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The Sutherland Clearances |
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Donald MacLeod was born in the village of Rossal in Strathnaver towards the end of the Eighteenth Century. His father was a stonemason and the young Donald followed him into this trade. MacLeod was about twenty when Rossal was cleared. He wrote that at about 11 pm that night he saw:
"250 blazing houses. Many of the owners were my relatives and all of whom I personally knew; but whose present condition, whether in or out of the flames, I could not tell. The fire lasted six days, till the whole of the dwellings were reduced to ashes or smoking ruins. During one of those days a boat lost her way in the dense smoke as she approached the shore; but at night she was enabled to reach a landing place by the light of the flames."
Donald MacLeod "Gloomy Memories"
MacLeod did not take the clearances as passively as many of his compatriots and he began to campaign against them through his writing. After the MacLeod family were moved to Strathy Point, MacLeod's campaigning led to them being moved on again after twice being turned out of their house in a year, under the instruction of James Loch. After several stops in Sutherland, MacLeod finally travelled south to Edinburgh to escape persecution by the Sutherland agents (which led to his wife's insanity) and to try and spread his writings to a wider public.
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