Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 36 on 14/12/2007.

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The great departure

During the 18th century, thousands of Scots left their homeland for a new life in America. James Irvine Robertson finds out why.

History is never as simple as one would like. The English did not beat the Scots at the Battle of Culloden, nor did the Campbells slaughter the MacDonalds at Glencoe. And the Highland Clearances, still an emotive subject to millions of Scots and their descendants, were not always quite as they have been painted.

In 1802, Alexander Irvine published An Inquiry into the causes and effects of Immigration from the Highlands and Western Islands of Scotland. He was the 29 year-old minister of Rannoch, a remote and backward Highland district, his first charge after being missionary at Kintra on Islay. Not only was he a native Gaelic speaker, but he was the son of a small tenant from Fortingall in Highland Perthshire where his father and brothers still farmed 20 acres of hillside. He knew what he was talking about. Which makes his observations particularly interesting.

When he wrote his book the Sutherland Clearances were still to come (the term first appeared in print in 1851 some 40 years after the event), as were many other forcible removals. Nonetheless, huge numbers of people had already emigrated. Irvine reckoned that 100,000 people, a quarter of the population of the Highlands, had crossed the Atlantic during the previous 30 years. In the two years from 1773 to 1775, upwards of 30,000 had sailed. He did not approve. He believed it was bad for the country and bad for the emigrants at a time of great opportunity at home when “wages have increased fourfold in the last 12 years.”.....

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By James Irvine Robertson

Section : Scotland History

Page number : 38