The Clearances
in Applecross
Eviction at Applecross
The poor tailor they made short work of. They found him quietly sitting down to his breakfast, when they seized him and pitched him outside the door, sending his humble breakfast after him. They next turned on his wife, who was lying sick in bed. They dragged her from bed screaming, and sent her outside, bruising and discolouring her arm. Her infant child, who was sucking at her breast, was then taken out and laid upon the ground. The whole effects were thrown out after him and the door locked. The people stood by horror-struck by such cruel treatment and could only express their sympathy for this afflicted family by raising a small subscription on their behalf.
(Northern Ensign, 25 August 1859)
This newspaper article from 1859 described a very small example of a ‘clearance’ at the very end of the period of the ‘Highland Clearances’ which lasted from about 1790 to the 1850s. The very fact that it appeared in the press reflects the emotional interest in the clearances and the anger it aroused even at the time.
There were many types of clearances
- clearance where populations were removed off their landlords’ land altogether and forced to emigrate or move to another part of the country
- clearances where people were moved off the best land and relocated in villages on more marginal land on the landlord’s estate
- evictions of single families usually for ‘wrongdoing’, in other words doing something against the wishes of the landlord.
Emigration
As far as we know there were none of the first type of clearances in Applecross. There was emigration – the census of 1841 noted that 30 to 40 families had emigrated in the previous ten years – but as far as we know they were not forced to do so by the MacKenzie lairds. In fact fifty years earlier, Robert Burns criticised Thomas MacKenzie of Applecross for trying to prevent Highlanders from emigrating. Burns wrote his poem 'Address of Beelzebub' on this subject: 'To the Rt Hon. The Earl of Breadalbane, President of the Highland Society, which met on 23rd May last, at the Shakespeare, Covent Garden to concert ways and means to frustrate the designs of 500 Highlanders who, as the Society were informed by Mr M'Kenzie of Applecross, were so audacious as to attempt an escape from their lawful lords and masters whose property they were, by emigrating from the lands of Mr M'Donald of Glengarry to the lands of Canada, in search of that fantastic thing - LIBERTY.'
Faith you and Applecross were right
To keep the Highland hounds in sight…
They, an' be damn’d! what right hae they
To meat, or sleep, or light o' day?
Far less to riches, pow'r, or freedom,
But what your lordship likes to gie them?
There is a song written by Roderick MacKenzie of Applecross, who is said to have emigrated to Nova Scotia in 1802. He was a descendant of the first laird of Applecross, and would have fallen heir to the estate after John, the fifth laird, and his brothers had not the succession passed through the female line to the Highfield MacKenzies. He complains about sheep taking the place of people in the Highlands, and warns that Scotland will be left as a desert for Napoleon to conquer.
Large scale relocation
We know that the second type of clearance – relocation of large numbers of people off the best land onto more marginal land – did happen in Applecross, although, like many of the clearances in the Highlands we have no record of it. If you look at this map of Applecross prepared by the authorities following the end of the last Jacobite rebellion in 1745, you can see that the majority of people lived in small townships, each composed of several houses, around the present farm and campsite – at Langwell, Borrodale, Achicork, and Keppoch.
William Roy's survey of 1747-55
Today’s crofting villages of Culduie, Camusterrach, Ardubh and Camustiel didn’t exist - there are no settlements shown between Milton (Balamulin) and Toscaig (Tosgaig).
By 1826 however they are all shown.
Thomson Atlas of Scotland 1826
The shift of population from around the farm to the coastal hamlets, as far as we can tell, dates to around 1810. Local tradition in Applecross tells us that the clearances were carried out by John MacKenzie, the seventh laird, who had been brought up in Easter Ross and learned his farming methods, and techniques of ‘agricultural improvement’, there. It is also said that his clearances were opposed by his brother Donald, and that John was so angry at this that he stipulated in his will that on his death Donald should not inherit the estate, instead it should go to his nephew, Thomas MacKenzie of Inverinate.
Statistical Account of Scotland 1792, Applecross Parish
As in many other places where clearances occurred, the local minister in Applecross, the Rev John MacQueen has gained a reputation as a supporter of the landlord in his policy of clearing the people. According to one anonymous local historian, 'In 1779 the Rev John MacQueen was appointed. He was a relation of the MacKenzie Lairds and aided and abetted John MacKenzie in the clearances.'
However, MacQueen was not always uncritical of the landlord. In the Old Statistical Account of Scotland, 1792, he wrote ‘… though local jurisdictions be abolished, there is still a species of despotism remaining by which the displeasure of the superior is equivalent in its effects to the punishments of the law. …The local attachment of the Highlanders hath, for some time back, been gradually abating… and the rapacity of the superiors in applying all the advantages of the times to their own private interest hath effectively relaxed those attachments.’ The Rev. MacQueen was actually the laird’s 2nd cousin once removed, so perhaps in public he felt he had to support him.
Previous to the nineteenth century agriculture in Applecross, as elsewhere in the highlands, was based on the feudal system. The clan chiefs granted land to their family members, in return for military service and produce, who in turn sublet the land to ordinary clansmen. In 1765 the rents paid to the laird of Applecross included – ‘[for] Achincork and Lonbain £10-13-4, 2 wedders [male sheep], 2 stone butter, 8 stone cheese. Langwell £10-13-4, 2 wedders, 2 stone butter, 8 stone cheese. Borradale £19-6-8, 2½ wedders, 2 ½ stone butter, 10 stone cheese.’ The late 18th and early 19th century, however, saw a great change in agriculture in the Highlands. The landlords no longer needed numerous clansmen to support them in war, cash was what they needed and this was more efficiently obtained by organising their lands into large farms rather than numerous small crofts giving small amounts of livestock, butter and cheese as rent. It was for this reason that the best land in Applecross was cleared of small tenants, and turned into one large farm for the MacKenzie lairds. At this period landlords did not want to lose their small tenants altogether as it was the time of the Napoleonic wars, when kelp (a type of seaweed) was in great demand as it provided the then scarce raw materials for soap and glass. Kelp was an extremely profitable industry for Highland landlords, being one resource the West Highlands had in abundance, but a large amount of cheap labour was needed for gathering and burning the kelp. The Applecross people were therefore moved to less productive parts of MacKenzie’s lands.
Single evictions
The third type of clearance – eviction of single families – also happened in Applecross, and we do have records for this. The example of the ‘poor tailor’ given above, was one such event. The reason for his family’s eviction was ‘simply this … that he ought first to have come and obtained permission to commence his trade as tailor on the property’. The rest of the people of Applecross were warned ‘that if they gave shelter to the tailor or their family they would be at once deprived of their lands.’ There is also an example of some men from Torridon being evicted for being caught in the Applecross deer forest in 1831 – the laird’s hunting rights were carefully protected.
Evictions such as these do not, however, account for the loss of population which occurred in Applecross during the 19th century. It has been estimated that net out-migration from the parish averaged around 300-400 hundred people per decade for most of the century from about 1820 onwards. This is accounted for by various factors, including the decline in the kelp industry after the end of the Napoleonic wars, the potato famines which occurred in the middle of the century, the inability of the crofts to supply all the needs of the people and the lack of alternative employment. This led to emigration to the colonies and migration to other parts of Scotland, but whether this can be regarded as ‘voluntary’ or ‘forced’ is a matter for debate.
This entire process has come to be known as the Highland Clearances.
Alan Gillies, April 2007