Talk:Highland Clearances/Archive 1

Early mix of topics
"legislation was introduced which was apparently designed to destroy the way of life of the Highlanders." The legislation may have been utterly insensitive, but this sentence is not history. Wetman 08:53, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I thought the Highland clearences brought settlers to Ulster but there is no reference to this in the article.GordyB 22:12, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually, I think most of the Scots "Planters" that were sent to Ulster were the urban poor from the Lowlands. The Crown would've been nervous about sending Highlanders over because they were much more likely to be Catholic. Ken Burch 02:18, 14 September 2006(UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.174.67.5 (talk)
 * Feel free to put it in then, if you know something about it. : ) TonyClarke 20:44, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * A note of caution, this sounds like the early 17th century policy expanded under King James VI & 1 of the Scots Presbyterian "Plantation of Ulster". While Highland regiments served in putting down the Irish rebellion of 1798, by the time of the clearances both Scots and Irish (including Ulstermen) were being forced by famine and potato blight etc. to emigrate to the colonies and the US: I've not heard of migration to Ulster then, but if you can find a source then add it in - dave souza 00:37, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In trying to find some dates for 1st Countess Southerland, i came across Clearance Chronology which might help to counteract the lack of any thread of time in the article. --Jerzy~t 05:14, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Hey there, this section "it is probable that the Clearances should be considered as genocide, but from McLeod's accounts they would certainly appear to be an early instance of ethnic cleansing" should that be "... should notbe considered as genocide, but from McLeod's accounts ..." or "... should be considered as genocide, from McLeod's accounts ..." it reads a bit wierd and not sure which would be correct —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.113.154 (talk) 16:04, 28 February 2006

Needs checking for neutrality and accuracy
The anon who keeps adding a link to his website and/or blatantly biased statements may have a point. "The landowners were generally kind to those evicted" is as much of a sweeping, over-simplified and possibly untrue statement as are claims of ethnic cleansing, and in general this article is embarrassingly sparse for one of the most important episodes in Scottish history. I don't know if the POV-check and expert tags will achieve anything, but if nothing else they'll alert readers to take the article critically. --Blisco 19:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Too true, it is a terribly biased. and ps, to say you are unbiased and I am unbiased is a view, that you ha ve no right to claim what so ever, and it is simply wrong to say so. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.131.96.31 (talk • contribs).


 * No, its more than that. There are of course strongly differing views about the Highland Clearances, and the article should reflect that. But it is possible to represent different viewpoints without descending into highly biased language as your edits have done. Please remember that this is an encyclopedia and should always be written in a neutral tone even when presenting opposing points of view. Thanks, Gwernol 20:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The Gaelic diaspora
I've just changed the bit about Highlanders arriving in Cape Breton "in such numbers that it is now one of the few areas outside Scotland where Scottish Gaelic is spoken." The estimate I found was for 25,000 immigrants over 75 years (including my own ancestors). Also, while Gaelic is still spoken on Cape Breton Island, there are only a few hundred native speakers, most of them quite elderly. I included a reference, though this may be more about Cape Breton than the current article needs. I couldn't yet figure out how to make sense out of the "Appalachian" sentence that follows; many people in that part of the U.S. acknowledge "Scotch-Irish" roots; many others don't have a clue. These things happen in a nation of immigrants. — OtherDave 20:46, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Highland Clearances !
'''The Highland Clearances seem to be very bad and to the Crofters they must have been hurt and worried about where they were going to live after they were forced out of thier houses by the factors ! ''' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.97.63.79 (talk) 17:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Sort it out!
Just one glimpse of this shows some people have been fiddling with it. for example, did the Clearances all take place in the 18th century? Or start when WWI was over? This is a dog's dinner!--MacRusgail (talk) 17:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Origin of the Clearances
The clan system was of course a tribal one, with the chief being the focal point. As in all tribal systems, clans were self-contained and, erm, clannish. The clanfolk supported the chief, who collected and redistributed wealth as needed, and they followed him when called out in defence of their traditional lands. This is one of the standard cultural patterns, well-documented by, e.g., Marvin Harris.

This system of personal loyalties and family-feeling gradually decayed as England, a nation-state, moved in and took over between the 1707 Act of Union and the vicious repression that followed the failure of The '45.

