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The Sutherland Clearances |
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As with most things in history, the truth lies not at the extremes but somewhere in the middle. Many Highlanders were prepared to leave of their own free will, often with their journeys paid for by the laird, as they saw the benefits of starting afresh in a new country. There had been gradual movement away from the Highlands from after Culloden, and the Clearances were an acceleration of this process.
This positive outcome was more by accident than design however, and the distress caused by the forced evictions is something that few of us today in the West can imagine, and not something that should be glossed over by the history books.
© SCRAN |
Perhaps the saddest outcome of the Sutherland Clearances was that everyone, save Loch, Young and Sellar, came out a loser. The Highlanders had lost their homes, and those who had not emigrated were forced into smaller, less fertile areas on the coast, and into industries at which they had no experience. The Duke and Duchess meanwhile, did not get the economic miracle they were expecting, and for all the money they spent on the improvements, they received little financial return and had forever lost the goodwill of their remaining tenants. Loch's fortune later became part of the Dalyell family inheritance, while Sellar and Young became two of the wealthiest sheep farmers in the country.
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