Highland Clearances

The Highland Clearances - How many died in the Highland clearances. Look at http://www.lonympics.co.uk/

This programme, the most despicable in the history of Scottish Capitalism, was a programme by the landowners, of Scotland to increase the amount of money they could make from the land. It was not as some right wing apologists claim, a campaign to make Highlanders live in America, or be better, off. It was a programme to make money for what were essentially nasty greedy people, who should be ashamed of themselves, but never shall be.
Somewhere between 150/250,000 people were evicted in the programme by many different lairds, and lords, and chiefs. The fact is well documented in books from the era. Some lairds wanted Highlanders to leave, such as a project that was supported by Prince Albert who supported a society dedicated to emigration, but some wanted them to stay when the Highlanders were needed by the lairds, such as when they tried to restrict emigration, so somebody would do the jobs they wanted such as in the 1800s, when they wanted people to collect the then profitable industry of Kelp. Look at http://www.lonympics.co.uk/
Many stupid horrible right wing books are written every year, claiming the Clearances, either did not occur or were exaggerated, or were good, but there are so many, in the end they become proof that the Clearances did occur, as so many are so contradictory that they show up that the only true story was the one talked of by Highlanders for decades after the event. That greedy landlords wanted money, and had no real democracy or decency to stop them doing it.

Here is a list of classic Clearances denier rubbish

· The clearances were primarily a programme to help the Highlanders.
This fib, is ridiculous, if it was primarily about that, what were they thinking when they saw quite substantial numbers of people dying in evictions when they were pressed form their villages.
The most important factor here, is what about how the Duke of Sutherland became the richest man in Britain, he did not become it by being a charity, he did it by being ruthless in a ruthless time, he knew what he was doing, making money for his finances. Look at http://www.lonympics.co.uk/

With some landlords even taking out loans, and getting lawyers, and police or more importantly factors, to evict people off their own land. Using their power and money and the lack of democracy, or strong unions to do this.
· The common new fib, is that ships that many Highlanders were sent into, from Oban were actually quite nice.
· This is untrue, the fact is that even in the 1960s, Nova Scotian residents would remember stories of boats filled with cholera, and overcrowding. Yes some boats would have been ok, but the truth is there, in the memories, and the stats prove quite a high number of people died on the voyages.
· A new myth is that the Clearances were "invented" by Marxists in the 1970s,
This is a ridiculous, view, the Clearances are mentioned in books, as far back as they occurred, I have a history book mentioning the Clearances from the 1940.
· The myth that no Highland chief would have been bad to his people.
This is ridiculous, aristocrats are no better or worse than anybody else, and we all know that people in other classes can be bad, so why would chiefs never have greed, and money grabbing as their main goal. Look at today, the Queen is the richest woman in Britain, and she still expects the state credit 40 million pounds a year to her, and to pay her way, and she does not even have absolute power. These Highland chiefs had immense power, and did with it, what suited them just like when they allied with different kings and queens across the earlier eras, very much for their own financial benefits.
To believe that something like the Highland Clearances could not have happened is ridiculous,
The crazy claim that the Clearances, could not have occurred as the population of the Highlands rose in the period,
This is mad, I mean look at the USSR, the population of Ukraine increased from 1904-1991. it does not mean that the 1905 and 1917, Russian revolutions, the pogroms, Ukrainian famine, and World wars one and two, never happened.
The population of Ethiopia increased from 1970 to 1990, it does not mean that the famines of the 1970s Emperor, and 1980s dictatorship, were made up by Michael Burk, and Jonathan Dimblebey. Bad things do happen, and to pretend these bad things did not happen is a crime, against humanity.
What happened was that the population of the Highlands did not increase that much, in an era of immense population growth. The Highlands increased in population, by a very small amount,
So that before the Clearances Wales was 1.5 times as populated as the Highlands. After the Clearances the population of Wales was 3.5 times the Highlands, and that with a growth in the population of Inverness, and some kelp growing regions Look at http://www.lonympics.co.uk/

The worst of the deniers, claim they are having the balanced view, that there are 2 extremes, those who think the Clearances were a bad thing, like the historical records show, and those who think it was great and nothing bad happened. These terrible people then go on to claim nothing bad happened excpet a few "isolated" cases. It turns out these "isaolated" cases were what the clearances were and accounted for hundreds of thousands of people. But the "neutral" view apparently wants to do it again, claiming victims and perpatrors sides are equal. That is true sometimes, but defintely not when one of the sides is shown to be a untrustworthy psycopath as in this case. Just like Highland lairds, who were untrustworthy psycopaths. Who honestly can not contemplate caring about the crimes they comitted.

