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Title: The Highland Land War Author: Stephen Cullen Date: February 1992 Language: en Topics: land, The Raven, United Kingdom, 1800s, land struggles, Parliament, Scotland Source: Retrieved on 3 July 2022 from https://libcom.org/article/raven-17-use-land Notes: This article was originally written for The Raven Anarchist Quarterly #17: Use of Land, pp. 85â91.
On the 25^(th) July, 1970, a memorial cairn was unveiled at Colbost Hill
on the Isle of Skye. The legend on that cairn reads: âTo Commemorate the
Achievements of the Glendale Land Leaguers, 1882â1886â, and it marks
area of the celebrated âBattle of the Braesâ, where the crofters of
Glendale fought a pitched battle with police over the issue of land. The
Skye protests were only part of a widespread movement that covered most
of the Highlands and Islands, and that lasted long after the
implementation of the 1886 Croftersâ Act. The Highland Land War saw the
mobilisation of the community in rent strikes, land raids, and deer
killings. The perceived threat to âlaw and orderâ was so great that the
government despatched gunboats, marines, soldiers and extra police to
the area. But the solidarity of the Highland community, including its
expatriate members in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London, was such that only
the creation, and favourable operation of, the Croftersâ Commission was
enough to undermine the protest. However, a substantial proportion of
that community, the cottars, were left unsatisfied by the 1886 Act. The
cottarsâ struggle was for land itself, but once their erstwhile allies,
the crofters, had achieved their primary aims of tenure and fair rent,
the cottars found themselves alone to continue their land struggle.
Similarly, the Crofter MPs, returned as genuinely popular
representatives of the people in the 1885 and 1886 General Elections,
had, by 1892, lost themselves in the mire of parliamentarianism, taking
the remains of the popular movement into the Liberal Party. Action
through parliament proved, in the end, to be no real answer, and
landless ex-servicemen were, in the late 1940s, still being imprisoned
for land seizures; whilst ownership patterns in the 1990s are little
changed from those of the 1880s.
By the early 1880s conditions in the Highlands and Islands were
extremely difficult. The legal rights of crofters and cottars were
almost non-existent; housing conditions were appalling; the East Coast
fishing, on which many depended to supplement the meagre living on
crofts, was depressed; and the entire community suffered from
landlessness and congestion. The latter problem affected both crofters
and cottars alike. It is difficult to be precise about the exact
differences between these two groups, but G.B. Clark, a leading
campaigner in the land struggle, defined them as: âthe crofter is a
small farmer who may live partly by the wages of labour, the cottar is a
labourer who may have some share in the soilâ. Generally speaking, the
crofters were in a better economic position than the cottars. However,
that was only a relative measure, for the average crofter had access to
only one to four acres of arable land, along with a part share in hill
pasture, held in common with other members of the township. Under normal
conditions that would have enabled a crofter to support some two to four
head of cattle, and about fifteen sheep. The poverty of the crofters
meant that they were unable to undertake improvements of their arable
land, and that it was generally only fit for growing potatoes. Few
crofters were able to live off their crofts alone, but they were in an
enviable position compared with the largely landless cottars.
Working such small plots of land, the crofters were in no position to
meet rent rises. There was no legal protection against excessive rent
rises, nor did crofters enjoy any security of tenure. In fact, following
the Clearances and the establishment of sheep farming across the region,
crofter rents had played an insignificant part in the income of large
landowners. Rents for crofters were usually only raised in order to
provide an excuse for eviction, whether as part of a general attempt to
clear more land, or as a punitive exercise in tenant discipline.
Although the period of mass eviction that had characterised the
Clearances was over, evictions still continued at a steady rate, with,
for example, sixty families a year being evicted from Skye in the late
1870s. There was no appeal against such evictions, and the prospect of a
rent rise followed by homelessness haunted many crofter families. In
addition to the complete lack of formal legal rights the crofters and
cottars were subjected to continued âpettyâ harassment by estate
officials. For example, limits of one dog per township were usually
imposed, despite the fact that dogs were vital to keep marauding deer
off the crops.
Housing conditions were abysmal. Most families still lived in âblack
housesâ, long, low buildings, without windows or chimneys, and shared
with cattle. Few lived in the marginally better âwhite houseâ, that
boasted a primitive chimney, small windows, and was generally
lime-washed. Cottars fared even worse, many of them living in driftwood
shacks on small pieces of land lent to them by their more fortunate
neighbours. Uncertain of their tenancy rights, and lacking money,
crofters and cottars were both unable and unwilling to improve their
homes which might at any moment cease to be theirs.
