Talk:Highland Clearances/Archive 4

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Economic "improvements"

Relating the section 'Economic "improvements"' to the article 'introduction', asks more questions of the article than each of these sections provide information about.

It begins with a brief summary of "improvements" instead of Clearances, per se. Though it suggests that the "improvements" simply relates to a change from more variable 'farming' to sheep raising.

In a subsequent section is a quote from Elizabeth Gordon, 19th Countess of Sutherland, that "he is seized as much as I am with the rage of improvements, and we both turn our attention with the greatest of energy to turnips".

Previous to this a standalone statement that Clearances had been 'making room for more profitable uses such as sheep, deer forests or tourism.'

The article 'introduction', providing a summary, has this statement: 'It resulted from enclosures of common lands and a change from farming to sheep raising, an agricultural revolution largely carried out by hereditary aristocratic landowners.'

Something is amiss. Would anyone like to talk about changing something to reflect these facts? Baglessingazump (talk) 14:58, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

The key point being that the summary states an equation: Clearances = enclosures + sheep. Whereas, Clearances = enclosures with % sheep is what the article states. Baglessingazump (talk) 15:12, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

There is more than this wrong with the introduction. In a somewhat random order:

Common lands were not enclosed in creating the sheep walks that necessitated the eviction of long standing tenant farmers. The process was related to the enclosure of common lands (as happened across the rest of Britain), but it was not a process of enclosure. (The sheep were hefted.)

The emigration of cleared tenants to the coast is nonsense, since emigration means moving to another country. In many cases people were only moved 10 or 15 miles.

"Largely carried out by hereditary aristocratic landowners" is an over-simplification that is untrue. Some estates were cleared after the hereditary owners went bankrupt and sold to others (who came in and effected the clearance), or had a bankruptcy administrator impose a policy of clearance on them. There are even examples of opponents to the clearances carrying out evictions of their own tenants.

"particularly notorious as a result of the brutality" seems somewhat POV. Admittedly, there are plenty of sources that say this, but there are so many sources on this subject, you could probably find one that said just about anything you wanted. It is a trite phrase which, in this context, has rather lost its meaning and is probably not an accurate representation of the whole story. Certainly, some very unpleasant things happened during the clearances, but it is hard to assess what percentage of evictions included any violence or rough handling. There is even good evidence of violence by those about to be cleared against factors, law officers and prospective tenants.

"sheep raising" is a sort of farming, so "a change from farming to sheep raising" is nonsense. Additionally, in some areas, cleared tenants had worked in the kelp industry - I am sure someone might argue the point, but I don't think that is farming.

A lot of re-writing is needed here - it's probably a case of "one step at a time".

ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 16:44, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

I think all those points relevant points for new sections on the talk page. In relation to the point in question in this section, what would be the first step to take? Baglessingazump (talk) 18:14, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Ultimately, the whole article needs a complete rewrite. I am currently finishing a big reading project so that I can rewrite the section currently titled "Second Phase of the Clearances" - which is actually about the Sutherland Clearances (which, according to Michael Lynch, would actually be in the first phase of the clearances - so the section title needs to change).

If one were starting this article from scratch, it would be easiest to write the main body of it first, and then come back and write the introduction last. With the current situation, I would still be disinclined to do much revision of the the first para until more of the rest of the article has been improved. Obviously, that does not prevent anyone else from making any improvements.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:27, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Obliging me with some comments in relation to rewording the lead within the talk page would be great, if at all possible. Baglessingazump (talk) 23:44, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

I have some suggestions in relation to removing the tangle in the lead defining the Highland Clearances too.

Though I hope to make the talk page as easy to navigate as I hope the article could be. As such adding a section to talk about each would be less straining to read.

For instance, as I think the hyperlinks to articles such as 'enclosures', 'forced displacement' etc... provide the best basis to define the Highland Clearances, though these hyperlinks need to relate to the subject more, such that it is easy to comprehend what links, with what separates, 'enclosures' to 'forced displacement'. At the moment the definition lacks a simple wording that brings all the relevant hyperlinks into one sentence. Baglessingazump (talk) 00:01, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to encourage ThoughtIdRetired to try some bold edits to the article. Your ideas seem very useful. Baglessingazump, I'm not quite clear what you have in mind, but perhaps it would be helpful to let ThoughtIdRetired start the discussion process, in case his ideas will solve some of your issues? Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:55, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

That would be ideal, though ThoughtIdRetired has already said he wishes to read before rewriting the Sutherland Clearances section. Unless the Sutherland Clearances, with it's turnips, deer forests, tourism, is taken from the article completely?

My priority is summary of the key elements in the article, because at present the first paragraph in the lead has three separate clauses in the proposition defining the Highland Clearances.

These clauses burden the article with a confusion that begs the question, what amongst forced displacement, enclosures, glens defines the Highland Clearances? Separating the clauses is this problem's source.

The summary ought to relate these key hyperlinks that form the summary (with hyperlinks being an online encyclopaedia's best asset in simplification: it's Occam's razor) plus relate the currently three separate clauses, wherein these hyperlinks currently have a home, to make a definition readily comprehensible.

At the moment forced displacement's clause places emphasis onto a definition that relates simply to the broad notion 'Clearances', removing a large population from the land at once.

The second clause places emphasis with enclosures, though as the article plus ThoughtIdRetired has said, the Highland Clearances relation to sheep enclosures is less tangible than it firsts seems.

The third clause places emphasis with glens, as if what makes the Highland Clearances is that a specific land type makes the Highland Clearances, thee Highland Clearances. If that is the case the Highland Clearances simply equates to Clearances of 'high lands'.

All of this subsequently relates to a jumble, with a very many clauses in the 2nd paragraph with all these clauses really aiming to suggest one thing, that the Highland Clearances relate to the pre-Highland Clearance ethnolinguistic Scottish-Gaelic culture.

This is my own personal simplification relating to the questions I was raising beyond reverts to my own bold edits within the current talk page from many months prior (that Richard Keatinge may recall) that, to be honest, went down like a lead balloon (pardon the lead pun).Baglessingazump (talk) 12:10, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Most pertinently, the jumble in the second paragraph's multiple clauses can really summarise as the Scottish-Gael's rapid assimilation to Lowland Scots law, plus British aristocractic society.Baglessingazump (talk) 12:51, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

There is nothing simplified about the garbled ramble above but, reading through it, an inevitability that you are going to return to your WP:OR campaign of a few months ago, which you do. There was no support for your position then, when it was comprehensible. Please drop it. Mutt Lunker (talk) 13:00, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Ah... hello old friend. It's a miracle that one word in my 'garbled ramble above' could be read at all. What about 'hello old friend', is that comprehensible?Baglessingazump (talk) 13:05, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Unlike all your suggestions for changes to the article, comprehensible it is. To be honest I was hoping to suggest, as tactfully as possible, that you might like to adjourn until you can produce some simple ideas for changes to the article, briefly and succinctly expressed in the form "change (passage) to (new passage), supported by comprehensible arguments based on Wikipedia policy. While I suspect that I might find you an entertaining witty sparkling empathetic dinner companion, and I have no problem with your actual words, their higher-level organization gives me a headache. I presume you had some underlying coherent story in mind when you wrote the above, but I'm damned if I can work out what it is. Sorry. Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:07, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

The point is, damn me if I do, damn if I don't. I would very happily make changes to the article. I would very quickly have a revert against me absent any explanation. Fair play. That's the system, Richard Keatinge and Mutt Lunker wish to play. "Hate the game, not the player" etc... Though it's factual statements met with a wall. Because to me the truth is the truth. To my companions who revert I am the anti-christ Wikipedian. Fair play. Tally ho, ol' sport. Baglessingazump (talk) 16:20, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

No, nobody is damning you, hating you or even doubting your good faith. However, neither are we playing a game. There is no right to continue making unintentionally unhelpful edits to articles or to expect other editors to engage with you on talk pages when you have demonstrated repeatedly an inability to express yourself coherently. This does not make you a bad person. We have tried to be tactful (trace back the threads above) and Richard has been more successful than I in maintaining this but if you wish to continue in the same vein it would be unfair not to be frank with you. Mutt Lunker (talk) 17:11, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

My bold edits set a requirement. That requirement is reasons. The revert was wild. Repeatedly, it has been said, "something is incomprehensible", yet even a child can work out how to communicate with someone who has a language that lacks any relation to the language they talk. Point at it, repeat it's name in English, repeat it's name in the language they talk. I had more than one element in the article in separate sections brought beneath one solitary reason that was akin to pointing at something to let out a scream. Baglessingazump (talk) 17:26, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Diff of all my changes as of 21:47, 15 October 2015 as proof.

