The History of the Highland Clearances 30

The History of the Highland Clearances 30

“For a very good reason,” she said, “I am now old, and not able to

clear a way in the forests of Canada; and, besides, I am unfit for

service; and, further, I am averse to leave my native country, and

rather than leave it, I would much prefer that my grave was opened

beside my dear daughter, although I should be buried alive!”

 

I do think she was sincere in what she said. Despair and anguish were

marked in her countenance, and her attachment to her old habitation and

its associations were so strong that I believe they can only be cut

asunder by death! I left her in this miserable shed which she occupied,

and I question much if there is another human residence like it in

Europe. The wig-wam of the wild Indian, or the cave of the Greenlander,

are palaces in comparison with it; and even the meanest dog-kennel

in England would be a thousand times more preferable as a place of

residence. If this poor Highland woman will stand it out all winter in

this abode it will be indeed a great wonder. The factor has issued an

_ukase_, which aggravates all these cases of eviction with peculiar

hardship; he has warned all and sundry on the Knoydart estates from

receiving or entertaining the evicted peasantry into their houses under

pain of removal.

 

Allan Macdonald, aged 54, a widower, with four children, was similarly

treated. Our informant says of him:--“When his late Majesty George IV.

visited Scotland in 1823, and when Highland lairds sent up to

Edinburgh specimens of the bone and sinew--human produce--of their

properties, old Glengarry took care to give Allan Macdonald a polite

invitation to this ‘Royal exhibition.’ Alas! how matters have so sadly

changed. Within the last 30 years _man_ has fallen off dreadfully in

the estimation of Highland proprietors. Commercially speaking, Allan

Macdonald has now no value at all. Had he been a roe, a deer, a sheep,

or a bullock, a Highland laird in speculating could estimate his

‘real’ worth to within a few shillings, but Allan is _only_ a man.

Then his children; they are of no value, nor taken into account in

the calculations of the sportsman. They cannot be shot at like hares,

blackcocks, or grouse, nor yet can they be sent south as game to feed

the London market.”

 

Another case is that of Archibald Macisaac, crofter, aged 66; wife 54,

with a family of ten children. Archibald’s house, byre, barn, and

stable were levelled to the ground. The furniture of the house was

thrown down the hill, and a general destruction then commenced. The

roof, fixtures, and woodwork were smashed to pieces, the walls razed to

the very foundation, and all that was left for poor Archibald to look

upon was a black dismal wreck. Twelve human beings were thus deprived

of their home in less than half-an-hour. It was grossly illegal to have

destroyed the barn, for, according even to the law of Scotland, the

outgoing or removing tenant is entitled to the use of the barn until

his crops are disposed of. But, of course, in a remote district, and

among simple and primitive people like the inhabitants of Knoydart, the

laws that concern them and define their rights are unknown to them.

 

Archibald had now to make the best shift he could. No mercy or favour

could be expected from the factor. Having convened his children beside

an old fence where he sat looking on when the destruction of his home

was accomplished, he addressed them on the peculiar nature of the

position in which they were placed, and the necessity of asking for

wisdom from above to guide them in any future action. His wife and

children wept, but the old man said, “Neither weeping nor reflection

will now avail; we must prepare some shelter.” The children collected

some cabars and turf, and in the hollow between two ditches, the old

man constructed a rude shelter for the night, and having kindled a fire

and gathered in his family, they all engaged in family worship and

sung psalms as usual. Next morning they examined the ruins, picked up

some broken pieces of furniture, dishes, etc., and then made another

addition to their shelter in the ditch. Matters went on this way for

about a week, when the local manager and his men came down upon them,

and after much abuse for daring to take shelters on the lands of

Knoydart, they destroyed the shelter and put old Archy and his people

again out on the hill.

 

I found Archibald and his numerous family still at Knoydart and in a

shelter beside the old ditch. Any residence more wretched or more

truly melancholy, I have never witnessed. A feal, or turf erection,

about 3 feet high, 4 feet broad, and about 5 feet long, was at the end

of the shelter, and this formed the sleeping place of the mother and

her five daughters! They creep in and out on their knees, and their bed

is just a layer of hay on the cold earth of the ditch! There is surely

monstrous cruelty in this treatment of British females, and the laws

that sanction or tolerate such flagrant and gross abuses are a disgrace

to the Statute book and to the country that permits it. Macisaac and

his family are, so far as I could learn, very decent, respectable, and

well-behaved people, and can we not perceive a monstrous injustice

in treating them worse than slaves because they refuse to allow

themselves to be packed off to the Colonies just like so many bales of

manufactured goods?