Now there was no longer any need for a chief to maintain ties with the members of the clan, because England could supply elements of its standing army to (e.g.) drive any invading Campbells out of MacDonald lands. The men of Clan Donald as men of Clan Donald were surplus to the chief's military requirements. (This same dynamic played out in Massachusetts during Shays's Rebellion -- there was no standing army, so the ruling class had to come up with money from their own pockets to fee mercenaries to crush the rebellion. But after the Constitution was put in place, the ruling class could tax their victims to pay for the army victimising them, as they did during the Whisky Rebellion.)

In 1776, with this loosening of clan loyalties well underway, Adam Smith (a Scot) wrote bitterly in The Wealth of Nations that when kings, chiefs, and similar had felt ties of kinship and responsibility they had used wealth to support other people. But now they ignored those traditional relationships and used their wealth, increasingly obtained through commerce with foreigners rather than the traditional redistributive system, to buy "a pair of diamond buckles, perhaps, or for something as frivolous and useless".

Chiefs were given sassenach titles, and the clan lands became, in sassenach law, their lands rather than the common wealth of the clan. Very few chiefs were able to resist that lure, and eventually came to see their role as one of regional landowner and ruler rather than the "representor" and war-leader of an extended family. From there it was hardly even a small step to seeing their 'tenants' as low-value nuisances to be evicted and replaced by more profitable sheep.

Genocide? No. "Ethnic cleansing"? Not technically, but a good argument could be made that that's what it was in essence, since by then the erstwhile chiefs' perception of class was so anglicised that their people seemed virtually a different species (rather like the situation in Tsarist Russia and in The Lebanon before the civil war, where the privileged spoke French better than they spoke Russian/Arabic, and regarded the common people as hardly better than non-human animals.). Bean fidhleir 21:46, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty new to wikipedia, but it seems quite inaccurate to say that the majority of highlanders were Roman Catholic. Aside from the populations of the tiny islands of Barra and South Uist, and a few small areas on the mainland the majority of them would have been Presbyterians or Nonjurant Episcopalians. Even amongst the clans on the Jacobite side of the 1745 rebellion only the Chisholms, Gordons, Macneils from Barra and some MacDonalds from Glengarry and Glencoe are listed as Roman Cathloic according to John Prebble in Culloden. I'm not going to change that part of this article, but it would be good for someone to have a look at it since its not true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smacl (talk • contribs) 12:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Don't know about the rest but Glencoe certainly paid lipservice to catholicism- though it is debatable how truly Christian many clans really were at those times. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.71.157.11 (talk) 23:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Roman Catholicism
There's a point made here about how religion might have had a role to play in the clearances. I've always wondered this, being from Nova Scotia, since almost all of the Scottish-descendant families that I've known are Catholic. Are there any figures to back this up? --vckeating (talk) 16:04, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the most obvious religious factor was that the protestant church ministers who were kept by the land "owners" were manipulating the Highlanders with lectures against uprising and resistance and for resettlement and emigration. They Highlanders got wise to this (far too late) and established the Free Church, which survives to this day. I am unclear what role the Catholic church may have played. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.20.81 (talk) 16:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

comment: My family is descended from eastern Kentucky in the Appalachian Mountains, that area was very heavily settled by the Scottish, and there was no such thing as a Catholic in the Appalachian culture, they were all Protestant of some variety or Presbyterian. Historically, outside of Louisiana due to the French influence and maybe Florida due to the Spaniards, you'd hardly find any Catholics in the South. Catholicism at least in the U.S. was only Louisiana and wherever the Irish settled, but that only came later and they were only strong on the eastern seaboard. The section references the Cape Fear region of North Carolina being heavy with Scots and Presbyterians. While I can't confirm the Presbyterian aspect, I live in North Carolina and the Cape Fear region does have a higher than normal percentage of people with surnames beginning with Mc and Mac.

Verbal Clearances
I've edited this piece to remove some of the worst solecisms; but overall it still remains akward and badly worded. One sentence read

From 1725 clansmen had been emigrating to the Americas with clan gentry looking to re-establish their lifestyle, or as victims of raids on the Hebrides looking for cheap labour. (sic)

Make of that what you will!