How possibly the reverts could be specific whilst reverting 4 separate sections without breaking the 3RR is the question.

I could reply to all of those, though the fact is, the haste to revert is less secure to Wikipedians than haste to edit.

At present though I am attempting to simplify the summary; the reason to reject my simplification needs more than "[t]here is nothing simplified about the garbled ramble above."Baglessingazump (talk) 18:26, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

It needs more than "...but I'm damned if I can work out what it is" too. Baglessingazump (talk) 18:28, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Baglessingazump, your comments above focus on criticising the existing text, rather than providing a specific replacement for it. Camerojo (talk) 21:38, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Yep. I was asking for comments in relation to the fact that comparing more than one case description, within the Highland Clearances article itself, to the summary in the lead about Highland Clearances, yields square pegs going into round holes.

The lead ought to summarise. Case descriptions ought to fit the summary.

Though only asking for comments, the accusation has been that I have said nothing comprehensible, though I gave examples only from within the article comparing against words plus structures within the article.

One person is asking me to write something fresh, whilst one person, replying to a call for comments, is accusing me of WP:OR! Baglessingazump (talk) 22:42, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Somehow though a specific replacement did fit in at some point, 'Most pertinently, the jumble in the second paragraph's multiple clauses can really summarise as the Scottish-Gael's rapid assimilation to Lowland Scots law, plus British aristocractic society.Baglessingazump (talk) 12:51, 2 February 2016 (UTC)'

Let's tackle what I have said, though it snuck in, before tackling what I might write in the future first. Baglessingazump (talk) 22:59, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I am afraid that I also struggle to understand your general comments. It would be a lot simpler if you would follow Richard's suggestion of making a clear proposal to "change (passage) to (new passage)". If you are not prepared to do that, I don't believe further discussion will get us anywhere. Camerojo (talk) 00:55, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

References

Definition in introduction

The following definition appears in the opening paragraph :
"A Highland Clearance has been defined as "an enforced simultaneous eviction of all families living in a given area such as an entire glen"."
It is used, in the quoted source, solely for the purposes of the paper in which it appears (which is about clearances in the North East Highlands). Beyond the fact that the offered definition is possibly an example of tautology (surely all evictions are enforced, otherwise they are not evictions) and that some regions had related evictions that happened in different years - so calling into question "simultaneous", I think that a single-sentence definition is not really appropriate for a complex subject.

As an alternative definition I suggest something like:

The Highland Clearances were a series of individual events during the 18th and 19th centuries in which tenants in the Scottish Highlands were evicted ("cleared") from a region or locality. Whilst there were common features to many clearances, there were also notable differences: in the causes, whether provision was made for evicted tenants, the level of opposition and the response to it, and the scale of each event. The people cleared varied, both in occupation and their status in society. Many of those evicted were farmers in the inland straths and glens, who raised cattle and grew arable crops under the runrig system. Others included crofters (small scale farmers), cottars (tenants who had no land), squatters who had no right to be on the land, workers in the kelp industry as it fell into decline, and the small number of clergymen, schoolteachers and others who no longer had a population to serve.

As an element in the structure of the article, the intent is to alert the reader to the risk of assuming that all clearances were the same. Clearly, the article must then go on to discuss the points raised.

Deficiencies in the definition include that it implies that removal of rights to land necessitated evicting people from their homes. There are instances when summer grazing rights were removed (so a tenancy ceased), but those who farmed that land still had other holdings (including their house and barns, etc.). Without this grazing, the viability of their farms was impaired. It's probably too complex a point to include in the introduction.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:55, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Seems good. Richard Keatinge (talk) 07:37, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I have no disagreement with your text but I like the existing definition - which I believe I have seen quoted in other reputable sources. Apart from the possible tautology, I see nothing wrong with it. The "simultaneous" is important for the simple reason that multiple evictions at different times in the same region are commonly referred to as separate clearances. Camerojo (talk) 12:36, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

The only other reputable source that I have detected with the same definition is Richards quoting the same original source. He does not seem to offer it as a definitive definition. Elsewhere in the preface of the same book, Richards states "...the definition of 'clearance' is debateable...." - which might explain why he has avoided one in most of his work. If you google the definition currently in the article, you mostly find plagiarism of some or all of Wikipedia article (I spotted one that acknowledged Wikipedia). I would be interested to know if modern writers like James Hunter offer any concise definition - I have not found one (I note, however, that Hunter appears to have refereed the Watson and Allan paper). T.M. Devine avoids any defintion of "clearance" in "The Scottish Nation - 1700 -2007". David Craig (on the Crofters Trail) does not, as far as I can tell, use a definition (quite difficult to prove an absence!!). And I note that Prebble does not seem to define the term either.
The problem for the Wikipedia editor is that it is usual to have some sort of definition/explanation at the beginning of an article, but the only one that we have found in sources has deficiencies. (I would add that using "families" in the definition possibly goes against WP:NPOV as it generates an emotional response and is not always accurate, since those evicted were not necessarily family units, despite that being the commonest situation.) Hence I think that it is better to come up with a narrative rather than a brief definition.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 15:04, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I thought it was probably Richards who quoted it, but I could not find the reference. Thanks. It may not be perfect but I think that it is pretty good. Perfect is the enemy of good. It gets the reader started and, reading on, they will learn more. The intro does not claim that it is the ultimate definition - just that "it has been defined" that way - which is true and by a reputable source and quoted by at least one other reputable source. I think that your narrative is valuable and belongs somewhere in the article - but not to the exclusion of that quote. Camerojo (talk) 22:44, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't know if it would be helpful to include here the entire paragraph in which the Watson & Allan definition appears:
The term 'the clearances' is often emotive, and rational discussion is difficult because the term is understood differently by different people. In this paper, a clearance is defined as an enforced simultaneous eviction of all families living in a given area such as an entire glen. A series of individual evictions carried out at different times could empty an area of people eventually, but we have come across no evidence of this in upper Deeside or nearby. Areas could also become empty by net, non-enforced emigration over many years, with or without pressure from landowners to leave, but it would be confusing to refer to this as a clearance.
So the originators of this definition have tailored it to the events in a specific part of the Highlands, where it presumably has a good fit with what happened on the ground. I don't think it applies elsewhere. For instance, both in Strathnaver in 1814 and in the Strath of Kildonan in 1819, only some of the residents were evicted from the locality (the job was completed in different years) - so the "...eviction of all families living in a given area such as an entire glen" does not seem to hit the target. I also have a problem with the word "simultaneous", since Richards, at least, talks about Loch wanting to "complete the clearance", in discussing the multi-year process of clearing the Strath of Kildonan over 1818, 1819 and 1820. Hence what Richards refers to as one clearance would be 3 under the Watson & Allen definition. (And, to be fair, they warn that the term is understood differently by different people.)
So, to recap, I have given reasons to object to the definition in respect of the following words: "enforced", "simultaneous", "all", "families", and "entire glen". There is not a lot left.

Even if we relied on the "...it has been defined..." to justify inclusion of the quote somewhere in the article, I do not think the introduction is the right place for that - because space is at a premium in the intro.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:28, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

The brevity of the definition is its strength and why it belongs in the intro. Clearly it is a challenge provide a concise definition of a term referring to "a complex series of events occurring over a period of more than a hundred years". However this respected and quoted source has provided one. Let the reader see it and make up their own mind on its strengths and weaknesses. I see no reason to delete it and I think I have said all I have to say on the matter. Perhaps others might like to express an opinion but I am done. Camerojo (talk) 20:32, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

It's good to have a concise definition, but even Watson and Allen don't suggest that their definition given is comprehensive and complete. It's simply a useful subset for their purposes. A more complete and accurate definition / narrative would definitely be better - if it can be kept reasonably brief. As a first cut, for your consideration, I present:

"The classic "clearance" is a simultaneous eviction of all families living in a given area such as an entire glen. A series of smaller evictions carried out at different times could also empty an area of people eventually, and this article includes such evictions. Non-enforced emigration over a period of years, with or without pressure from landowners to leave, is not included." Richard Keatinge (talk) 21:42, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

I think this is good. It is still brief and, although it does not address all of the criticisms of ThoughtIdRetired, it does make it clear that the quote is not being presented as a precise definition and encourages the reader to read on for a more complete understanding. Camerojo (talk) 00:05, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