The lack of land forced crofters to raise extra income, often by
fishing. On the West Coast inshore fishing was normal. However, the
almost complete lack of harbours and slipways, combined with the
smallness of the croftersâ boats, made fishing a dangerous task. From
1850 to 1885, 292 Lewismen drowned whilst fishing. The lack of safe
harbours hit home in the bad winter of 1881â2, when a single storm
destroyed crops and over 1,200 Skye boats. For the cottars, fishing
meant the East Coast herring industry. This had proved a lucrative
source of income for much of the 1870s, but by the early 1880s the
herring industry was in recession, and the introduction of new payment
practices meant that earnings in the 1884 season were as low as ÂŁ1, and
the cottars had to beg their way home.
The people themselves had a very clear idea of the causes of their
sufferings. Historically, the Clearances stood as a great divide between
a happy past and a hard present. There was an almost universal belief
that the problems of overcrowded land, bad housing, dependence on
fishing, low cattle prices, and lack of security of tenure all stemmed
from the Clearances. To a large extent this view was correct, and in any
event it was a widespread belief. Of great significance was the
continuing validity of pre-Clearance cultural values amongst the
crofting community. Despite the fact that crofters had always paid rent
for their land, they had never seen it as a payment for land use, rather
it had been seen as a tribute to the Clan Chieftain. The land itself was
seen as the property of the community at large, not the property of a
single man. This view of communal land holding meant that the Clearances
were seen as an illegal act, and the private property rights of
landlords were similarly viewed as being based on an alien tradition.
New economic circumstances increased the pressure on crofters and
cottars in the early years of the 1880s. Poor harvests, low cattle
prices, the collapse of the East Coast fishing, and events like the
1881/2 storms on Skye pushed the community towards conditions not far
removed from the famine years of the 1840s. The early 1880s also brought
new pressures, but also opportunities, for the landlords. With the new
trade in Australasian and North American sheep, landlords found that
their sheep-based economy was, for the first time, under threat. Sheep
prices fell, and landlords were unable to find replacements for their
farmers who had gone bankrupt. But just as the wider economy threatened
their prosperity, so did it provide a new opportunity, in the form of
deer. The establishment of the mature industrial economy further south,
in the central belt and in England, meant that a new leisured class had
arisen, a class that was keen to spend part of its time in the
Highlands, hunting deer. Landlords were quick to respond, and where
sheep had once replaced people, so deer replaced sheep, and more people.
The opening years of the decade saw a dramatic increase in the seizure
of pastures, and increased numbers of rent rises and evictions, all for
the extension of the deer forests. This was to prove the catalyst for
the land war.
Although the early 1870s had seen isolated resistance to evictions, like
that in Brenera on Lewis, in 1874, the Leckmelm affair of 1879 set the
pattern for the war itself. The attempts of Alexander Pirie to turn his
estate near Ullapool into a deer forest, evicting crofters in the
process, quickly became a cause célÚbre that held public attention for
most of the year. This time the resisting crofters had a new ally in the
shape of the Federation of Celtic Societies, that linked expatriate
Highlanders in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London into an effective national
voice for the crofting community. Pirie was forced to abandon his plans,
only to try again in late 1880, when he faced the same opposition, and
was forced to abandon his plans permanently. The pattern had been set,
effective and united resistance to rent rises and evictions by the
crofters themselves, combined with political pressure in key cities,
especially London, by a politicised cultural movement.
A tour of Skye in 1881 by John Murdoch, a leading land campaigner who
had links with the successful Irish Land League, and owned the
campaigning The Highlander paper, seems to have helped galvanise Skye
crofters into action. In February 1882 crofters there began the Braes
rent strike, and made demands for the return of grazing land that they
had previously had access to. Lord Macdonaldâs attempt to break the
strike by attempting evictions led to confrontation, when 100 men met
the sheriffâs officer and burnt the writs. This event was followed by
the arrival of Sheriff Ivory, 50 Glasgow police and 19 Skye police.
Their attempt to take arrested men from the Braes led to the violent
clashes celebrated as the âBattle of the Braesâ. The âbattleâ was
covered widely by the press, and the Highlands and Islands suddenly
became newsworthy. The success of the Glendale protesters acted as a
spur for others throughout the region, and, fearing a general rent
strike throughout Skye, the Lord Advocate appealed to London for
military aid, which, at that stage, was not forthcoming. A potato blight
and crop failures drove many into declaring rent strikes in the winter
of 1882/3, simply because they could not pay. In response to these
pressures, the government announced, in February 1883, the setting up of
a Royal Commission under Lord Napier.
The setting up of the Napier Commission did nothing to stem the tide of
protest. The immediate response of Highlanders in London and Edinburgh
was to set up the Highland Land Law Reform Association (HLLRA), whilst
crofters and cottars began land raids. For example, Milvaig crofters and
cottars occupied the Waternish farm in early 1883, and successfully
drove off a police assault on their new land. The HLLRA was very active,
sending lecturers throughout the region to speak to the people, whilst
the crofters and cottars themselves set up the first Highland branch of
the association in Glendale. By the end of the year the Home Secretary,
Harcourt, had agreed to despatch gunboats and marines to the Western
Isles; they arrived in the new year.