I've also removed the nonsensical and unhistorical reference to genocide. This debate is emotive enough without this kind of terminology. The point here is that the cleared and the clearers were largely of the same blood and race, and some of the worst outrages were perpetrated by Scots against Scots. By the mid ninteenth century the chiefs of the western Highlands may have lost all sense of identity with their tenants and clansmen, but they were of the same ethnic and cultural background nontheless.

Aside from the akward prose and misplaced terminology the author-or authors-display a very poor understanding of the process at work in the Highland Clearances. All of the chief elements are there, but in a muddle-headed way. To clarify the issues there were two stages at work:

DISPLACEMENT. The clan system remained viable for several years after the collapse of the Jacobite Rebellion, despite the efforts of the government; but the 1760s saw the beginnings of a serious decline. What had been for many decades a self-contained economy was subject more and more to external pressures. From the 1760s onwards the Great Cheviot and the Linton, new and hardier breeds of sheep, began their steady advance into the Highlands, undermining a traditional farming economy based on black cattle. Lowland sheep farmers could afford to pay higher rents than the local people. Many of the richer inland pastures were let to sheep men, but the local people tended to be displaced rather than removed altogether. The old farming communities were based on a shared use of land known as runrig. By the early ninteenth century this was giving way to crofting, small landholdings usually located in less fertile coastal areas. Those who refused to accept this set out for the New Worlds-of their own volition, it has to be stressed, and not by the will of the landlord. For the chiefs this had become a serious concern, for if they cared little for clan they had a healthy interest in profit, which was to be found in the harvesting of kelp. This demanded labour and lots of it, hence of the introduction of the Passenger Vessel Act in 1803, intended to stop the Peoples Migration.

CLEARANCE. After the introduction of this Act the Highland population increased even faster than before, helped by the cultivation of the potatoe crop in ever more marginal lands. The collapse in the price of kelp after the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars and the later spread of the potatoe blight from Ireland created a crisis in the Highland economy. It was only from this point that wholesale clearance became the favoured option.

Rcpaterson 02:16, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

"and some of the worst outrages were perpetrated by Scots against Scots. By the mid nineteenth century the chiefs of the western Highlands may have lost all sense of identity with their tenants and clansmen, but they were of the same ethnic and cultural background nonetheless." That sounds like a breathtaking oversimplification. To call a Gael and a Lowlander the same thing is pretty absurd and misleading- those were two distinct ethnicities, languages and cultures.

The argument of clansmen vs clansmen is further complicated by the fact that many of these chiefs had been educated away from their ancestral culture, had come to the title through marriage or had even bought the title. Their behaviour and attitudes were not compatible with traditional clan society. So, it's not really so simple to make the equation: surname + surname= clansman. To extend that position would to state that there was no race issue in the Holocaust because of the fact that Jews were involved in carrying out the oppression and murder.

The fact of the matter is that if the Clan chiefs had not been assimilated into or replaced by an Anglicised system, the Clearances would likely not have occurred. And if the resurgence of population was so great, why is the area still so thinly populated? Have you even been to the Highlands? The problems of Gaelic population loss are still ongoing- arguably because there isn't enough population to sustain local economies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.20.81 (talk) 16:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Recent genealogical studies have shown that the Chiefs of Clan Donald were of the Viking race." and not Gaelic and their DNA signatures are R1a1a which is Viking. What happened was that the Highlanders were systematically raped  by the Anglo Saxons who favored their own offspring. The Clan Chiefs were recognized by the English not by the clans as a whole. Recently DNA evidence has come to light which uncovers this grizzly past and unfortunately there has been an attempt to cover up this fact by censoring information relating to the genetic diversity of the Clans. The Vikings and the Picts are a completely different race and other genetic studies have indicated that systematic apartheid,  and rape impacted greatly on the population causing the Anglo Saxons to increase in numbers disproportionately to the influx of immigrants. This study cites Woolf whose presentation relates to genocide and apartheid inflicted by the Anglo Saxons upon the indigenous Britains. Your claim that this is 'nonsensical and unhistorical' is completely ridiculous and not in keeping with the Wikipedia terms of use which encourages bold statements and freedom of speech. I suggest if you are not a Highlander you do not edit our pages as you obviously are not aware of our history. It is painfully obvious to any of us who have suffered personally as a result of the Highland clearances. Many of us lost all of our land, our culture, relatives and titles not to mention status. Our ancestors were persecuted and driven overseas where they lived in exile as foreigners. Persecution and censorship continue today as people like yourself are so keen to cover up the wrongdoings of the Anglo Saxon race and present a just world ideology in which everything is moderate and fair. Unfortunately this is not the case for those people who have lost their land and have been driven into poverty and exile. I find it offensive that you are censoring our speech as this is not the way for us to move forward.

Glens, trees - relationship to forestry & to pasture land
Travelling through the Highlands last year, I learned that less than 1% of the natural Scottish forests (glens) have continued to exist as such. There are obviously large stretches of commercially planted forests, mostly with non-native tree species. There is much land devoted to fields for agriculture, and even much more in the way of pasture areas for sheep and cattle.

How does all this land use relate to the Clearances? I'm pretty certain there would be a relationship, and not only having to do with the conversion of fields for use as sheep pastures.

What happened to the glens? Who got control of the forests? Who cut them, and who decided to use them as pasture or fields, or to replant them (but with particular fast-growing commercial species)?

I suspect these questions relate very much to the story this article attempts to tell. Joel Russ 22:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Most of the forestry was cleared in the neolithic and bronze ages, well before the clearances. Lianachan (talk) 21:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

"Second phase..." tags
I double-tagged a sentence that has several related problems. --Jerzy•t 01:27, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) A reference is needed for the sentence as a whole, hence the fact tag; such a reference will presumably enable someone to clean up the several forms of vagueness.
 * 2) What constitutes a "huge percentage" varies with what's being compared:
 * %50 fatalities is huge in an epidemic (but amazingly low in a plane crash);
 * %50 male is ordinary in most circumstances, but amazingly high or low for adult victims of rape, depending on whether the population in question was in prison or not.
 * Give us either the percentage or a range of estimated percentages.
 * Make clear what body of events is being compared to this event and/or what is significant abt the number.
 * 1) We can't even tell what they are a "huge" percentage of:
 * 2) the total British fatalities,
 * 3) the Highlanders in combat, or
 * 4) the pre-war Highland population.

Modern condemnation
The reference to Ross Noble; is it the stand-up comic of that name we're talking about? And what did he actually say? And is 'coruscating' really the right word? ('Excoriating' would make sense, but there's no source or quote or anything) Swanny18 12:54, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * What he wrote is linked: it's here. And not Ross the comedian, it is "Ross Noble, curator of the Highland Folk Museum at Kingussie" I think. Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:11, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Awww. For just a few seconds there I was admiring just how many strings Ross Noble had in his bow!  Not just a successful stand-up comedian, but also an expert in 18th century Scottish history ...  --Plumbago 14:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

This section just exemplifies the ideologically tainted taste of much of the article. The last paragraph is all supposition and makes no attempt at objectivity. Where is the evidence that the Scottish landlords were all London born and bred? Where are the references? How many were based in Edinburgh and how many on their estates in Scotland? This is a typical xenophobic attempt to "blame the English" even when "The English" were in fact mostly Scottish. "No REAL Scotsman would treat his fellow countrymen that badly" is the implication. Utter drivel: money was (and is) everything; landlords would not care if you were the lowest Scottish peasant or the highest English Lord: if they could make more money out of the land, you were out of there. By stooping to these kinds of Nationalistic bias the article as a whole is further devalued. I came to the page to get some information, not political ideology and revisionism.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.101.234.129 (talk) 15:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Why is the information presented titled "modern condemnation". Noble's opinion does not sound very condemning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MairiMac (talk • contribs) 10:42, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Poor grammar
The bit about Ross Noble & 'coruscating'. Coruscating means flashing or sparkling. It should probably be 'excoriating'. Common mistake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.69.103.194 (talk) 20:18, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Many more sheep than people??
From the article - "To this day, the population in the Scottish Highlands is sparse and the culture is diluted, and there are many more sheep than people."