It has been suggested to me that Richards' book: A History of the Highland Clearances vol 1 addresses the question of defining the subject. I am working on obtaining a copy - I don't know if any of the opinions expressed above are based on this possible source.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 10:21, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I've now taken a look at A History of the Highland Clearances vol 1, and this confirms the complexity of any attempt at a definition: the relevant passages occupy most of 2 pages. I note in particular "..It was not self-evident that the word clearance should be reserved for the ejection of entire communities of large numbers of people at a single time, or whether it could be also applied to individual cases of eviction (or even to the termination of a tenancy agreement)."
I should perhaps add that it was Eric Richards who directed me to his 1982 work for a discussion on definition, as a result of correspondence where I had mentioned his use of the Watson and Allan definition.
The problem is that the "popular" view of the clearances goes to the high-profile larger scale events, often with a particularly anguished outcome for those cleared. The termination of a single tenancy, in the view of the person affected, must surely be the same process as if it were applied to a hundred tenants on the same day. To think otherwise does a historical disservice to those who lost their home and livelihood as a single event. The concept of the "classic clearance" falls, I think, into the trap of populist (as opposed to historical) depictions of the actual events that occurred.
Hence I struggle to find anything better than the original offering in the second paragraph of this talk page section. I, however, lack an independent view on this for obvious reasons.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:14, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

References

Opening sentence

"... was the forced displacement during the 18th and 19th centuries of a significant number of people from traditional land tenancies in the Scottish Highlands, where they had practised small-scale agriculture."

(1) The link to forced displacement gives a definition that does not match the whole range of circumstances that apply to the Highland Clearances. I am particularly concerned by "...The International Organization for Migration defines forced migration as any person who migrates to "escape persecution, conflict, repression, natural and human-made disasters, ecological degradation, or other situations that endanger their lives, freedom or livelihood"."

It seems to me that it would be much safer for the article to start by talking about "evictions" rather than forced displacement - certainly in the opening sentence and without any further discussion or explanation.

(2) "...traditional land tenancies..". What does the word "traditional" mean in this context? Many of those evicted had written leases. Certainly, Scottish land tenancy law had (and still has) some astoundingly poor protection for the tenant, but this is not "traditional" law. The use of this word is confusing at best, and is inaccurate in many situations.

(3) "...Small-scale agriculture...". (a) Many of the farmers who were evicted were actually large scale cattle farmers (as measured by the standards of the day - the comparison is made by Richards with equivalent farms in England, and the status of those English farmers). As written, the opening sentence perpetuates the myth that the only people evicted in the clearances were the lowest stratum of society, That is not the historical case: all strata of society were evicted in many clearances. Furthermore, not everyone evicted was involved in agriculture. Beyond the relatively numerous kelp workers, there were also the school teachers and rectors who also lost their homes and livelihoods as the populations they served disappeared. (b) The link is less than helpful, as it discusses small scale agriculture in a modern rather than a historical context.

I suggest changing to the following:
The Highland Clearances (Scottish Gaelic: Fuadach nan Gàidheal, the "eviction of the Gael") was the eviction during the 18th and 19th centuries of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

A problem word

This article uses the word "brutal" or "brutality" in 4 places. These usages may or may not originate from the cited sources. Some of those sources are quoting contemporaneous accounts.
The problem for the article is that the word "brutal" has slightly shifted in meaning since the time of the clearances. If, for instance, you saw a modern newspaper headline that mentioned "police brutality" you would be unsurprised if this was about either a shooting or serious physical violence against someone in inappropriate circumstances. However, when "brutal" was used some while ago, it often meant "heartless", "unsympathetic", or probably most often "inhuman" or "in the nature of animals". The word is, of course, derived from the word "brute" which meant an animal (other than human). So, when Daniel Defoe referred to "brutality", he meant "behaviour to be expected of an animal (as opposed to a human)".

It is unfortunate that use of this word now suggests actual physical violence. Whilst there undoubtedly was rough handling in many cases when tenants had to be physically evicted during the clearances, and isolated incident(s?) of mass gratuitous violence (I have the Greenyards event of 1854 in mind), I think it is very important that the article does not imply that serious violence was the norm for clearances - because the facts are very much otherwise. (If you wish to consider an example of something that did involve brutality (in the modern sense of the word) take a look at Memorial Day massacre of 1937.) Yes, evictions were, generally, heartlessly applied - even when there was no resistance and tenants had gone by the appointed day. But ambiguous language conceals that fact. Avoidance of "brutal" or "brutality" would allow undoubted cases of violent behaviour to be talked about much more clearly, without the confusion of a word whose meaning has shifted over the years.

One could also suggest that use of "brutal" or "brutality" in the article is WP:POV. I am not sure if this is fair, given that it is used freely in many sources.

I suggest that some rewriting is required to deal with this problemThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:05, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

A note relative to an archived talk page.

Richards, in Debating the Highland Clearances, pg 6, states:
"Most of this history [of the Clearances] has been written since 1880 and in sheer scale it is probably now larger than the original documentation of the Clearances."
This would be relevant for inclusion in a section on the historiography of the Clearances.
It also demonstrates the problem for editors of this article, in that you could probably find a source that says pretty much anything you want on this subject. Therefore source selection becomes of enormous importance. I note that one of the cited references in this article is actually a song by a politically active singer-songwriter - I find it bizarre that this has remained unchallenged for some time. (I will get to edit that in a while, if no-one gets there before me. There are even good authoritative sources to support the text!)

On another subject, but pg 7 of the same reference, where we find:
"The word 'clearance' was a latecomer to the story and not much used until the mid-nineteenth century"
Some discussion follows this, then moving on into the issue of what is meant by 'the Highland Clearances', but (significantly, I feel) avoiding giving any simple definition.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:21, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

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Repression of Jacobitism

I question the accuracy and relevance of this whole section. There are some pre-existing {{Citation needed}} tags, and I have added one today at the end of the second paragraph, as the existing text seems to present a simplistic and outdated view of the causes of changes in the clan structure. In making this comment about the second paragraph, I particularly have in mind Devine's explanation of clanship in "Clanship to Crofters' War".

Whilst the '45 rebellion and the repression that followed clearly has some background relevance to the whole article, I think it is wrong to try and give a potted history of the subject (there is, after all, a Wikipedia article on it, though, sadly, this is another one with the "multiple issues" banner at the top of it!!).

The third paragraph of this section talks about voluntary emigration, which, in strict terms, is outwith the subject of the article. It also mentions the military plans for controlling the Highlands. I do not see how this is relevant to the article either. There are also 1 each of {{Citation needed}} and {{vague}}.

Overall, there is a case for deleting this entire section and replacing it with a shorter reference to this aspect of historical background elsewhere in the article. At the very least, a substantial pruning and rewrite is needed (which would leave not enough text to warrant its own section).ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 16:02, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

It might be interesting to revise this section and put the Highland Clearances in the context of the broader history of land transfer in the Highlands (such as the consolidation of power over the Lord of the Isles) and outline the internal colonization argument (see http://dc.uwm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1456&context=etd , and the paper by Mackinnon that I mentioned below) that has been advanced by a critical mass of more recent scholarship on the issue. Catrìona (talk) 20:34, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Moving the population to the coast vs. wholesale emigration

In line with the extensive revisions with which ThoughtIdRetired and others are engaged, I thought that it might be a good time to bring up one aspect of the Clearances which could be addressed more deliberately in this article. I am referring to the distinction between removing people from the estate and evicting people from one part of the estate (typically a fertile inland valley) and moving them to smaller holdings on a less desirable part of the estate, with the dual aim of freeing up land for sheep-farming and obliging the people to work in the landlord's fishing or kelping industry in order to support themselves. This action would be a Clearance as defined at the end of the first paragraph of the article

A Highland Clearance has been defined as "an enforced simultaneous eviction of all families living in a given area such as an entire glen".

and often led to the destitution of the population; however it would not necessarily result in immediate emigration which characterizes "Clearances" in the popular imagination, a point which could be clarified.

