Introduction

We chose this topic because many people in Scotland and the world are being forced out of their homes and communities due to economic forces and/or violence. The result of this displacement is a loss of support networks, self-sufficiency, language, culture, knowledge and relationship to land. For many of us in Scotland, our families and communities experienced this displacement many generations ago. The impact of this lives with us in the form of shame, unwellness, violence, trauma, but the loss of historical knowledge, means we often don’t understand the cause of our suffering. In this section we aim to understand why The Clearances happened and how they have impacted our society. We also look at the impact cleared Scottish people have had globally, and the global story of clearance we are part of. Finally, we look at how people have resisted clearance and evaluate what tactics we need today. 

“To come to the door and know that she would find no one: to see a house completely empty. It was like coming to her tomb while she was still alive.” - Iain Crichton Smith in Consider the Lillies

No telling of history is neutral, but the story of The Clearances holds particular weight because it isn’t just history. The Clearances have never ended, communities in the Highlands and Islands are still being displaced and Gàidhlig language and culture is still being eroded. Everywhere in Scotland poor housing, rocketing rent prices and other attacks by the landlord class are causing ill health, a breakdown in care networks and general disruption to dignified life. It is also astoundingly clear, as we witness the Genocide in Gaza, the Congo and Sudan, as we watch people trying to cross The Channel on tiny boats, that globally, human life, community and culture are legitimate collateral damage of profit. 

Beginning in the 1700s The Lowland/Eastern Clearances were a consolidation of land into larger tenant farms, and a transition of the cottar class away from land based life, into early weaving and fishing industries. The Highland Clearances which is generally described as 1750s -1850s was the mass displacement of people as a result of rent hikes, unrenewed leases, forced evictions and deportation. In both cases, people were often displaced within an estate many times, before they were removed completely. 

Clearance is not just a process of physical removal, it is a fundamental attachment rupture from culture, community, relationship to place, purpose and a sense of belonging. When we experience attachment rupture we often internalise it as our own fault, particularly if the violence is legitimised by others with power. The people of Glencalvie who, sheltering in Croick Church after being cleared from Strathcarron in 1845, scrawled on the windows "Glencalvie People the wicked generation Glencalvie" believed that they deserved what had happened. This internalisation of worthlessness, Carol Craig argues in ‘Scots Crisis of Confidence’ is because Calvinism taught Scottish people that punishment was deserved. Clearance and the legitimisation of Clearance shows up today as poor mental and physical health, addiction, violence within families and a culture of punishment within education. Many people carry intense shame, and are isolated as a result of these experiences and the link between the mass rupture experienced within Scottish society and current conditions is rarely made. As Resmaa Menakem says in My Grandmother's Hands “Trauma decontextualized in a person looks like personality. Trauma decontextualized in a family looks like family traits. Trauma decontextualized in people looks like culture.” 

Gabor Mate said ‘when we don’t feel wanted, we make ourselves needed’. When we think of the attachment rupture experienced during the clearances, we can also reflect back on the ideas of self worth explored in Topic 5 and the ideas of labour explored in Topic 10. 

The history of Clearance in Scotland is inextricably linked with the history of Colonialism, as Franz Fannon put it “Violence is man re-creating himself”. The Scottish Enlightenment birthed a variety of theories which divided humans and the rest of the living world into categories, and then put these categories into a hierarchy. A linear idea of both history and progress took hold; that everything could and should be ‘improved’. These ideas were used as justification for violence against the population in Scotland and justification for the violence caused by Scottish people, who emigrated to the then British colonies of Ireland, Canada, North America, Australia and New Zealand, or worked in trades permitted by the British Empire including Slavery. 

The Clearances were, and are resisted. Organic resistance often took the form of women stripping factors and policemen of their trousers, communities burning eviction notices, congregations demanding to choose their ministers, Traveller communities resisting evictions or food riots. More ‘organised’ resistance took the form of the formation of the Scottish Land League with their famous slogan ‘treasa tuath na tighnearna'; 'The people are mightier than a lord' rent strikes, land raids and the Crofters War. The cumulative pressure of this resistance led to reform within the British State including the Napier and Deer Park Commissions, Crofting Legislation and later Community Right to Buy legislation. These reforms have enabled some people to remain in the Highlands and Islands, as well as creating other problems communities are still struggling with today. 

Further Resources

Up Next: