Skeayley ny Gaeil: Highland Clearances

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A man could be shot on sight for wearing Highland dress. Tartan was to cease to be in use by Christmas Day, 1746. Land was taken away again from the Highland chiefs who did not give allegiance to the crown and given to new owners under Heritable Jurisdictions Act. The few remaining Highland Landlords had no option but to accede to English domination. Scotland was renamed North Britain. In the Lowlands tartan dresses, breeches, and other clothes were made and worn as a symbol of solidarity and nationalism.

The Proscription of the Tartan was repealed in 1782 and men were hired to create new tartans for the aristocracy. The tartan sticks used to mark out traditional weaves were destroyed and Scottish badges and tartans were created. Highlanders were cleared from their homes for sheep-farming. Loch Quoich was the first to go. The Cameron estate of Lochiel, Inverness, and Ross were next. Lady Matheson, proprietor of Lewis, cleaned up the site at Callanish and evicted her tenants from their thatched stone blackhouses. The Marquess of Stafford, who had become the new Duke of Sutherland living in Dunrobin Castle, burned his tenants houses to the ground and destroyed their fields, so that they could never return. Man-traps, torture devices to catch men, were set up on the estate so noone would try to take food. Other landlords followed suit. The Highlanders were forced to the rocky cliffs to subsist on rotted potatoes and seafood. The mass genocide, eviction, and emigration is known in history as The Highland Clearances. (1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11)