All in all ThoughtIdRetired deserves a great deal of commendation for his/her work on revising the article. This is a very difficult topic to address especially considering that the most mainstream sources do not adequately Gaelic sources and therefore not present a fully balanced picture. I would like to see some newer scholarship (by Michael Newton, Iain Mackinnon, John Macinnes, and others) based on Gaelic sources incorporated into this article. In particular I have a copy of "Colonialism and the Highland Clearances" by Iain Mackinnon and would be happy to share via email by anyone who would like to read it. Catrìona (talk) 15:54, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks your comments. 2 immediate thoughts occur:

You quote the definition that originates in Watson and Allen's paper in Northern Scotland. If you refer to that source, you will see that there are caveats that the definition applies only for the purposes of the case studied in that paper. Unfortunately, because this is the only concise definition of a Highland Clearance, it tends to be used despite many deficiencies. There is an extensive discussion of this in Archive 4 of this talk page, so I probably should not add more on this - beyond the intention to do something about it. The fact that a part of the article currently matches the "popular" view is no reason for survival in any rewrite.

The fate of those cleared varies from case to case. The "popular" over-simplification that I feel it is important to demolish is that those cleared were "poor crofters". Crofting was, in the main part, a creation of clearance, when, as you rightly state, tenants were often moved to small plots of land that were not large enough to support the occupants without them finding employment elsewhere. Many of those cleared were substantial farmers who, judged in comparison to English counterparts with similar sized farms, would be considered people of significant status. Additionally, other classes of people lost their homes and livelihoods through clearance - including school teachers and ministers of religion who no longer had populations to tend. Some of these were treated equally as badly as those in agriculture. As a comment that I could not put in the article (as POV), it is perhaps reassuring that there was an element of class equality when people were cleared.

I will take a look at the Northern Scotland article you recommend - I have recently let my subscription lapse, but can easily reinstate - I would hate to expose you to the draconian copyright infringement warning that the Edinburgh University Press have!! However, at present I have a substantial backlog of reading.

I am working on a new section that tackles the causes of clearance: Economic Improvement; Social Engineering; Famine; Landlord Debt; Failure of the Kelp Industry; Discrimination. Lots of work to do on this, so nothing really to show at the moment. The article then needs a number of examples of clearance, put in chronological order, illustrating some of the varying features: protest, burnings, Patrick Sellar, clearance linked to emigration, unresisted clearances (e.g. Sutherland in 1819 and 1820) etc., etc. That would involve pruning some more sections. I am grappling with finding an authoritative estimate of the total number of highlanders who were cleared - Richards just simply puts this as "several tens of thousands" - I perhaps should accept his opinion that this fact is unknown. In the context of the total numbers of people who left the Highlands, this seems a very modest number - but perhaps that is the point: clearance was a catalyst for emigration.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:15, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your detailed comments. To clarify, when I mentioned "popular imagination" I didn't mean to propose that as the definitive definition but merely as a point that might need to be addressed for the benefit of the casual reader.

Thanks for your warning about the journal. The version I have is legal to share, at least in my country (US), as long as I don't post it on the Web for download.

The problem of finding an estimate for the population cleared is intractable especially if one is considering more detailed definitions of "clearance". How large does an area have to be before being considered an "entire" township, strath, etc.? What if a majority but not all tenants are cleared? Would it be appropriate to count individual evictions and thinning of the population by non-voluntary means in a total estimate of population effected? From the perspective of tenants, it was more a spectrum between forced eviction and truly voluntary migration as rack-renting, moving tenants around, etc. were widely used to remove tenants.

Ideally, I think those divisions make a lot of sense and could be further consolidated into 3 main divisions: Causes, Chronology (including specific examples), and Effects/Legacy. I would also like to see related information that doesn't fit the definition that we use here (voluntary migration, individual evictions, etc.) moved to another article, perhaps Emigration from the Scottish Highlands. Although removing uncited, irrelevant, and misleading material is important, I'm not sure how long this article would need to be to provide comprehensive coverage of the subject. Looking at other FAs in history, longer articles have been written about considerably more narrow topics. Catrìona (talk) 16:14, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of section titled "Religion"

I suggest that the section titled "Religion" has little value to the article and should be deleted. The reasons for this are as follows:

The first sentence is about the history of the tolerance of Roman Catholicism, starting in a period before that covered by much of the Clearances in the rest of the article. It also has had a "citation needed" for some while.

The estimates of the number of Roman Catholics in the Highlands, and the number that emigrated has little relevance, as there is no differentiation between those who emigrated as a result of eviction (i.e. Clearance) and those who went overseas to gain greater religious freedom or even as economic migrants.

The reported comments of Dawson and Farber state that religion was not a factor in the Clearances. This supports deletion of the whole section and is possibly the only valid comment therein.

Looking at the last sentence, the first reference is Richard talking about emigration. This is outwith the topic of the article, as voluntary emigration (as discussed in the reference) is not generally considered to be Clearance. I have to confess that I have not read the last reference for this section, as that would cost me $43.95 - but based on the above, I have little confidence that it would support the section content.

Having read up on this subject extensively, I can find little in the work of any major writers to suggest that being a Roman Catholic made one more susceptible to being evicted in any Clearance. Richards discusses the role of Catholicism in his assessment of the view of the clearances in the "popular" conception of what happened (Richards, 2008, Section IV chapter 1) - the point he is making that the rabble rousers (my words, not his, but if you read the reference you will probably accept my description) made unjustified comment about religious prejudice. Neither can I find support for Catholicism driving clearance in the works of TM Devine, James Hunter, Michael Lynch or Michael Fry.

The only valid point about religion and Clearance that I have found is regarding the split of the Church of Scotland, with many Free Church ministers siding with those who resisted eviction. This, obviously, refers to Protestants.

Without arguments to the contrary, I will delete the section titled "Religion". ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:54, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Seems like, if it is a common misconception (and I would think it is) it would be better to address it in the article rather than remove it? The fact that religion was not a major motivating factor would surely be of at least some relevance. Catrìona (talk) 00:27, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Good point - the absence of anti-Catholic prejudice being a motive for eviction should be mentioned somewhere. The problem is that the overall structure of the article is poor, so the puzzle is where such a comment would most appropriately fit. The split in the established Scottish church appears to be a genuine facilitator of protest - so is relevant. This might all be combined in with the social theories that we would now describe as racist - but that would entail a substantial rewrite of the section currently titled Psuedo Scientific Racism, a section that has defects of emphasis.

Alternatively, there should be a section that handles the proximal cause of most clearances - and I suggest these would be (1) ambitious social engineering intended to improve the lives of the tenants (one motivation of the Sutherland Clearances - and I have in mind the comparison made in one source (ref t.b.a. when I remember it) with the failed social engineering in Glasgow with the establishment of Bettyhill by the Sutherlands) (2) the wish of landowners to increase the rental income from their property (3) debt, and particularly the legal obligation of the administrators of a bankrupt estate to maximise income in order to pay off creditors (and this concept actually expands into the origins of that debt, which was unwise lending of bankers who did not understand the low productivity of x thousand acres of highland land) (4) collapse of industries: notably kelp (5) famine, particularly the potato famine, but not to the exclusion of others - and expanding into the changes to the poor laws, thereby leaving landowners with potentially huge famine relief bills in future instances (6) the sale of estates (often originating from actual or near bankruptcy) to people with little sense of loyalty or attachment to the residents, whether the purchaser was a Scot returning home from helping expand the Empire, or an English industrialist who realised that land in the Highlands was much cheaper than in England. All of these could be provided with examples elsewhere in the text with the description of some individual clearances. (And I think my list is incomplete - for example: there should be a discussion of the lack of incentive for land improvement under the runrig system - but the precise detail of how that should be put and the relevant references do not come to mind right now. Inclosure itself is relevant, but sadly some late (e.g. 1810) English inclosures of similar landscapes have not been adequately written up to provide comparisons with the Highland situation - so that aspect may have to be left alone.)ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 00:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Can I suggest you take a look at Archive 2 of this talk page - Talk:Highland_Clearances/Archive_2 . This was a long discussion prompted by an editor arguing strongly around this anti-Catholic issue. Although others, including myself, felt that the editor was overstating the case, and we queried many of his references, the research that we had to do in order to challenge some of his positions did in fact turn up some interesting instances of anti Catholic sentiment. This is, of course, the beauty and strength of Wikipedia. Going through that process was a very long, painful and sometimes unpleasant experience - but it did end up shedding more light on the subject. The "Religion" section was the final outcome of that discussion but by that time everyone was thoroughly exhausted and glad to see the back of this - so it is possible that not enough work was put into the new section. There are some interesting references given in the archive - perhaps some should be included in the "Religion" section. I would be against deleting the section altogether. Camerojo (talk) 05:19, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I have already dutifully ploughed through the relevant archived talk pages. I have to admire your persistence in engaging in such a lengthy discussion. It is not really feasible to comment on every aspect of that, but, to pick an example:
"In 1772, over a hundred Roman Catholics left the Clanranald estate for Prince Edward Island led by their factor, John MacDonald of Glenaladale, after persecution from their Protestant laird Colin MacDonald of Boisdale (Adams and Somerville, 1993, p. 64). This phase of emigration, and the trickle of willing departures that followed, was dwarfed by the famine clearances of the 1850s, ......"
It appears to me that this is an instance of a voluntary emigration to avoid religious persecution. The primary defining feature of the Highland Clearances is eviction - which is clearly not the case here.
Then we need to consider the vast range of potential sources on this subject and the relative degree of authority of each source. Anyone, given enough determination, could probably get a book published on the Highland Clearances. That does not mean that they have equal standing as a potential reference in this article to highly recognised historians, many of whom have senior academic positions in major universities. Particularly with this subject, editors have a responsibility for source selection. My analysis of the suitability of the section on religion (as it currently appears) draws on the opinions of the major experts in this field. They all think that religious prejudice had little impact on the decision whether or not to evict Highland tenants. Based on that analysis, I do not see how the article could have an entire section on Catholicism.
I think you also need to look at the sentence by sentence analysis of the section. Which parts of the section survive the offered criticism?ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:18, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

