Post #4694928 · Elektrine

2026-07-12 15:46 UTC

@withaveeay@mastodon.scot Exactly. The pre-clearance Highlanders were not materially poor. The landscape had not yet been wrecked by sheep, nor, so short a period after the extinction of the wolves, by deer. What they were was cash poor. They had a self-sufficient subsistence economy; they exported little, and therefore brought in little coin. The Lairds wanted money; and so, the folk were cleared. #LandReform

Replies (2)

@withaveeay@mastodon.scot 2026-07-12 15:50

@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot I don't even believe they were cash poor, in our area. At a clearance site dating to 1812, Staffordshire pottery was found, hardly the stuff of poor folk. They traded those cattle as far south as Falkirk. No, it was greed and power, creating the conditions that THEN allowed them to say "Look, they're poor," when the reality was that they had been impoverished.

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@ScotInTraining@mastodon.scot 2026-07-12 16:05

@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot @withaveeay@mastodon.scot there is a Clearance village on the way to Tayvallich. All overgrown, but the 2 things that brought home the brutality of the clearances were a cast iron bed end and a cast iron fireplace. I have similar to both at home. The local estate laird responsible had made his money through loans to finance, and in, the slave trade. To me that emphasises a complete lack of regard for human life.

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