Although of course the population density of the Scottish Highlands is low in comparison to the rest of the UK and Europe, I am quite surprised that there would be many more sheep than people with the rapid increase in urbanisation of Inverness and surrounding areas. Does somebody have a source? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.108.153.132 (talk) 01:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC).
 * The entirety of Scotland has more sheep than people. Current sheep population is around 7 million. See e.g. here: -- 192.223.158.45 (talk) 15:14, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

North Carolina
Cape Fear was settled well before the American Revolution; it seems quite dubious to attribute this to the clearances of 1792. Flora MacDonald (whom we call a Presbyterian, of South Uist) settled in 1774, and she was already well upriver, in what Americans call the Piedmont. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:04, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Removing a paragraph
The following paragraph is written like an essay or blog post, and is full of detail not substantiated by references. Its inclusion in the intro violates WP:LEAD, which is why I am about to remove it:


 * It has been claimed that the Clearances represent an act of genocide; however, these claims are regarded as debatable at best. By contemporary definitions the Clearances do not rise to the level of genocide. A phrase such as "cultural aggression," or even the somewhat more evocative phrase "ethnic cleansing," while still controversial, seems more appropriate, particularly in light of Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur, etc. Of the deaths that can be attributed wholly or in part to the Clearances, the vast majority occurred in transit to North America as a result of illness and unsanitary conditions aboard ship. Only two substantiated deaths occurred as a direct result of Clearance, namely Margaret Mackay and Donald MacBeath, who died of exposure after being turned out by Patrick Sellar. Nor was there a substantial involvement in the Clearances by a centralized governmental body or power bloc such as we see in other cases of genocide. Rather, individual landlords acted more or less on their own as the pressure of the industrial revolution stoked the fires of their greed. So if "genocide" is taken to mean the organized and extensive killing of members of one ethnic group by an organized external force, then Clearances do not rise to that level. (see The Highland Clearances by Eric Richards and The Trial of Patrick Sellar by Ian Grimble)

I copy it here to help editors interested in using it as a summary for details that do belong in the article. I have no background in the subject at hand, and the topic requires expertise that I do not possess. 67.101.7.184 (talk) 22:10, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Mythologising Scots History
General readers should be reminded that Scots history, like all history, is complex; yet Scots history is also particularly subject to 'myth-making' by Scotish Nationalists (and nationalists - lowest case) as well as by romantics in general. It is sometimes called 'Walter Scottishness' after the famous 19th century author, whose popular fiction was itself a spin-off from an earlier fashion known as 'Celtomania'. Queen Victoria was a keen promoter of this 'Disneyfication' of Scotland, its history and all things Scots. As with all history Scots history should always be checked carefully against as many sources as practical if the truth is to be established. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.5.9.83 (talk) 19:32, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I could not agree more. 86.131.231.87 (talk) 20:41, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

British Govt did not plan or organise clearances
The clearances had little or nothing to do with the policy of the British government. It was the action of former clan chiefs, landlords and their mainly lowland scots employees. To say different is wilful ignorance, and the link back to the aftermath of the 45 is tenuous. I have altered the intro paragraph accordingly. Anyone who seeks to prove British govt planning or involvement needs to give evidence for it (there is none). To include the material on the aftermath of the 45 as background is fair enough, but there is no causal link to the clearances (most of which took place around a hundred years later), other than in the changing cultural aspirations of the lairds, as others have said already.86.131.230.82 (talk) 08:59, 25 May 2012 (UTC) 86.131.230.82 (talk) 08:51, 25 May 2012 (UTC)86.131.230.82 (talk) 08:59, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

81.152.55.233 (talk) 18:59, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Genocide?
Once again I have to take issue with the use of the word 'genocide'in relation to the Highland Clearances. The form of words some might feel it should be considered as genocide merely reintroduces this whole question through the back door, hidden in a cloak of pseudo-neutrality. As a matter of urgency we need to know who these mysterious 'some' are. I my view it would not be good enough simply to make reference to the opinions of those on the outer fringes of contemporary political debate.