With no answer to the above comments, I will go ahead and carry out the proposed deletion. I could add that I have just started on Clanship to Crofters' War Nothing in the index suggests any coverage of clearances being motivated by religious discrimination. Conversely "Cargoes of Despair and Hope" does discuss religious persecution; but it is not clear whether those who emigrated were evicted at the end of their leases or simply decided to emigrate to avoid persecution. There is certainly discussion of some landlords being alarmed at the prospect of empty farms (and therefore no rent), and so easing off on the religious persecution. From my reading of this source, there is little doubt in my mind that this event included a good chunk of voluntary emigration to avoid religious persecution rather than evictions for religious reasons. I appreciate this is a fine balance - so more work is needed - and we may never know what actually happened with any certainty. In any case, the number of families in the instance discussed in this source is small.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:21, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

As you will have seen from the archive, most of us started from your position that religious intolerance was not a factor in the clearancea. However, out of that tortuous debate it did become clear that there is good evidence of instances of anti catholic sentiment. It was obviously not a major factor, but I think it should be mentioned - which is why I would argue to keep the Religion section. In that section, you could also mention complicit role of the established church in some clearances. Here is a quote from Richards: "Added to this was also a religious dimension in some of the west Highland emigrations; Catholics felt the chill of landlord discrimination to such a degree that people of this faith left for North America in disproportionately large numbers, often effectively well stimulated by emigration agents perambulating the Highlands before the end of the century." - Richards, Eric. The Highland Clearances (Kindle Locations 1632-1635). Birlinn. Kindle Edition. Camerojo (talk) 05:11, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

I think my recent reading is bringing me to a very similar conclusion as you: that there was some religious persecution of Catholics, and this generated some emigration to escape that. Reading again (and it takes multiple reads, as the facts are somewhat difficult to extract) Cargoes of Hope and Despair, it does appear that 36 families out of a tenant population of 300 families did not have their leases renewed when they expired. These were tenants of Colin MacDonald of Boisdale on South Uist. Of these, 11 families emigrated. Boisdale was widely criticised by his peers (both Catholic and Presbyterian) at the time. It is also not clear if his objective was to persuade his tenants to give up their Catholic faith, and the whole process simply back-fired on him. The source mentions that the project stalled when the threat of voluntary emigration scared him into temporarily pausing the program of harassment; empty farms meant no rent being paid to the landlord.

I had spotted Richards' comment. I would say that this applies to voluntary emigration - though I hesitate to use the word "voluntary" in this context. It does, however, differentiate from eviction - and this is important if one is trying to keep the article "on subject". That said, it is very important for the article to explain how voluntary emigration fits alongside clearance. Bearing in mind the considered estimate by Richards that the numbers of people cleared was in the tens of thousands, and the overall population of the Highlands pre-clearance and now, then voluntary emigration is clearly the much bigger part of what we see now (the empty glens and straths). Somewhere among all the material I have on this subject, there must be an authoritative source that addresses this - perhaps stating that clearance was a major catalyst of emigration.

Hence, I have the following in draft form - I need to check this all through before adding - and the intent is to include it alongside discussion of other proximal causes of individual clearance events.

Roman Catholics had experienced a sequence of discriminatory laws in the period up to 1708. Whilst English versions of these laws were repealed in 1778, in Scotland this did not happen until 1793. However, religious discrimination is not considered a reason for evicting tenants as part of any clearance by some historians and is seen more as a source of voluntary emigration by writers such as Eric Richards. There is one clear (and possibly solitary) case of harassment of Catholics which resulted in eviction by Colin MacDonald of Boisdale (a recent convert to Presbyterianism). This temporarily stalled when the risk of empty farms (and therefore loss of rent) became apparent when voluntary emigration to escape persecution was possible. But in 1771, 36 families did not have their leases renewed (out of some 300 families who were tenants of Boisedale), 11 of these emigrated the next year with financial assistance from the Roman Catholic church.

ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 09:05, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Looks like a nuanced, relevant, concise, and NPOV treatment of the topic. Great work! Catrìona (talk) 16:16, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Resistance

Looking at the section on resistance, I think there are a few essential points to get across. The first is best illustrated by quoting Richards in the closing words of Richards, Eric (2000). The Highland Clearances People, Landlords and Rural Turmoil (2013 ed.). Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited. ISBN 978 1 78027 165 1.
“The Clearances were resisted intermittently and on a scale and with an intensity which was not unusual in such a society undergoing transformation. The level of leadership was poor but the involvement of women was striking and recurrent in a clearly established pattern. But the extent of violence and bloodshed was small by historical standards.”
Elsewhere in the same book, Richards makes comparisons with Ireland, undergoing a similar process, where there were assassinations, etc.

What I would add to this (and Richards does address the point) was the use of the press to oppose clearance. The Countess of Sutherland was particularly disturbed by press comments about various clearances on her estate. Considering that she had had to endure the trial of Patrick Sellar – in which she largely abandoned the idea of giving her employee any support, it is not surprising that she was cautious of adverse public opinion. What is notable is the relatively efficient way in which a distant peasant population was able to access London newspapers for placement of articles favourable to their cause. I wonder if this is related to the higher level of literacy among Highlanders – a by-product of trying to teach them English was that they learnt to read. (Need to find a good ref to support that view – it is out there, but I don’t have a note of it.) But, in short, the supposedly inferior Highland peasant community was able to run a rather effective PR campaign.

Note that the trial of Sellar was also an organised piece of resistance – but it rather fell apart on the day, presumably because witnesses lost their nerve at the last moment. The protagonists possibly assumed that it would all be settled out of court – but there is no evidence on that. For the article, I think it would be fair to list the build up to the trial as organised resistance.

I also have in mind a quote Richards from the same work (2nd para, chapter 2): “‘Unconditional compliance’ was the most common reaction of the people of the Highlands when served with papers to quit their lands.”

Richards makes clear that we hear mostly of the unusual instances: when people resisted, when eviction parties acted badly, or independent witnesses wrote (not necessarily with a full level of understanding) about what they saw. This may be related to the “pre-clearance” situation – something that Richards addresses more in terms of a question: how secure was the tenure of a highlander before the time of the clearances? Was the tenancy of one of these farms ever as secure as people have assumed? If not, this might explain a level of acceptance of eviction.

It is strange to think of the “Year of the Sheep” protest, when great care was taken not to harm the sheep that were driven out of the county – a protest that greatly scared those in authority, and the participants were so careful not to do any physical harm. This, of course contrasts with the angry mob in the Strath of Kildonan who, on 6th January 1813 chased off the sheep farmers who were viewing the land before bidding for leases; 2 of them rode for almost 8 miles, nearly to the next county, before losing their pursuers (who were on foot!). Meanwhile, at the house where they had left their shepherds “there was no mistaking the aggressive intent of those – admittedly few – members of the Suisgill crowd who set about the Cleughs’ collie dogs with their sticks. Although they were urged by others to desist, there was a cruel logic to those men’s actions. To maim or kill a shepherd’s sheepdogs was to deprive him of the tools of his trade…..” (Hunter, James. Set Adrift upon the World: The Sutherland Clearances (Kindle Locations 1574-1577). Birlinn. Kindle Edition.)