 

Again:--

 

Donald Maceachan, a cottar at Arar, married, with a wife, and five

children. This poor man, his wife, and children were fully twenty-three

nights without any shelter but the broad and blue heavens. They kindled

a fire, and prepared their food beside a rock, and then slept in the

open air. Just imagine the condition of this poor mother, Donald’s

wife, nursing a delicate child, and subjected to merciless storms of

wind and rain during a long October night. One of these melancholy

nights the blankets that covered them were frozen and white with frost.

 

The next case is as follows;--

 

Charles Macdonald, aged 70 years, a widower, having no family. This

poor man was also “keeled” for the Colonies, and, as he refused to go,

his house or cabin was levelled to the ground. What on earth could old

Charles do in America? Was there any mercy or humanity in offering

_him_ a free passage across the Atlantic? In England, Charles would

have been considered a proper object of parochial protection and

relief, but in Scotland no such relief is afforded except to “sick

folks” and tender infants. There can be no question, however, that

the factor looked forward to the period when Charles would become

chargeable as a pauper, and, acting as a “prudent man,” he resolved

to get quit of him at once. Three or four pounds would send the old

man across the Atlantic, but if he remained in Knoydart, it would

likely take four or five pounds to keep him each year that he lived.

When the factor and his party arrived at Charles’s door, they knocked

and demanded admission; the factor intimated his object, and ordered

the old man to quit. “As soon as I can,” said Charles, and, taking

up his plaid and staff and adjusting his blue bonnet, he walked out,

merely remarking to the factor that the man who could turn out an old,

inoffensive Highlander of seventy, from such a place, and at such a

season, could do a great deal more if the laws of the country permitted

him. Charles took to the rocks, and from that day to this he has never

gone near his old habitation. He has neither house nor home, but

receives occasional supplies of food from his evicted neighbours, _and

he sleeps on the hill!_ Poor old man, who would not pity him--who would

not share with him a crust or a covering--who?

 

Alexander Macdonald, aged 40 years, with a wife and family of four

children, had his house pulled down. His wife was pregnant; still the

levellers thrust her out, and then put the children out after her. The

husband argued, remonstrated, and protested, but it was all in vain;

for in a few minutes all he had for his (to him once comfortable) home

was a lot of rubbish, blackened rafters, and heaps of stones. The

levellers laughed at him and at his protests, and when their work was

over, moved away, leaving him to find refuge the best way he could.

Alexander had, like the rest of his evicted brethren, to burrow among

the rocks and in caves until he put up a temporary shelter amid the

wreck of his old habitation, but from which he was repeatedly driven

away. For three days Alexander Macdonald’s wife lay sick beside a bush,

where, owing to terror and exposure to cold, she had a miscarriage. She

was then removed to the shelter of the walls of her former house, and

for three days she lay so ill that her life was despaired of. These are

facts as to which I challenge contradiction. I have not inserted them

without the most satisfactory evidence of their accuracy.

 

Catherine Mackinnon, aged about 50 years, unmarried; Peggy Mackinnon,

aged about 48 years, unmarried; and Catherine Macphee (a half-sister

of the two Mackinnons), also unmarried; occupied one house. Catherine

Mackinnon was for a long time sick, and she was confined to bed when

the factor and his party came to beat down the house. At first they

requested her to get up and walk out, but her sisters said she could

not, as she was so unwell. They answered, “Oh, she is scheming;” the

sisters said she was not, that she had been ill for a considerable

time, and the sick woman herself, who then feebly spoke, said she was

quite unfit to be removed, but if God spared her and bestowed upon her

better health that she would remove of her own accord. This would not

suffice; _they forced her out of bed, sick as she was, and left her

beside a ditch from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m._, when, afraid that she would

die, as she was seriously unwell, they removed her to a house and

provided her with cordials and warm clothing. Let the reader imagine

the sufferings of this poor female, so ruthlessly torn from a bed of

sickness and laid down beside a cold ditch and there left exposed for

seven long hours, and then say if such conduct does not loudly call

for the condemnation of every lover of human liberty and humanity.

