
Highland Clearances
Companion

June Skinner Sawyers

Bearing
the People
Away

The Portable
Highland Clearances
Companion

June Skinner Sawyers

CAPE BRETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
SYDNEY, NOVA SCOTIA

For the Macdonald clan of Skye and Inverness:

Roddy Martin, Sheena, Eileen, Tina, Roddy Angus, Morag

Copyright 2013 June Skinner Sawyers

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Responsibility for the research and the permissions obtained for this publication rests with the author. CBU Press recognizes fair dealing uses under the Copyright Act (Canada).

Cape Breton University Press recognizes the support of the Province of Nova Scotia, through the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage and the support received for its publishing program from the Canada Council for the Arts Block Grants Program. We are pleased to work in partnership with these bodies to develop and promote our cultural resources.

Cover design: Cathy MacLean Design, Chticamp, NS

Cover photo (Assynt) by Mike Hunter, Port Hawkesbury and Sydney, NS

Author photo: Theresa Albini

Layout: Laura Bast, Sydney, NS

eBook development: WildElement.ca

First printed in Canada

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Sawyers, June Skinner, 1957-, author

Bearing the people away : the portable Highland Clearances

companion / June Skinner Sawyers.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-927492-59-8 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-1-927492-60-4 (web pdf.)

ISBN 978-1-927492-61-1 (epub.)

ISBN 978-1-927492-62-8 (mobi.)

1. Scotland--History--18th century. 2. Scotland--History--19th

century. 3. Scots--Migrations. I. Title.

DA809.S28 2013 941.1 C2013-903767-5

Cape Breton University Press

PO Box 5300

1250 Grand Lake Road

Sydney, NS B1P 6L2 CA

www.cbu.ca/press

Table of Contents

I think ... every Highlander should have copies of the histories of the Clearances along with the Bible in his bookcase.

John Maclean, Inverness harbour master and father of artist Will Maclean

We have not become so civilised in our behaviour, or more concerned with men than profit, that this story holds no lesson for us.

John Prebble

Acknowledgments

My interest in the Highland Clearances began a long time ago, in the mid-1980s if I recall correctly, when I bought a copy of John Prebbles The Highland Clearances at the Inverness Museum in the capital of the Highlands. I read it from cover to cover numerous times (I still have that copy, but now it is a rather fragile state, held together by a rubber band). Around the same time I picked up an earlier version of Rob Gibsons Highland Clearances Trail , at that time it was just a small pamphlet (many years later, the Edinburgh-based Luath Press published a more elaborate edition). I remember the day too when Rob very generously gave me a black and white photograph that he took of the windowpane in the Croick Church in Glencalvie; the same diamond-shaped windowpane that has etched on its surface the troubling words, Glencalvie people the wicked generation.

I still have that photograph.

It wouldnt be the first time that a Lowlander was fascinated by Highland history and culture. Even today the Highlands is considered, by some, to be exotic. When describing locations for the latest Bond film Skyfall , an American reporter referred to the numerous locations where the film was shot, including such exotic locales as Turkey, Shanghai and, yes, the Scottish Highlands. The Highlands continue to fascinate the Scots and, especially, non-Scots public on so many levels.

A book of this kind is dependent upon the work of others. Thus, I would like to direct readers to the bibliography at the end of this volume. In addition to the scholars represented in the bibliography, I am also grateful for the feedback and input of the following people: Kenny Brill, Charlie Burns, Dr. Linda F. Carnes-McNaughton, Bill Caudill, Rob Gibson, James Hunter, Jacquie Aitkin, Tom Devine, Angus Peter Campbell, Michael Russell, David Woods, Tara Clark, Jennifer Williams, Anne Landin and Virginia Blankenhorn. I would also like to thank my editor, Mike Hunter, for his belief in the project and for his patience during the on-and-off again writing of this volume.

It is no exaggeration to say that this book could not have been written without the generosity of family and friends: my cousins Janet and Bert McFarlane in Glasgow, Drew and Lynn Campbell in Montrose, and John and Elspeth Campbell in Blairgowrie; Eileen Macdonald in Glenlomond, and Roddy and Sheena Macdonald in Skye, Diane and Robert Rae in Edinburgh, and Erlend and Hlne Clouston, also in Edinburgh.

I also have fond memories of of chasing the sun in the Outer Hebrides with the Canadian folk band Cowboy Celtic. A personal thanks to the ladies (Hannah, May and Jane) of the Lifestyle slimming club in Kelty for an entertaining evening.

As we go to press, the American filmmaker Guy Perrotta is working on a documentary about the Clearances, its legacy and the worldwide Scottish diaspora, which only proves, yet again, that the Clearances continues to be an endless source of fascination not only in Scotland but around the globe.

J.S.S.

Note

. See page 269 for two views of the window at Croick Church.

C hronology

Major events in the history of the Highlands and Islands

ca. 500 Kingdom of Dalriada established

563 Columba lands at Iona

ca. 780-800 Norse settlement of Scotland begins

843 Union of the Kingdom of Picts and Scots under Kenneth MacAlpin

ca. 1100 Somerled of Clan Donald

1164 Death of Somerled, founder of the Lordship of the Isles

1296 Battle of Stirling Bridge

1314 Battle of Bannockburn

1408 Islay Gaelic Charter

1493 Forfeiture of the Lordship of the Isles

1513 Battle of Flodden

1603 Union of the Crowns of Scotland and England

1609 Statues of Iona

1645 Battle of Inverlochy

1647 Death of Alasdair MacColla

1689 Battle of Killiecrankie

1690 Establishment of the Church of Scotland

1692 Massacre of Glencoe

1707 Union of the Parliaments of Scotland and England

1715 First Jacobite Rising

1736 Settlement of Darien, Georgia, by Highlanders

1739 First migrations from Scotland to Cape Fear, North Carolina

1745 Second Jacobite Rising

1746 Battle of Culloden

1760 Introduction of large-scale sheep farming in the Highlands

1769-1774 Peak years of Highland emigration to Cape Fear, NC

1773 Voyage of the Hector from Loch Broom to Pictou, Nova Scotia; James Boswell and Samuel Johnsons tour of the Hebrides

1785, 1791, 1802 Emigration from Glengarry, Scotland, to Glengarry County, Ontario

1788 Death of Bonnie Prince Charlie

1792 Bliadhna nan Caorach (Year of the Sheep)

1802-1803 Some 8,300 Highlanders emigrate to North America

1803 Passenger Act passed, restricting emigration by raising the price of passage on emigrant ships

1803 Lord Selkirk settles Highlanders in Prince Edward Island

1807 Publication of the Gaelic Bible

1812 Red River Settlement in Manitoba begins