Sorry if this sounds like extensive criticism - it is not intended that way.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:19, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

No, you are clearly much more widely read on this subject than I am and these seem like valid criticisms. I have previously edited only articles that are much more simple and less controversial, so just sourcing facts was sufficient. I can see that a different approach will be necessary here!

The statement by Richards, “‘Unconditional compliance’ was the most common reaction of the people of the Highlands when served with papers to quit their lands,” is important to consider. I haven't read The Trial of Patrick Sellar so I won't comment on that.

It seems like a strong claim that requires careful verification that the school system in the Highlands was better than the Lowlands — or perhaps you mean Ireland? A quick Google got me this study (http://www.localpopulationstudies.org.uk/PDF/LPS36/LPS36_1986_36-46.pdf) which states that in 1822, "In those parishes where Gaelic was more widely understood than English, the inability to read was quite marked." Education was not mandatory until the 1872 Act.

I think your question might have a simpler answer. There was a small but influential population of urban, bilingual Gaels who had strong ties to their home areas and to the Gaelic language but were prosperous and poised to influence public opinion. Michael Newton has wrote about such people in Canada, who despite distance and the fact that many of them would never have been to Scotland, still agitated against the Clearances. Cameron's The History of Gaelic Scotland Chapter 1, 2nd paragraph states, "The 1870s and 1880s were also a period of growing cultural confidence and activity in the Highlands as the Gaelic Society of Inverness, the Federation of Celtic Societies and less formal groups of Gaels in urban Scotland developed political campaigns on linguistic and educational matters."

It's obvious that there was a major shift of opinion in Lowland presses in the 1850s at the time of the famine clearances. Bruce (Riots in Durness: The Story of the Clearance of Ceannabeinne and the Townships of the Rispond Estate, 2008) attributes the shift to negative coverage of the Rispond Clearance. One would speculate that the landlords could get away with moving people around within their estates without much outside scrutiny but when destitute Highlanders flooded the streets of Glasgow (and became a social problem) someone had to be blamed. As to how the Highlanders got sympathy (compared to whom?) they were white, mostly Protestant, and had a reputation as loyal soldiers of the Empire, which made them more sympathetic characters than Irish immigrants to Lowland cities.

I think another important point to make, in terms of the different definitions of Clearance coming into conflict, is that in spite of the relatively small numbers that were affected by "classical" Clearance it would be difficult to overstate the impact on Gaelic society. In an essay entitled "The Poetry of the Clearances" Sorley Maclean wrote, "I have no doubt that four-fifths of the emigration from 1780 to 1880 was caused directly or indirectly by the Clearances, or by such close relations to the Clearances as rack-renting or appropriation, by landlords, of the best agricultural and pastoral land." He would not be the author that I would cite for figures, but this is how the events were perceived by the Gaelic community. He goes on to describe the theme of emigration as "all-encompassing" in nineteenth-century Gaelic literature. Even today, it would be difficult to name Gaelic writers who have not been influenced in some evident way by the downstream effects of the Clearances. Catrìona (talk) 04:38, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Level of literacy. You have found an interesting paper. From the statistics showing that reading was more prevalent in areas where English was well understood, this would fit with the theory that schools such as those established by the SSPCK generated a population local to that school who were literate and spoke English (if only at school or when working outside their home area). I have seen literacy rates as an element in the push/pull effect on emigration: letters from successful emigrants encouraged others. On consideration, this push/pull effect was more prominent later in the 19th century, so my initial point was not really correct. Nevertheless, looking at the Sutherland clearances, SSPCK schoolmasters feature in the story - so there was a presence then. The key point on newspaper access as part of protest is illustrated by the actions of Alexander Sutherland in opposing the Strath of Kildonan clearances in 1813 -
"...Alexander knowing exactly how to conduct an eye-catching press campaign – made him a dangerous adversary. This began to be evident to a duly enraged Marchioness of Stafford on 16 March 1813 when The Star, then London’s leading evening newspaper, carried an article headlined ‘Disturbances in Sutherland’." (Hunter, James. Set Adrift upon the World: The Sutherland Clearances (Kindle Locations 1953-1955). Birlinn. Kindle Edition.) There are many other instances when London and other newspapers sent reporters to cover disputed clearances; some of these can easily picked from an electronic version of any of the sources written by prominent historians.

I agree, a key point of the clearances was that it acted as a catalyst of a much larger movement of people - whether as emigrants outside Britain, or relocating to one of the industrial cities of Scotland or England. This must be fitted in to the right point of the article. However, one might need to check the timing of the larger part of the voluntary emigration - my recollection is that the peak of that was after the generally accepted finish of the clearances. That does not mean that clearance was not a catalyst - in fact if the "pull" element of push/pull motivation was more important, one would expect a time lag.

Incidentally, on Patrick Sellar, I would recommend Richards, Eric (1999). Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances. Edinburgh: Polygon. ISBN 1 902930 13 4.; by his own admission, Sellar had some unpleasant character traits, however, this book gives a good understanding of the man, someone with strengths and failings - and he really not much different from Francis Suther, the factor who replaced Sellar. (One contemporary account of clearance blamed Sellar for brutality in 1819, but Suther had already replaced him: the dangers of primary sources WP:PRIMARY!!) The account of the trial is an example of resistance to clearance - but resistance that failed. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:29, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

I have just found: "...it has yet to be demonstrated that, in general, the Clearances accelerated either migration or emigration." Richards, Eric. The Highland Clearances (Kindle Locations 6679-6680). Birlinn. Kindle Edition. This is in this book's information-dense final chapter. It rather contradicts opinions stated above. I wonder what other opinions are out there.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:49, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

I have checked the opinions of Divine: "....the popular myth that Scotland’s great modern exodus was in large part due to the dispossession associated with the Highland Clearances." Devine, T M. To the Ends of the Earth: Scotland's Global Diaspora, 1750-2010 (p. xiv). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition. Some further investigation is clearly needed before anything ends up in the article.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 08:24, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Also: "The Highland Clearances, therefore, cannot explain, either directly or indirectly, mass Scottish emigration after c. 1860." Devine, T M. To the Ends of the Earth: Scotland's Global Diaspora, 1750-2010 (p. 98). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 08:28, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

I looked up both Devine quotes, and it's clear that he's talking about overall Scottish immigration, particularly from the Lowlands. Since at that time the Highlands were only a small minority of the overall population of Scotland, it's a distinction that should be maintained more clearly than he has it. As for Richards, I suppose it comes down to different opinions on what constitutes the Clearances; it doesn't seem as if he is disputing the claim that rack-renting and landlords' appropriation of the best land for themselves led people to leave. While not wishing to rehash the debate (I've read through some of the talk pages) I think there is merit here in pointing out that we are not necessarily required to use the academic definition. Although Wikipedia:Article titles only addresses the case where the article's content determines its name, not the other way around, the spirit of the policy would seem to suggest that we use the most commonly accepted definition which appears to be somewhat broader. Another point: formal Clearances and smaller-scale evictions, rack-renting and other means of inducing people to leave were often executed in the same places, at the same time, by the same people and with the same object. Uniting these into one article (not necessarily this one) would make it easier to give the big picture on changes in population and land usage. Catrìona (talk) 03:56, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

I am grappling with exactly what are established facts, or even the fact that something is unknown (which is a feature of the historiography of the subject) - all in terms of what should go into the article. You have seen my earlier comments on defining "Highland Clearance". My preference would be to use a narrative definition, rather than the one sentence option. This could make clear that though the strict use of the term really referred to the eviction of tenants in an organised plan that generally involved changing land use or the cessation of economic activity - that also simple rent increases or lack of security of tenure could have the same effect as eviction. However, I think that we need to be very careful that whatever goes into the article has some significant measure of academic support. This is why I try and limit the majority of sources to Richards (who is probably the most prolific writer on the subject and is now an emeritus professor of history at a major Australian university http://www.flinders.edu.au/people/eric.richards), Divine (perhaps the most technically correct historian on the subject, a professor at Edinburgh University http://www.ed.ac.uk/history-classics-archaeology/about-us/staff-profiles/profile_tab1_academic.php?uun=tdevine), Jim Hunter (whose personal views very much tend towards great sadness at the empty highland landscapes - read his twitter page for more, admidst the modern Scottish politics - but even he shows a firm academic rigour, as in his treatment of, for example, the burning of Badinloskin in his book on the Sutherland Clearances, debunking some of the more hysterical elements of mythology of this event - his academic post is https://www.uhi.ac.uk/en/research-enterprise/cultural/centre-for-history/staff/professor-james-hunter/ ). As a second level of choice, I would include Michael Lynch (https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/michael-lynch/1005855/), Michael Fry (who has the downside of also dabbling in journalism, but is also a widely published historian). Clearly there are more sources to consider, and I may have left something out of my own list. But I feel that this subject in particular must have a firm academic base - simply because, as Richards puts it, the total volume of later writing on the subject exceeds the entire historical archive on which historians can base their research. The result is that you can find published work that says whatever you want.