Peggy and her half-sister Macphee are still burrowing among the ruins

of their old home. When I left Knoydart last week there were no hope

whatever of Catherine Mackinnon’s recovery.

 

I challenge the factor to contradict one sentence in this short

narrative of the poor females. The melancholy truth of it is too

palpable, too well-known in the district to admit of even a tenable

explanation. Nothing can palliate or excuse such gross inhumanity,

and it is but right and proper that British Christians should be made

aware of such unchristian conduct--such cruelty towards helpless

fellow-creatures in sickness and distress.

 

The last case, at present, is that of

 

Duncan Robertson, aged 35 years, with wife aged 32 years, and a family

of three children. Very poor; the oldest boy is deformed and weak

in mind and body, requiring almost the constant care of one of his

parents. Robertson was warned out like the rest of the tenants, and

decree of removal was obtained against him. At the levelling time the

factor came up with his men before Robertson’s door, and ordered the

inmates out. Robertson pleaded for mercy on account of his sick and

imbecile boy, but the factor appeared at first inexorable; at last he

sent in one of the officers to see the boy, who, on his return, said

that the boy was really and truly an object of pity. The factor said

he could not help it, that he must pull down. Some pieces of furniture

were then thrown out, and the picks were fixed in the walls, when

Robertson’s wife ran out and implored delay, asking the factor, for

heaven’s sake, to come in and see her sick child. He replied, “I am

sure I am no doctor.” “I know that,” she said, “but God might have

given you Christian feelings and bowels of compassion notwithstanding.”

“Bring him out here,” said the factor; and the poor mother ran to the

bed and brought out her sick boy in her arms. When the factor saw him,

he admitted that he was an object of pity, but warned Robertson that

he must quit Knoydart as soon as possible, so that his house would be

pulled down about his ears. The levellers peep in once a week to see if

the boy is getting better, so that the house may be razed.

 

We could give additional particulars of the cruelties which had to be

endured by the poor wretches who remained--cruelties which would never

be tolerated in any other civilized country than Britain, and which in

Britain would secure instant and severe punishment if inflicted on a

dog or a pig, but the record would only inflict further pain, and we

have said enough.

 

Retribution has overtaken the evictors, and is it a wonder that the

chiefs of Glengarry are now as little known, and own as little of their

ancient domains in the Highlands as their devoted clansmen? There

is now scarcely one of the name of Macdonald in the wide district

once inhabited by thousands. It is a huge wilderness in which barely

anything is met but wild animals and sheep, and the few keepers and

shepherds necessary to take care of them.

 

 

STRATHGLASS.

 

BY ALEXANDER MACKENZIE.

 

It has been shown, under “Glengarry,” that a chief’s widow, during her

son’s minority, was responsible for the Knoydart evictions in 1853.

Another chief’s widow, _Marsali Bhinneach_--Marjory, daughter of Sir

Ludovick Grant of Dalvey, widow of Duncan Macdonnell of Glengarry, who

died in 1788--gave the whole of Glencruaich as a sheep farm to one

south country shepherd, and to make room for him she evicted over 500

people from their ancient homes. The late Edward Ellice stated before

a Committee of the House of Commons, in 1873, that about the time of

the rebellion in 1745, the population of Glengarry amounted to between

5000 and 6000. At the same time the glen turned out an able-bodied

warrior in support of Prince Charles for every pound of rental paid

to the proprietor. To-day it is questionable if the same district

could turn out twenty men--certainly not that number of Macdonalds.

The bad example of this heartless woman was unfortunately imitated

afterwards by her daughter Elizabeth, who, in 1795, married William

Chisholm of Chisholm, and to whose evil influence may be traced the

great eviction which, in 1801, cleared Strathglass almost to a man of

its ancient inhabitants. The Chisholm was delicate, and often in bad

health, so that the management of the estate fell into the hands of his strong-minded and hard-hearted wife.