Well we have that out of the way, the people who deny the Clearances, are bizarre right wing lunatics, who believe Highlanders do not matter. They do not care of the immense suffering of those Highlanders. But you know that if a king like Genghis Khan, or that 1630s King of England was executed, they are probably still crying if he was executed for being a brutal murderous, tyrant. Then these right wing thugs would probably still be calling for punishment against the whole world, for harming "poor old Genghis Kahn and Charles I". These right wing lunatics make me sick. They care about brutal thugs, but not entire nations.

Anyway, here is my stat, about how many died of the Highland Clearances. Look at http://www.lonympics.co.uk/

From the source of a example of some Sutherland evictions I extrapolate (the method use to calculate famine fatalities and election results) that 1000s of Highlanders died directly of the immediate effects of evictions. That includes pregnant women, who died as of being forced to move while giving birth, and babies who lost their lives the same way. This includes pensioners and disabled people who died as of being in the open, and being forced to do tiring walks away from the villages, they were evicted from. Look at http://www.lonympics.co.uk/
With more dying as of diseases caught from this, and dying at later dates, of diseases and injuries caught from gruelling evictions.
I calculate that way above any normal 19th century death rate thousands again died of leaving in emigration ships that Prince Albert wanted Highlanders to go on.
I calculate that forcing Highlanders off their land, and into the cities caused many deaths too.
Cities in the pre-modern world were very unhealthy, the populations of Medieval cities were only kept from falling by immigration, and even in the 19thC, the life expectancies of some towns was only 18, such as Wolverhampton, some years. Surely as poor, low skilled people, these are the places many Highlanders would have flocked too, nowhere else would have offered them any other opportunity, other than starving on the coasts, as happened to some of them So they would be moving to areas they had no hope of knowing, had extremely low living standards. In a society with as low levels of literacy as then, they had no chance of knowing the facts, of there being such low life expectancies. Added to this is the fact that they could not really have many other places to go to. Inverness for instance banned itinerants during the cholera epidemics, which many wanted to blame on the Highlanders. Indeed being forced into cities that were also at the time receiving poverty stricken Irish families, and other Scottish families, and some down into England or Wales, or America, would have seen very low living standards.
Added to this apparently the population increase that was galloping away in the Britain stopped in the Highlands and Ireland during the clearances. So here is my stat on how many Highlanders died of the Clearances. Look at http://www.lonympics.co.uk/

Also many would have died after leaving ships in North America, having to settle in areas with no resources at times, or find places to settle, after a hard journey where bread winners, had died, and such, maybe some put in deadly places.Look at http://www.lonympics.co.uk/

My guess is that 27,000 Highlanders were killed of the effects of the Highland Clearances project. Look at http://www.lonympics.co.uk/
Added to this there were periods of famine, I would guess 2000 died of the 19th century mini-famines, and that 5/25,000 died of the 1830s and 40s potato famines.
This would mean probably over a equivalent of a tenth of the population of the Highlands were drained and culled by ruthless greedy scumbag chiefs.

Its time the right wing lunatics started to stop their crap about pretending the Clearances were good, or essential, they were nothing of the kind. France did not have a clearances, so why did the Highlands need one, they did not. They were the greatest crime in modern Highland history, which is why they are remembered just as much as many other events, if not more. They are only comparable to the massacre of 7000 Highlanders after Culloden, by the royal British regime.

I may sound bitter, here, but I think you should be, I mean surely if it is ok to be bitter about somebody not being able to spell right, or having bad grammer, or not reading far right books, is ok, then being bitter about the clearances is. Can you imagine these people who think that other people do not have a right o a correct view on the Higland clearances. Well this what Clearances denier, people feel, and they are wrong, and are the ones who should be shamed.

And the criminals who claim otherwise are nothing but fools, with no conciounce, or humanity, and only malig uncaring dismissive indifferent disdain.

This site is against the way these liers, are paid at great rates, to make books which help their credit cards, or more importantly for them their right wing idealogical posistions, to fight against justice. As really I bet they would be willing to go into debt just so they can claim they were infallible when they ruled as slave masters.

Even if only 100s of Highlanders had died in the Highland famine, then that would still be more than died in many famines per head of very many great countries, plus others, people. Look at http://www.lonympics.co.uk/

More sites at the bottom of the page.

So how many died in the Highland Clearances some may ask.

Or some may claim the Highland Clearances was a myth. Just like horrible nasty Holocaust deniers always say.

And all those deniers are doing is digging their way into innacuaracies, and proof, they never care.

http://pages.eidosnet.co.uk/~skye/crofting.html Look at http://www.lonympics.co.uk/

http://www.dmsc11071.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/clearances%20.htm

Here are my other sites,

The 10 Largest Cities in Scotland

The 10 Worst regimes of the 20th Century

Multiple Choice Quiz on Scottish History A site on the history of serfdom in Scotland

A site on the El Nino Famines that killed 10s of millions of Indians, and Chinese and others in the 19th Century

A site on the Belgian Congo, and how the king of that land killed 10s of millions of Congolese