You are right that Divine (in the quote above) is talking about total Scottish emigration - but I note that this was his opportunity to state a link between clearance and emigration from the Highlands, which he does not do. I have yet to find a mainstream historian who makes a clear connection - that doesn't mean there isn't one, I just haven't found it yet.

And I must take you up on landlords "appropriating the best land" - however unfair or immoral it might be, they owned the land in the first place.

In short, I feel that I need to do more research on the relationship between migration/emigration and the clearances. I was surprised to find some evidence that the relationship is not clear to historians - especially with what I learnt (elsewhere) about the push/pull motivation of Swedish people emigrating to the USA.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 09:29, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for this very detailed and well-reasoned response. I understand the importance of using tertiary sources, and the importance of academic scholarship which reflects the historical consensus. You have obviously read a lot on this subject and the historians you mentioned all have impeccable credentials. The only thing that I might suggest with regards to the list is that none of these historians appears to have a knowledge of Gaelic. As Michael Newton and others have pointed out, few Gaelic sources have been translated into English and, to make matters worse, there has been a tendency on the part of anglophone historians to discount Gaelic sources (to be fair, I am not familiar enough with any of these historians' work to make specific criticisms.) Yes, they are primary and not always factually accurate, but as you pointed out, just because something was written down in English doesn't make it necessarily true either. In addition, I've found in the very limited reading that I've done that the historians with knowledge of Gaelic write with equal scholarly rigor but from a different set of cultural values and expectations than anglophone scholars. Iain Mackinnon, for example, cites facts from Devine, Richards and the like but goes in a different direction with his historical arguments. I think these two traditions complement each other.

The crofters didn't necessarily believe that the land belonged to them, but they certainly believed that they belonged on the land and no one had the right to oblige them to leave. Although you are of course welcome to your own opinion with regards to the landlords' rights, it would be POV to take a position on whether the legal claim to the land outweighed the Gaelic law and custom cited by the Highland Land League. Catrìona (talk) 01:20, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

On your last point - and testing the limits of the purpose of a talk page - I have some close second-hand knowledge of tenancy on an estate owned by a very wealthy person, including a cowman being evicted from his tied cottage when an estate farm moved out of dairy into beef production, and people who worked so many days on a farm in return for a house (yes, very medieval - but my kids played with theirs - these people were my friends and neighbours). And I understand that if I own land now, it is probably because someone in history stole it from someone else. But the mystery of crofting (and this is the bit that is relevant for this article, or, better, an article on crofting) is (a) before they became crofters, many of these people were tenant farmers - a much higher status in society - if not, they were cottars who worked for those tenant farmers. (b) It is therefore strange that the sentimental bond with a croft by the later generations is so strong, when crofting was the product on a serious dispossession. The strong bond with place is illustrated in (and may be explained by) Charles W. J. Withers (1987) Highland‐Lowland migration and the making of the crofting community, 1755–1891, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 103:2, 76-83, wherein representative interviews of two crofters (in 1851 and 1883) show that they were happy to live and work for long periods long distances away from their crofts as migrant workers - all summer on harvest work, or even a whole year - just so that they could live on their croft the rest of the time. This demonstrates a very strong bonding to a place (and to the associated culture) that is probably the nub of the whole matter. There are suggestions by some academics that the attachment to crofts is that the clearances tried to take land rights away from people. (And I note that at the beginning of the 20th century, public money was made available for crofters to buy their crofts - in general they chose not to, preferring to remain as tenants: to an outsider that is paradoxical.) The problem for Scottish Gaeldom is the relatively rapid transition from a feudal society to a marginal part of the agricultural sector of an industrialised world - and that is why there is a Wikipedia article on a big part of that process.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 09:05, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

This is absolutely fascinating, although a subject on which I can claim only a limited understanding. The concept of individual land ownership was a foreign import. In fact, owner-occupiers only really make sense under capitalism and in their individualism are perhaps even more alien to Gaelic society than what might be termed profit-extractive landlordism. Beforehand the land had been controlled by Gaelic chiefs under a system that was probably similar to Brehon law, with the chiefs dependent on the entire community: tacksmen for agricultural organization and military service, the filidh for PR and political legitimacy, the peasants for labor and food, etc. It was the process of anglicization that broke these bonds of mutual dependence, a process which began before the '45 and persisted, perhaps most absurdly, in the reluctance of Gaelic bards to criticize their traditional patrons (a tendency notable even in the poetry of Màiri Mhòr nan Òran, the bard of the Land League!) Chiefs' power now came from outside the Gàidhealtachd in the form of land deeds and titles granted by the monarch, rather than military force and propaganda from the Gaelic society. As independent actors, landlords were both freed to act on their own behalf rather than for the community, and obliged to do so by the economic realities of wider Britain.

It's likely that contemporary Gaelic communities' decisive adoption of land trusts is actually a resurfacing of these very old Gaelic ideas of communal land ownership, which were given a new lease on life in the Land League era. To be honest, the idea of "every man owns his own farm" strikes me as a product of the Homestead Act (although I could be completely off the mark)--it seems like a very American thing and I say that as an American.

The connection between Gaels and place long predates the clearances although physical displacement and the changes in the environment had a profound influence on how that connection played out. Michael Newton has written on this subject, as has Alastair McIntosh, one of whose books, Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power, is listed under "Further Reading" for this article.

A bit more on topic -- Scottish Gaels in the nineteenth century were desperate to appeal to British sympathy by distancing themselves from the racialized prejudice against the Irish. This often took the form of borrowing kitsch Highlandism in the form emphasizing military service and protestations of how their "loyalty" had been rewarded with eviction. Downplaying resistance would also have made sense for the landlords, who didn't want to draw negative media attention. In contrast, agrarian violence in Ireland was exaggerated to substantiate anti-Irish sentiments of and to justify the paranoid security measures of the ruling class; the situation was reminiscent of the (practically illusory) terror of slave rebellion in the American South. Agrarian unrest typically took the form of threatening letters, actual murders being vanishingly rare. The most prevalent expression of opposition to the landlords was Catholicism. Obviously the situation was not the same, but I can't help but think that more of the difference is spin than sometimes acknowledged. Catrìona (talk) 03:55, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Replacement Section: Causes

I have gone ahead with a bold edit as a start to tidying up this article. I have started with "Causes" as a replacement for "Economic "improvements"". Clearly, some of the content in this section makes redundant other parts of the article. However, it seems polite to make this a stepwise process - to put an example of these ideas for the article out there and see what response there is.

Further changes would be to put in some examples of actual clearance events, but with the proviso that the well-known ones were mostly a-typical, since the normal clearance was not newsworthy. The historical background needs a bit of modification - there is too much emphasis on the '45 rebellion and no realisation that the clan system was in decline before then.

And I will probably need to come back to the text inserted today for a further copy edit. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:16, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your work. I've gone ahead and fixed a few typos and changed a few terms to more universal equivalents. One thing that I wasn't certain about was c/Clearance and c/Clearances -- whichever one we go with should be applied consistently to the entire article.

I think the point of dùthchas could use more elaboration. I've put in a note with a the best concise definition that I could find in a hurry, but I'll try to see if I can put together something in the text that's sufficiently NPOV. Catrìona (talk) 03:13, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I have grappled with capitalisation of "clearance". Looking at Richards, he uses lower case unless it is in a context like "the Sutherland Clearances", "Highland Clearances" - and this seems to read well. Same rule applies to Jim Hunter , Devine, David Craig. I am not sure if I have stuck to this rule!!.

