Highland Clearances and The Duke of Sutherland

hiya i'm bruce fumi and today i'm going to tell you about some of the worst excesses of the sutherland highland clearances now this story is important and i don't want to interrupt it with admin details calls to action or things like that later so please give me 30 seconds to get that stuff out of the way first if you're interested in the people places and events and scottish history then you can click on the subscribe button in the bottom right hand side of the screen during any time of this video secondly i'm really grateful for staff neighbor museum have closed for covered but they've kindly agreed to open today for me and let's be honest they've never heard of me they've opened for you so if you're on sutherland please pay them a visit in person thirdly i couldn't have done this if it wasn't for the fact that alan barrett an old pal from perth that runs out the hara tale has generously helped out with a wonderful overnight stay and breakfast so please come and patronize as a tale it's on the north coast 500. lastly i've got way more expenses than that petrol alone to get up here costs a fortune there'll be a link at the end and in the description below for anyone that wants to help crowdfund to help me make those videos there's even a way that you can do it without costing you a penny now that's all that out of the way let me tell you a story the statue on the hill over my shoulder is the duke of sutherland towering over goal spirit must be the most controversial statue in scotland but if you know any different then let me know in the comment section below in the early 19th century the duke of sutherland was possibly the richest man in the uk and i say the uk because you see he wasn't scottish in fact until a few months before he died he wasn't even the duke of sutherland george granville levison gower was the second marquis of stafford and the third earl gower of citing by all accounts a dull and uninspiring character one thing he and his family were good at was finding erases and he'd found one here this is done robin castle just outside golsby it was home to elizabeth countess of sutherland ers to the earldom and estates of sutherland and over 1 700 square miles of land almost the entirety of scotland north of the dorner firth now this added to the states in england under marriage of 1785 gave stafford unassailable unimaginable incomprehensible wealth now the time of his marriage roughly coincided with the unexpected marriage of low and sheep to highland land and the marquis of stafford decided that he would improve the state that scottish manager brought now when we say improve let's be clear it wasn't about improving the lives or circumstances of the people who lived on the land but his now there would be actual improvements like roads and bridges but the government of the day would pay 50 percent of the cost of those improvements of course somebody of the marquis says stafford's wealth could easily find the other 50 percent and so from the comfort of don robbin castle he simply imposed a poll tax on his tenancy an equal fee to each household no matter how big or small are you starting to dislike this man strap yourselves in we've hardly started now before you get upset at this guy i don't want you think that this englishman came up from the south we know gaelic to heartlessly improve his land at the expense of the galaxy-speaking people who had lived on worked on and belonged to the land for generations no he employed a scotsman with no garlic to come up from the south and do it for him now there were a couple of english as well in this trinity of evil who perpetrated the excesses that i'm about to relate the point is this isn't about nationality it's about humanity let me introduce you to patrick sellers he was scottish he was a small time solicitor who arrived in sutherland in 1809 and became the marcos of stafford's factor and henchmen in implementing the depopulation of property and the dispossession of a people over the next few years gallic speaking crafters would be crushed under leaves of paper carrying the weight of the english language seller and the sovereign tenants may both have been scottish but they were a race apart when cellar brought northumbrian farmers to replace black cattle with white cheviot sheep the people were worried clan gun came down the glands from caldonian to goldsby to make their case now i've spoken in other videos about the riot act at the end i'll leave a link to a playlist on unrest in scottish society but when more than 12 protesters gathered an official could simply read the form of words to warn them of consequences and then the troops had carte blanche to do their work no consequences a zarya act was read in english the galaxy farmers must have watched in bemusement wondering what was going on what was he saying what was he reading from that piece of paper as the 21st fruit fixed urbanites the picture would have spoken louder than words in any foreign tongue the advantage of an empire was that you could bring troops from your irish colony to subdue highlanders and they'd do only too willingly because they remember the highland troops that you sent to ireland to subdue their own parents long gone was the gallic kingdom of dariada the winter fallen on the 50th of january 1814 when he arrived at akhnes to tell the crafters of strathniver that they were to be evicted patrick sellers made sure to have a translator happy new year blaina maurer outside alec david mckenzie the minister in the little mission house at akanesh not only translated for sellers but on the sunday before the evictions he preached from the pulpit that was the will of god that the crafter should leave the land to be moved to the coast and that damnation fire and brimstone would follow those who disobeyed it seems that the marcus of stafford was god in these lands of course