The Napier Commission reported in 1884, and was judged unsatisfactory by
the crofters and cottars. Instead, they adopted their âDingwall
Programmeâ, calling for a land court to oversee a compulsory
redistribution of land to crofters and cottars. At the same time, the
HLLRA agreed to stand candidates at the forthcoming general election, in
which many crofters would, for the first time, be eligible to vote.
The period from 1885â1888 saw the high watermark of the land movement,
but it was also a period in which the previous solidarity of the
campaigners began to crack. The HLLRA was successful in the December
1885 general election, sending four Crofter MPs to Westminster. By then
there were 90 Highland branches of the movement, with a membership of
over 10,000 crofters and cottars. The Liberal government had tried to
introduce a Napier-style bill, but had collapsed before it was passed.
This added further impetus to direct action protest in the Highlands and
Islands. In the winter of 1885/6, all of the north-west of the region
was on rent strike, acts of intimidation against those suspected of not
being pro-HLLRA were frequent, and the destruction of landlordsâ and
croftersâ property by HLLRA supporters was widespread. Responding to the
election of the Crofter MPs, and the violence, the new government passed
the Croftersâ Act in 1886. Despite the establishment of a Croftersâ
Commission to adjudicate in fair rents, the Act was widely condemned for
not tackling the twin problem of overcrowding and land hunger. In
response to the Act the HLLRA conference at Bonar Bridge in September
pledged to continue the fight for the compulsory break-up of sheep farms
and deer parks in order to provide land for crofters and cottars.
But this proved to be the swansong of the movement (now renamed the
Highland Land League). The government began a new campaign of law
enforcement in the area. This was opened with the arrival of 50 police,
and 250 marines on Tiree to arrest eight crofters, five of whom were
sentenced to six months each in Edinburgh. By December 1886, even Skye
had been quietened by the strong military and police presence. Further,
the operations of the Croftersâ Commission proved to be more favourable
than the crofters had imagined, thus driving a wedge between the
previous crofter/cottar alliance. The first Crofter Commission rent
adjudications were made in January 1887, reducing rents by 30% at
Waternish, and 20% on the Macleod estates. Within the HLL a new struggle
had begun, with a faction, led by Angus Sutherland, trying to deliver
the movement into the hands of the Liberal Party, something that he
eventually succeeded in doing. But conditions were still desperate for
the crofters and cottars. That desperation drove them to mount the
âGreat Deer Raidâ on Park, Lewis, in November. In three days the
crofters and cottars killed large numbers of deer, thus showing their
preference for land for people, rather than deer. All this was reported
by journalists of the North British Daily Mail, who accompanied the men.
Lewis now took over the mantle of the leading area in the protest, with
Lewismen being involved in a vicious clash with Royal Scots, Marines and
police in January 1888, when 14 men were arrested. However, Lewis apart,
it was clear that other land raids were almost without exception the
work of the landless cottars. The crofters had been split from their
allies in the struggle against landlordism. By the end of September the
worst of the unrest was over, and the military were withdrawn from the
region, even from Lewis.
In addition to the operation of the Croftersâ Commission, the government
began a policy of investment in the infrastructure of the region,
allocating ÂŁ61,500 for such work in December of 1890. But that, of
course, did not address the cottarsâ need for land. Cottars occupied the
derelict township of Ornsay, and continued to destroy fences and dykes,
especially on Uist. However, the land-hungry cottars could expect little
assistance from the HLL, which had become merely a part of the Liberal
organisation in the region, whilst its leading lights stood as various
HLL/Liberal candidates in the 1892 general election. The HLL finally
split, and the two most radical leaders, G.B. Clark and D.H. MacFarlane,
attempted to revive the old HLLRA. But in 1895 the HLLRA was forced to
cancel its annual conference. The crofters, with their new tenancy laws,
had abandoned the movement, and the cottars were left completely
isolated, and still land-hungry. Sporadic cottar land seizures occurred
in North Uist, Bornish and Ormaclett in 1901, Tiree and Vatersay in
1902, and again in 1906 and 1907 when crofts were built by the land
raiders. The pre-war Liberal government did attempt some legislation
aimed at helping the cottars, but the House of Lords killed all attempts
at settling the cottarsâ grievances, and industrial and urban concerns
had greater claims on the Liberals. Even the establishment of the Board
of Agriculture, and the Scottish Land Court failed to meet the hopes of
the landless that land would be compulsorily transferred on a large
scale to those that needed it â something that no government
contemplated. The Board was empowered to create new crofts, but its
slowness in doing so led to a fresh round of cottar land raids in 1913
and 1914. For the cottars, little seemed to have changed.
Bibliography
for the Land, Stornoway, 1979.