The note on dùthchas seems to do the job well (Divine has a discussion of the term in Clanship to Crofters' War) but I am wondering whether ultimately this would be dealt with in a rewritten Economic and Social Background section. I think that would be a key part of the article - and there are lots of important facts to get right in it based on the consensus view of modern historians - and it will need to be concise. One step at a time for the moment.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 09:29, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

OK sounds good -- you were consistent with capitalization but the rest of the article is still entirely uppercased "the Clearance" etc. so that will need to be changed if the other style is adopted. On the dùthchas point, it occurs to me that this subject could use better coverage itself -- there is no wiki article on Indigenous perspectives on land ownership or anything similar and the Scottish Clans article is in as dire need of revision as this one before you started working on it. One thing at a time I suppose Catrìona (talk) 10:31, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Literature

Tried to add Butcher's Broom by Neil M. Gunn and And the Cock Crew by Fionn MacColla to the entry about prose, but my entry was rejected as "unconstructive" or some such thing, don't know why as they clearly add materially to the entry.

As I'm new I don't know how best to address this. Caberguy (talk) 13:47, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Numbers?

Are there any (reliable, published) estimates of the pre-Clearance population of the Highlands? It would be great to have a little side table showing the population in different years. Q·L·1968 ☿ 17:48, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

I am not aware of any. I believe the population peaked in the 1851 census and declined thereafter, which is a somewhat misleading impression given that almost everywhere had population increases during that time period. More useful would be graphing the ratio between populations in the Highlands against the rest of Scotland. What I would like to see a graph of the number of acres in the Highlands under agriculture vs. pasture vs. recreational wilderness -- I think it would make an edifying addition to this article. Catrìona (talk) 02:51, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

According to ThoughtIdRetired, Richards avoided giving a specific figure on the number evicted. I've found a higher estimate which states "perhaps half a million people [were] forced out of their homelands by landlords—dispatched mainly to the towns or to the colonies on emigrant ships." The authors add in a footnote: "This figure is astonishingly devoid of in-depth scholarship. Blamires (1996) extrapolates records and estimates 300,000–500,000 violent evictions. Numbers forced by economic exigency would have been much higher." McIntosh has lectured at Strathclyde and has held a number of academic fellowships. Catrìona (talk) 17:27, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

The last figure seems to be bizarrely wrong. The present day population of the Highlands is 234,110. At the time of the clearances it was (I believe - but cannot find the reference right now) about 300,000. Whoever did this extrapolation must have got the decimal point in the wrong place - I know some people were cleared more than once, but some never experienced eviction. A further point of reference is the entire population of Scotland: 1,608,420 in 1810 . Furthermore, most evictions were not violent - in fact very few were. If you do not believe the senior academics who present this viewpoint, then go and look at some old newspaper reports (allowing for the fact that journalists are trying to sell you a story.) If the journalists and other witnesses can only come up with the crying of people who have to leave their homes (without belittling genuine distress), then there is no violence - because that would sell more newspapers.

If anyone has a few hours to spare and some decent spreadsheet skills, the reference mentioned above might answer the question in some detail - the catch is that the answer would be original research WP:ORThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:25, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Found this:

"the population of the Highlands rose from 115,000 in 1755 to 154,000 in 1801 and to 201,000 by 1831."

Lynch, Michael. Scotland: a New History (Kindle Locations 9987-9988). Random House. Kindle Edition. That's page 367 in the printed version.

I think this broadly fits with my remembered 300,000 which would be the 1851 peak value.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:46, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

ThoughtIdRetired, I didn't mean to seem as if I was endorsing these numbers--I happened upon them and put them here in case they were relevant to the discussion, since the previous editor had mentioned population figures.

I don't have time to look into that right now, but if someone did, it wouldn't be WP:OR -- "Routine calculations do not count as original research, provided there is consensus among editors that the result of the calculation is obvious, correct, and a meaningful reflection of the sources." Likewise, producing charts based on published data isn't OR. Recall Newton giving an estimate of 400,000 Gaelic speakers for the mid-nineteenth century, will try to track that down along with his estimate of how many were living outwith Scotland at that time--actually should add this to the Scottish Gaelic article... Catrìona (talk) 02:36, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

It's a bit more than a "routine calculation" - one would need to identify each parish as Highland/non-Highland, which would need some interpretation as you usually find that some will have merged or changed their name. (I've done a smaller but similar job elsewhere, but with the same problem: it's a lot of work!) I think it would be better to spend the time finding someone else who has studied this material - perhaps by looking for work that cites this reference. On the Gaelic speakers, historically, the language did not equate with the Highland region - I appreciate that it became extinct in Galloway before the time of the Clearances - but there would have been Gaelic speakers living in the big cities of Scotland, as well as overseas. And I appreciate that you were not endorsing the numbers shown. I think this is a good example of how this subject seems to attract incorrect facts, which can often be found in sources that have every appearance of being authoritative. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 07:25, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Richards estimates "“several tens of thousands” (323) were evicted, but as I recall does not provide pre-clearance figures in The Highland Clearances. Charles Withers presents some more detailed figures in Urban Highlanders, I don't have access to that text at the moment, but the data is presented in a table... I reference some of it in my dissertation, mostly percentages rather than raw numbers, pgs 50-52 (https://uw-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=MIL_BEPRESSetd-1456&context=L&vid=MIL&search_scope=MIL_ALL&tab=main&lang=en_US) Caberguy (talk) 13:54, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Section: "Resistance": Whisky distillation as resistance to clearance??

I do not follow how the practice of unlicensed whisky distillation in the Highland region amounts to resistance to clearance or improvement. Devine has made a study of this illicit activity, which he discusses in chapter 9 of Clanship to Crofters War. He clearly and repeatedly states that there was collusion between the landowning classes and the illegal distillers, the advantage to the landlords being that their tenants could afford higher rents if earning money in this illegal activity. The magistrates responsible for law and order were drawn from the pool of landlords and their associates. Special legislation had to be enacted (1822-23) to force them to impose fines of any significance for those prosecuted; Devine cites a quote from a magistrate that makes clear the landlords would rather have their tenants pay rent rather then larger fines.

The discussion of Sellar's abhorrence of this trade in the cited source (Daniel Guy's PhD thesis) seems to miss his main character trait: his passionate and over-zealous following of the law (a failing that even Sellar was aware of - see Richards' biography of him). The result of this was that Sellar had a track record of following the letter of the law in circumstances that did him no good (for example, complaining that Robert McKid (the local law officer) had been poaching on the Sutherland Estate - result: McKid pursues a vendetta against Sellar, culminating in Sellar's trial for culpable homicide following the eviction at Badinloskin. The trial was always going to leave one of the pair of antagonists a broken man - though in this instance it was McKid). Furthermore, Guy does not seem to regard illegal distillation as an example of resistance to clearance and improvement.

I suspect the same criticism could be applied to poaching - it was not an act of resistance, it was just something people did in a region with not much law enforcement and a very low population density. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:51, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

First, thank you for reading my work. Second, my name is Daniel Guy Brown... Guy is not my surname (I corrected this in the citations). Third, I do not claim that illegal distillation is used as a form of resistance by those subject to eviction, rather I claim that Sellar uses illegal distillation, along with other petty criminality, as a rationale for clearance. That he and Loch use these claims to suggest that Highlanders deserve what's coming to them because they fail to fall in line with this particular version of Calvinist morality:

"Again and again Sellar and Loch make similar claims of indolence, sloth and petty criminality. These claims position the Highlanders as barbarous, backwards and alienated from dominant modes of Scottish and English society. Accusations of sloth, indolence, endemic illicit distillation and other petty crimes also seek to portray the Highland population in opposition to the established modes of morality in a Scottish society still deeply influenced by Knox, Calvin and the moral imperative of the protestant work ethic" (66).

I removed the sections that cited my work in ways that I thought misrepresented it

(apologies if this is inappropriate, but I'm new here)

Caberguy (talk) 13:52, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Welcome aboard. The edit removing the suggestion that whisky distillation was a form of resistance to clearance seems entirely appropriate to me. I note that you have a comment on your talk page from an editor who is probably more of an expert on Wikipedia protocols than me.

On the other content point, I agree that Sellar used any point of law or morality to justify eviction - I might have misread the reference on this. The peculiarity of Sellar is that he seemed to relish points of law that any wiser person would have probably left alone. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:21, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. Lots to absorb. I see that it may have been a bit of a no-no to edit the section of an article in which I am cited. But as I was removing, rather than adding, citations I felt it wasn't self-promotion, and I did try to be transparent about it. Cheers. Caberguy (talk) 23:43, 2 August 2017 (UTC)