the minister himself also moved to a larger church with a big mans and a road for carriages leading up to and of course some land to rear his new literal flock sent to replace the figurative one that was cleared and all gratefully given by the marquis of stafford now this is the new church that mckenzie was given it's now the strathnever museum and i'd highly recommend a visit here if you're on the north coast 500 or if you're here for any other reason it really doesn't matter now there's lots of things to see in the museum but i brought you here to show you the pulpit of that new church from which mckenzie would announce many more evictions in the future the year of the burnings was only just beginning living in a craft might have felt a bit like this life wasn't grand but it's how your family had lived for generations and now some man had come up from london married the countess and told you this was his land and it would be improved by replacing you with sheep does that sound heartless you don't know the half of it you have a harvest in the fields that you have to vacate and you've got livestock that will attract fines if they're found on his land and you've got a few bits and pieces of furniture with no destination or means to transport them the marquis of stafford sat in london or gospel it matters not the richest man in the kingdom could drink sweet tea as the poorest drank from a more bitter cup it was served by seller as he came down the strath written hand his men with burning torches and theirs to ensure that nobody returned to the land that gave them birth each roof was burned one man humic beat had a father who was aging and seriously ill knowing that cells was coming to strathney were burning hugh went to explain his father's condition what was worse his godmother had just died so he asked a few days grace to travel to her funeral and see her laid to rest seller turned away a face harder than the rocky sutherland cliffs a heart much harder still and lips that said none would remain before going to the funeral macbeth removed some of the roof himself hoping to show some good will hoping that his father could have what was left of the roof over his head until he was returned on hugh's homecoming he found his father lying out in the open fields four nights in northern scotland and treeless sutherland where the open meant the open he died shortly after old donald mcbeath wasn't the only person left out in the fields families desolate in a desolate land choking on billowing smoke from their earthwell homes wandering and wondering some broke down physically some broke down mentally one pregnant lady tried to climb onto the roof of her croft to stop them burning it when she fell through the roof it brought on a labor that must have been an agonizing way to bring a child into a painful world there's not much left of baden-lawskin when sellers burning squad reached the craft of william chisholm he like many of the main folk was out in the hills trying to make the beast safe his 90 year old bedridden mother-in-law margaret mackay was in the house several eyewitnesses report that when sellers was begged to spare a thought for the aged lady he said damn the witch she's lived too long let her burn having given the order he laid against the cottage himself to show the way family and neighbor struggled into the house to carry out the old ladies are very blanket burned old margaret mackay was laid in a barn she survived the fire but died five days later and the burning went on it took two years much struggle and a crafter's crowd funding before sellers finally faced a day in an english-speaking court accused of homicide amongst other atrocities from that summer of burning there were witnesses of course but more important were the letters from the gentleman of the county who hadn't been there to see the events but who wrote that patrick sellers was a person of the strictest integrity incapable of any cruel or oppressive action a most respectable character and of a humane disposition needless to say these english words on paper would carry more weight because as the judge instructed the jury made up of local landowners merchants solicitors and justices of the past he told them that if they had any difficulty striking a balance they must take into account the character of their cues so eloquently described sellers went free to continue with evictions the old who survived were driven to the coast the young were driven across the atlantic forced to leave the land by men with pieces of paper that meant more than your ancestry history heritage and all the oral culture that connected you to the land hundreds moved on so that a few could bring their sheep what they called improvements it's irony that the weeping highlanders forced off their lands to the americas so much resemble the native americans in their trail of tears history is complex and interwoven i've been told that there are presenters much cleverer and more important than me who said of these people not that they were forcibly cleared but that they left their windswept crofts behind looking for adventure in the promised land maybe they're right i can't see it but then again i'm just a ball bag or a smartphone and a tripod i mean doc is going to be allowed my life cheering rasta you

Channel: Scotland History Tours

Views: 121,986

Keywords: tales from scotlands history, key dates in scottish history, stories from scotlands history, stories from scotlands past, tales from scotlands past, historic days out in Scotland, help me plan a scottish vacation, day out Scotland, some Scottish humour and history, plan a day out in scotland, Bruce Fummey, Scotland history tours, Scottish history tour guides, scottish history for dummies, Duke of Sutherland, Highland Clearances, Highland stories

Id: EUfgQv8QCtc

Length: 13min 35sec (815 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 08 2020