23618: Highland Clearances

The ‘Highland Clearances’ occured throughout the Highlands and Islands. After Culloden the clan system broke down and the estate owners realised that more income could be gained from transforming the existing arrangement of small holdings into large sheep farms with lowland breeds of sheep, or into sporting estates where there were deer and salmon fishings to be exploited. The small tenants who became crofters were removed from their holdings, most of them unwillingly, and they either settled on inferior plots or were given assisted passages to North America.