The History of the Highland Clearances / Second Edition, Altered and Revised

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The History of the Highland Clearances, by Alexander Mackenzie

BY ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, F.S.A., Scot.
WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY IAN MacPHERSON, M.P.
“Truth is stranger than fiction.”
P. J. O’CALLAGHAN, 132-134 WEST NILE STREET, GLASGOW.



Mackenzie’s History of the Highland Clearances , with its thrilling and almost incredible narratives of oppression and eviction, has been for a long time out of print. In view of the current movement, described by Mr. Asquith as an “organised campaign against the present system of land tenure,” it has occurred to the holder of the copyright, Mr. Eneas Mackay, publisher, Stirling, that, at the present juncture, a re-issue might be expediently prepared. He recognised that the story of the great upheaval which, early in the nineteenth century, took place among the Highland crofters would be of undoubted interest and utility to those who follow the efforts now put forth to settle the land question in Scotland. At his request I readily undertook the task of re-editing.
The circumstances, or points of view, having changed in no slight measure since the first appearance of the work, I decided to subject it to a pretty thorough revision—to excise a large mass of irrelevant matter and to introduce several fresh articles. Donald Macleod’s “Gloomy Memories” are omitted out of considerations for space, and because it is proposed to reprint them shortly in a separate form. There is included, for the first time, a vindication of the Sutherland Clearances by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and another by Mr. James Loch, principal factor on the Sutherland Estates during the time the removals were carried out. There are also given graphic and realistic word pictures of these evictions by the Rev. Donald Sage. The general arrangement of the book has been altered to the extent of grouping together the accounts relating to each particular county, and descriptions are added of a number of Clearances which were not dealt with in the first edition.