Who resisted the highland clearances succesfully ?

[Steaphan]

By the time of the ethnic cleansing carried out in the Highlands, the so-called clan chiefs were in the main non-Gaelic speaking English aristocrats with seats in the House of Lords, which had far more power then than it does now.
Most of the original clan chiefs were exiled, or murdered or had their lands taken from them after Culloden.

British Government troops were used, as well as policemen...so I hardly think that absolving the Government of blame is correct. The British Government should make an apology to the descendants of those cleared, as it did some years back to the Irish Government for the potato famine.

As far as resistance goes, I suspect that many resisted, but the ones that were successful were the ones living on the least fertile land....

[Scottish_Republican]

Anglicised (rather than English in the main) aristocrats, but ones with roots in the Highlands going back hundreds of years, and whose descendants make a lot of money out of the clan industry currently.

[Steaphan]

Well, that`s true for many, but actually have a look at the names of those landlords responsible for the worst of the clearances "Sutherland" is one I can think of.

[Scottish_Republican]

Originally Posted by Steaphan

Well, that`s true for many, but actually have a look at the names of those landlords responsible for the worst of the clearances "Sutherland" is one I can think of.

Last time I looked Sutherland was a Highland place/surname - Sutharlanach - from Norse.

[Raingeanach]

Originally Posted by gustard

I was wondering if any familys/communities/individuals/glens succesfully resisted the highland clearances ? If so who were they and what happened ?

From - The Women of the Glen: Some Thoughts on Highland History by Hamish Henderson in Alias MacAlias (Polygon - 2004).

"Historians who write about the Highland Clearances...invariably refer to the extraordinary lack of resistance on the part of the victims during this cataclysmic period of capitalist "social engineering"; yet none (as far as I know) has ever ventured anything like a convincing answer to the really baffling question which must surely occur to anyone reading the history on record: why was it the women, rather than the men, who offered such resistance as there was?"

The subtitle of Hamish Henderson`s splendid book is Writings on Songs, Folk and Literature.

[SherbrookeJacobite]

Originally Posted by Raingeanach

From - The Women of the Glen: Some Thoughts on Highland History by Hamish Henderson in Alias MacAlias (Polygon - 2004).

"Historians who write about the Highland Clearances...invariably refer to the extraordinary lack of resistance on the part of the victims during this cataclysmic period of capitalist "social engineering"; yet none (as far as I know) has ever ventured anything like a convincing answer to the really baffling question which must surely occur to anyone reading the history on record: why was it the women, rather than the men, who offered such resistance as there was?"

The subtitle of Hamish Henderson`s splendid book is Writings on Songs, Folk and Literature.

That is an interesting point. Perhaps the women did not expect the type of physical retribution that the men might. If that was their reasoning - they were mistaken.

In the areas where the women did rise up - were a large number of the men away? Were there previous instances of the men being arrested/beaten for resisting? I'll dig out John Prebble's book and see what he said about it.