Frequently asked questions

What are the Highland Clearances?
The term is generally used to describe the depopulation of the Highlands of Scotland between, roughly, 1785 and the late 1850s, by landowners evicting small farmers from their property and replacing them with huge sheep farms.

Why did the landowners do this?
Good question. There is no easy answer. Why did the richest man in Britain (the Duke of Sutherland) feel he had to become richer? The explanation may be partly an economic one; there might be evidence of a concerted effort to destroy the society which allowed the 1745 rebellion to take place; it could be class war, there might be perverted themes of the Scottish Enlightenment; a britannicising urge which despised the Gaelic language and Celtic traditions of the people, in the same way as occurred in far flung colonies, cannot be discounted and, certainly, the classic divide and rule tendencies of the British Empire were displayed in the early use of tacksmen to displace their own people. The answer is not easy enough to give here. Explore the material on the site, wherever possible, from contemporary accounts, and make up your own mind.

Where did the cleared people go?
Many thousands of them left in emigrant ships for Canada, the United States and Australia and millions of citizens of those countries are descended from these people and, in many cases, continue, in some modfied form, their traditions.

So it's just about history?
The population of most parts of the Highlands is still decreasing. Emigration continues to be a major industry in Scotland. If one accepts the view that the Clearances were as a result of economic decisions, rather than some of the wilder similes of Holocaust or ethnic cleansing, then it could be said the Clearances are still going on.

Do the Clearances have any relevance today?
Scotland sent refugees all over the world - economic migrants, in today's parlance. We would do well to consider the generally benevolent and beneficent treatment of these Scots when, at the time of writing, a Kurdish refugee has been murdered in Sighthill in Glasgow and an Iranian asylum seeker stabbed.

Globalisation is bandied about as a new concept. The Clearances, 150 years ago, show the same principles at work. The ownership of the means of production, at that time, land, concentrated in the hands of a few (half of Scotland, in 1866, was owned by ten people). Economic decisions were taken to offer the resources to outside investors (Northumbrian and lowland sheep farmers) while ignoring the local population. Ultimately the economic experiment failed dramatically. The 'old' Kildonan, to which the new investors were invited, is empty; the 'new' Kildonan, to where many of the indigenous population ('the idle and lazy who think of emigration') were dispersed, is a prosperous part of Winnipeg. Are you watching, Locate in Scotland?

Why do you begin with the quotation 'Never again will a single story be told as if it is the only one'?
We want to win the Booker prize. If you don't think including this helps, ask John Berger, Arundhati Roy and Michael Ondaatje. You might also read the About Us section.

What does it cost to use the site?
Nothing. You can use the data we have created for your own purposes provided you don't attempt to copy or replicate the database structures and don't reuse this data in any service electronic or paper-based which involves payment by readers.

What about searching for Mc, Mac and M'
Recording of Mac names has always been subject to whim, fashion and local custom. There is no right or wrong. The convention James Hunter followed in A Dance Called America of writing all such names as Mac followed by an uppercase character (except where there is long historical reason for doing otherwise) seems a good one: after all, it's the way I spell my own name. Don't worry about this in searches: your search on Mc will automatically look for Mac also.