On a more philosophical plain there is a wider issue to be considered concerning the use-and misuse-of language. If we start throwing around words like 'genocide' without a real understanding of what this entails, they loose all power and meaning. Not even the worst of the clearers set out to kill the Highlanders, or to obliterate them as a race. Either this should be removed in the very near future, or some credible reference supplied. Rcpaterson 00:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reminder. The request for a citation has been up for a few days now without response, and the point can be discussed here if someone wants to bring it up again. As well as removing the unsourced allegation I've changed the heading to the more neutral Modern condemnation of the Clearances which states what the section's about rather than introducing one particular allegation...dave souza, talk 08:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It is most insae for this being called Genocide, if it was genocide ot intended genocide they would not make flame haired man move country, but would actually take big gun and kill all falme haired man, easily done and this would be genocide, not just putting on ships for new place. YESYESandmanygoals 09:06, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

"Genocide" is too strong of a word. There were no actual genocide per say, and I'm not discounting or down-playing the enormous plight on the people who had to go through these ordeals. There were, in actuality, a few deaths as a direct cause of the clearances. What you had was greedy proprietors and a lack of legislation, at that time, to protect the tenants and the sub-tenants.--Aalzaid (talk) 19:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Well I think that "ethnic cleansing" despite being a modern word certainly applies retrospectively to the Clearances. Much of the dispossession of the Gaels were a direct result of Lowland & English culture driving out Gaelic Clan culture. One ethnicity picking on the other. To argue that "they were all Scots" is incredibly naive given that they were in effect two different ethnicities (cultures and languages).

Genocide is a tough one. I don't quite know how someone can say "few" deaths. The figure will likely remain inestimable and certainly way above any recorded deaths- plus more modern attitudes of accounting for population loss need also to be considered.

I think however there is much to be pondered in the semantics of 'genocide'. To my ear, genocide implies a concerted effort to wipe out a "race". Perhaps, I'm wrong about that? We could perhaps argue some racially-motivated murder, more racially-motivated manslaughter and most prolifically also racially-motivated criminal negligence. Race was an issue for sure, the question seems more about how much of one when weighed up against the unbridled dehuamanised greed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.71.157.11 (talk) 23:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the ethnic cleansing and genocide were more a feature of the Pacification of the Highlands than the Highland clearances. Not many of the general public seem to even know about the Pacification? Does it have its own wiki page? Lianachan (talk) 10:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

This passage seems to discount a retrospective labeling of an event simply on the basis that certain terms developed after the event. Certainly we now speak of the Armenian Genocide in the early 20th century, though this was not how it was described at the time. I don't really look at the Clearances in isolation from Culloden and other attempts to stamp out Gaelic language and culture. They are all part of one long process where one way of living and speaking is privileged over another. That ending of a tradition is in my mind a form of 'genocide' whether or not there are rivers of blood to show for it.

How do you account for the systematic rape of our women, the murder of our children and the hunting and killing of Jacobite supporters after the battle of Culloden? How could it possibly be seen as anything other than genocide? My family lost a child aged 5 (My great x3 uncle) and his mother not to mention all the people killed at the battle of Culloden. The lost of our language, culture, traditional costumes, land and status was enforced upon us violently. It was not a Pampers advertisement. People were stopped at roadblocks and killed if they were carrying bagpipes or spoke Gaelic. A no quarter order was sent out by the 'Butcher' and they were to be given no assistance or medical care but brutally murdered if they were found to be Jacobite supporters. Why do you think he got that nickname? Why do you think Bloody Mary got her name? Not because they were gentile and civil as you seem to think. Do you think we all look the same and are Anglo Saxons too? We are Celtic people and a different race to the clan Cheiftains and I am sick of people who are not related to the Highlanders affected from censoring our material. You are contributing to the attempted pacification of my people which is the same incidently to the clearances and it is not going to be forgotten. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moidart (talk • contribs) 12:00, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Intro
I can't understand the intro section very well; it think it needs a rewrite. ike9898 00:38, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Hope that helps. ..dave souza, talk 10:48, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yep! That is MUCH clearer. Thanks. ike9898 16:12, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it is very clear that no number of people moved during the clearances is given and what proportion of the population that was? All that is said is "substantial". This information must be out there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.10.221.254 (talk) 19:13, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Two deficiencies of the article

 * 1) It's rather remarkable that an article about depopulation contains no population numbers.  It should give readers quantitative information: what was the population of the Highlands prior to the Clearances, and what was the population at the end of the Clearances?
 * 2) What was the environmental impact of the Clearances?  I imagine that the human population put pressure on certain species of flora and fauna, and the Clearances allowed those species to make recoveries. 75.163.218.209 (talk) 04:39, 22 October 2013 (UTC)