An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America. J. P. Maclean
their fate may be readily assumed. But this was no more heartless than the execution in Lancashire of twenty-two of their companions.
The specifications above enumerated have no bearing on the emigration which took place on a large scale, the consequences of which, at the time, arrested the attention of the nation. The causes now to be enumerated grew out of the change of policy following the battle of Culloden. The atrocities following that battle were both for vengeance and to break the military spirit of the Highlanders. The legislative enactments broke the nobler spirit of the people. The rights and welfare of the people at large were totally ignored, and no provisions made for their future welfare. The country was left in a state of commotion and confusion resulting from the changes consequent to the overthrow of the old system, the breaking up of old relationship, and the gradual encroachment of Lowland civilization, and methods of agriculture. While these changes at first were neither great nor extensive, yet they were sufficient to keep the country in a ferment or uproar. The change was largely in the manner of an experiment in order to find out the most profitable way of adaptation to the new regime. These experiments resulted in the unsettling of old manners, customs, and ideas, which caused discontent and misery among the people. The actual change was slow; the innovations, as a rule, began in those districts bordering on the Lowlands, and thence proceeded in a northwesterly direction.
In all probability the first shock felt by the clansmen, under the new order of things, was the abolishing the ancient clan system, and the reduction of the chiefs to the condition of landlords. For awhile the people failed to realize this new order of affairs, for the gentlemen and common people still continued to regard their chief in the same light as formerly, not questioning but their obedience to the head of their clan was independent of legislative enactment. They were still ready to make any sacrifice for his sake, and felt it to be their duty to do what they could for his support. They still believed that the chief's duty to his people remained unaltered, and he was bound to see that they did not want, and to succor them in distress.
The first effects in the change in tribal relations were felt on those estates that had been forfeited on account of the chiefs and gentlemen having been compelled to leave the country in order to save their lives. These estates were entrusted to the management of commissioners who rudely applied their powers under the new arrangement of affairs. When the chiefs, now reduced to the position of lairds, began to realize their condition, and the advantage of making their lands yield them as large an income as possible, followed the example of demanding a rent. A rental value had never been exacted before, for it was the universal belief that the land belonged to the clan in common. Some of the older chiefs, then living, held to the same opinion, and among such, a change was not perceptible until a new landlord came into possession. The gentlemen of the clan and the tacksmen, or large farmers, firmly believed that they had as much right to a share of the lands as the chief himself. In the beginning the rent was not high nor more than the lands would bear; but it was resented by the tacksmen, deeming it a wanton injury inflicted in the house of their dearest friend. They were hurt at the idea that the chief—the father of his people—should be controlled by such a mercenary idea, and to exercise that power which gave him the authority to lease the lands to the highest bidder. This policy, which they deemed selfish and unjust, naturally cut them to the quick. They and their ancestors had occupied their farms for many generations; their birth was as good and their genealogy as old as that of the chief himself, to whom they were all blood relations, and whose loyalty was unshaken. True, they had no written document, no "paltry sheep-skin," as they called it, to prove the right to their farms, but such had never been the custom, and these parchments quite a modern innovation, and, in former times, before a chief would have tried to wrest from them that which had been given by a former chief to their fathers, would have bitten out his tongue before he would have asked a bond. There can be no doubt that originally when a chief bestowed a share of his property upon his son or other near relation, he intended that the latter should keep it for himself and his descendants. To these tacksmen it was injury enough that an alien government should interfere in their domestic relations, but for the chief to turn against them was a wound which no balm could heal. Before they would submit to these exactions, they would first give up their holdings; which many of them did and emigrated to America, taking with them servants and sub-tenants, and enticing still others to follow them by the glowing accounts which they sent home of their good fortune in the favored country far to the west. In some cases the farms thus vacated were let to other tacksmen, but in most instances the new system was introduced by letting the land directly to what was formerly sub-tenants, or those who had held the land immediately from the ousted tacksmen.
There was a class of lairds who had tasted the sweets of southern luxuries and who vied with the more opulent, increased the rate of rent to such an extent as to deprive the tacksmen of their holdings. This caused an influx of lowland farmers, who with their improved methods could compete successfully against their less favored northern neighbors. The danger of southern luxuries had been foreseen and an attempt had been made to provide against it. As far back as the year 1744, in order to discourage such things, at a meeting of the chiefs of the Isle of Skye, Sir Alexander MacDonald of MacDonald, Norman MacLeod of MacLeod, John MacKinnon of MacKinnon, and Malcolm MacLeod of Raasay, held in Portree, it was agreed to discontinue and discountenance the use of brandy, tobacco and tea.
The placing of the land in the hands of aliens was deplored in its results as may be seen from the following portrayal given by Buchanan in his "Travels in the Hebrides," referring to about 1780:—"At present they are obliged to be much more submissive to their tacksmen than ever they were in former times to their lairds or lords. There is a great difference between that mild treatment which is shown to sub-tenants and even scallags, by the old lessees, descended of ancient and honorable families, and the outrageous rapacity of those necessitous strangers who have obtained leases from absent proprietors, who treat the natives as if they were a conquered and inferior race of mortals. In short, they treat them like beasts of burden; and in all respects like slaves attached to the soil, as they cannot obtain new habitations, on account of the combinations already mentioned, and are entirely at the mercy of the laird or tacksman. Formerly, the personal service of the tenant did not usually exceed eight or ten days in the year. There lives at present at Scalpa, in the isle of Harris, a tacksman of a large district, who instead of six days' work paid by the sub-tenants to his predecessor in the lease, has raised the predial service, called in that and in other parts of Scotland, manerial bondage, to fifty-two days in the year at once; besides many other services to be performed at different though regular and stated times; as tanning leather for brogans, making heather ropes for thatch, digging and drying peats for fuel; one pannier of peat charcoal to be carried to the smith; so many days for gathering and shearing sheep and lambs: for ferrying cattle from island to island, and other distant places, and several days for going on distant errands: so many pounds of wool to be spun into yarn. And over and above all this, they must lend their aid upon any unforeseen occurrence whenever they are called on. The constant service of two months at once is performed at the proper season in making kelp. On the whole, this gentleman's sub-tenants may be computed to devote to his service full three days in the week. But this is not all: they have to pay besides yearly a certain number of cocks, hen, butter, and cheese, called Caorigh-Ferrin, the Wife's Portion. This, it must be owned, is one of the most severe and rigorous tacksmen descended from the old inhabitants, in all the Western Hebrides; but the situation of his sub-tenants exhibits but too faithful a picture of the sub-tenants of those places in general, and the exact counterpart of such enormous oppression is to be found at Luskintire."[8]
The dismissal of retainers kept by the chiefs during feudal times added to the discontent. For the protection of the clan it had been necessary to keep a retinue of trained warriors. These were no longer necessary, and under the changed state of affairs, an expense that could be illy afforded. This class found themselves without a vocation, and they would sow the seeds of discontent, if they remained in the country. They must either enter the army or else go to another country in search of a vocation.
Unquestionably the most potent of all causes for emigration was the introduction of sheep-farming. That the country was well adapted for sheep goes without disputation. Sheep had always been kept in the Highlands with the black cattle, but not in large numbers. The lowland