The Clearances
A good start is John Prebble’s The Highland Clearances and David Craig’s On The Crofters' Trail: In Search Of The Clearance Highlanders. Craig goes off in search of the descendants of cleared crofters in Scotland and Canada to hear their stories. His more recent title, The Glens Of Silence: Landscapes Of The Highland Clearances, is an illustrated title on cleared townships and the consequences on the land. Tom Devine’s Clanship To Crofters' War: The Social Transformation Of The Scottish Highlands gives an excellent overview of that area of Scotland, and sets the period in its historical context. A contemporary observer, Alexander Mackenzie, wrote The History Of The Highland Clearances.
In Patrick Sellar And The Highland Clearances: Homicide, Eviction And The Price Of Progress, Eric Richards, author of The Highland Clearances, examines the life and legacy of one of the Clearances’ most notorious figures, Patrick Sellar. Ian Grimble also tackles the subject in The Trial Of Patrick Sellar.
How the Clearances were seen by the rest of the Scotland, the Lowlands, is examined in some detail in Contempt, Sympathy And Romance: Lowland Perceptions Of The Highlands And The Clearances During The Famine Years, 1845-1855 while The Lowland Clearances: Scotland's Silent Revolution 1760-1830 argues that clearances took place in the Lowlands too, on a greater scale, but that there is much less discussion of it.
The Clearances affected parts of the country in different ways. Here are some books pointing to specific areas: A Season In Dornoch: Golf And Life In The Scottish Highlands; from an archaeological perspective, there is Barra: From The Clans To The Clearances, and The Little General And The Rousay Crofters: Crisis And Conflict On An Orkney Estate.
Fictional treatments of the Clearances are illuminating and the main Highlands and Islands writers have written novels that have become Scottish classics. Iain Crichton Smith’s classic novel, Consider the Lilies, is a poignant look at the period through the eyes of an old woman. There is also Neil Gunn’s The Silver Darlings and Butcher’s Broom, and Fionn MacColla’s And the Cock Crew. For children, Kathleen Fidler’s The Desperate Journey, remains the classic title.
The most recent titles are Michael Fry’s Wild Scots: Four Hundred Years of Highland History while The Highland Clearance Trail by Rob Gibson is due in January 2006.
Books featured in this article
- And The Cock Crew
And the Cock Crows offers one of the most powerful and searching examinations of the Highland Clearances to be found in modern Scottish literature. - Barra: From The Clans To The Clearances
The Hebridean island of Barra has witnessed some of the most imporant moments in Scottish history, from the Norse invaders of c. AD900 through to the Jacobite rebellion. This book not only describes the history of the island, but also details the blackhouses and shielings of the ordinary clansmen. - Butcher's Broom
Butcher's Broom with the poignant background of the early nineteenth-century Highland clearances is one of the jewels in Gunn's crown. It is to be cross-promoted with other Neil Gunn titles in the series: Morning Tide, Young Art and Old Hector. - Consider The Lilies
The Highland Clearances have become a dominant theme and potent myth in Scottish fiction. In this work, award winning Iain Crichton Smith focuses on an old woman whose eviction from her croft forces her to reappraise her entire world. - Storm Over The Highlands
This publication introduces the Clearances as a classic historical problem. Eric Richards reviews the debate among historians, novelists, politicians and economists and presents a representative anthology of documents illustrating the historical foundations on which the debate is built. - The Desperate Journey
The Murrays are forced to move to the slums of Glasgow - the first step in a journey that takes them across the seas to Canada, and to the Red River. All of the events described by Kathleen Fidler actually happened to the Red River colonists. - The Glens Of Silence: Landscapes Of The Highland Clearances
David Craig and David Paterson provide a written and visual record of around 25 of the communities throughout the Scottish Highlands and Islands that were abandoned during the Highland Clearances. - The Highland Clearances
Following his reconstruction of the moorland battle in Culloden, John Prebble recounts how the Highlanders were deserted and then betrayed into famine and poverty. While the chiefs grew rich, the people died of cholera or famine. - The Highland Clearances: People, Landlords And Rural Turmoil
The standard image of the Highland Clearances is of brutal eviction, of burning, starvation and barren wastes. This new book tracks the origins of the Clearances from the 18th century to their culmination in the crofting legislation of the 1890s. - The Highland Clearances Trail
'The Highland Clearances Trail' will answer the where, why, what and whens of the Highland clearances. Taking you around the significant sites of the Highland clearances this vivid guide gives you a scholarly introduction to a tragic moment in Scotland's history. - The History Of The Highland Clearances
The tragedy of the Clearances, brought about by cynical, often absentee landlords, is a black page in Scotland's history. Written while the effects it describes were still unfolding, Mackenzie's history brings the distress before the reader. - The Little General And The Rousay Crofters: Crisis And Conflict On An Orkney Estate
This is the story of the island of Rousay during the dramatic years 1840 and 1890. Landlord Burroughs evicted any tenant that gave evidence to the Royal Commission whose findings led to the Crofters Act, requiring a gunboat's presence to keep the peace. - The Lowland Clearances: Scotland's Silent Revolution, 1760-1830
The number of people who left the Lowlands during the agricultural revolution far exceeded the number exiled from the Highlands. And yet, compared to the Highlands, very little has been written or published about the Lowland Clearances. This book aims to redress that imbalance. - On The Crofters' Trail: In Search Of The Clearance Highlanders
For several generations the Highlanders were forced from their homes by landowners in the Clearances. Many fled to Nova Scotia and beyond. David Craig set out to discover how many of their stories survive in the memories of their descendants. - Patrick Sellar And The Highland Clearances: Homicide, Eviction And The Price Of Progress
Patrick Sellar is one of the most hated individuals in modern Scottish history. He was brought to trial in Inverness for culpable homicide and his savage treatment of the Highlanders of Strathnaver. Eric Richards examines and assesses the man. - A Season In Dornoch: Golf And Life In The Scottish Highlands
In 1977, Lorne Rubenstein, an avid golfer, travelled to Dornoch in the Highlands. He sought to uncover an authentic sense of self and turned to a place where golf was purest. Here, he describes how the experience had a profound effect on him. - The Silver Darlings
The tale of lives won from a cruel sea and crueller landlords. The dawning of the Herring Fisheries brought with it the hope of escape from the Highland Clearances, and this story paints a vivid picture of a community fighting against nature and history, and refusing to be crushed. - Wild Scots: Four Hundred Years Of Highland History
Michael Fry's controversial Highland history captures a truely distinctive culture and its volatile politics.