HIGHLAND CLEARANCES, HENRY DUNDAS, AND THE SCOTTISH SLAVE TRADE: Oh, and the Duke of Sutherland
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มิ.ย. 2020
- In HIGHLAND CLEARANCES, HENRY DUNDAS, AND THE SCOTTISH SLAVE TRADE: And the Duke of Sutherland Scottish history tour guides Bruce Fummey links three of the tales from Scotlands History that are too often obscured. At the time of filming we are in the middle of a discussion of Black Lives Matter #BLM. The debate about racial justice has often focused on controversial statues, Henry Dundas the most prominent. The Scottish slave trade is almost forgotten in our consciousness, but the Highland clearances remain.
Even Robert the Bruce has been bizarrely brought into the recent statue debate. I hope this video provides a broad context
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Thanks to Rob Gibson for the photograph of The Duke of Sutherland.
Scotland History Tours is here for people who want to learn about Scottish history and get ideas for Scottish history tours. I try to make videos which tell you tales from Scotland's past and give you information about key dates in Scottish history and historical places to visit in Scotland. Not all videos are tales from Scotland's history, some of them are about men from Scotland's past or women from Scotland's past. Basically the people who made Scotland. From April 2020 onward I've tried to give ideas for historic days out in Scotland. Essentially these are days out in Scotland for adults who are interested in historical places to visit in Scotland.
As one of Scotland history tour guides people ask: Help me plan a Scottish holiday, or help me plan a Scottish vacation of your from the US. So from April 2020 I've tried to give a bit of history, but some places of interest in Scotland as well.
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Isn't English a Germanic language not Latin ?
Also could you mention the enclosures acts that cleared the English off common land in England.? They might use race as an excuse but it's about power, money and class. Oh and the transition from feudalism to capitalism.
I really liked the video but a 13 part series would suit me better. L we get on BBC Scotland is that failed archeology guy. Kneel Oliver.
🥱🥱😴
You're right. All Lives Matter. No one deserves to be a slave. God created us all equal. Keep exposing the truth bud 👍.
Mate you are brilliant!
It needs adding - the Highland crofters that were 'cleared' out had their own sheep. Little, primitive, short-tailed sheep that they'd been farming back in AD83 and for thousands of years since then. Those little sheep were also cleared out with their croft owners and replaced with larger, white, longtailed sheep that had been introduced into Britain by the Romans. Those little sheep had provided the essential wool for clothing, bedding & more (Viking sails were made of wool), plus milk for cheese that could be stored over the winter as well as meat from older animals. The crofters only had tiny flocks and they were brought into sheepfolds by the croft house at night for protection. Without their little dunface sheep the crofters would have struggled to survive in the Highlands. Next time you rightly talk about the 'English' sheep driving out the crofters, please don't forget that the little dunface sheep were also driven out. The Scottish Dunface or Tanface sheep were thought to have been driven to extinction, but a few survived on St Kilda, and when that population was 'evacuated' with most of their sheep being sold to finance the evacuation, a tiny feral flock was left behind on Boreray island.
Thanks so much for this additional information. Fascinating!
That was interesting. Are you a historian or in animal husbandry?
And so an inner suburb exists at Melbourne Oz. Settled by those lucky to survive. Nay sheep sadly
Those perfidious Romans and their large livestock!
I am Friesian and we too had a run in with the Romans due to livestock size. At some point the Romans made it to Friesia and we negotiated a kind of tax to avoid war. The tax was a certain number of cowhides because the Roman Empire ran on leather ie they used for everything from sandals via uniforms to straps which held their siege machines together.
So when a year later they returned to collect their hides they said our cattle and therefore the hides were too small and demanded 3x as many. That was too much for my ancestors to bear so war it was. There were two battles. The Romans lost the first and we crucified 900 of them. The Romans also lost the 2nd but instead of risking crucifixion 2500 Roman soldiers committed suicide (not long before the Romans had crucified 6000 survivors from Spartacus' revolt, a story well known throughout Europe).
As Julius Caesar once remarked 'you cannot subdue the Friesians because they have no kings' and indeed Archeology has shown that there was no difference in status or wealth in Friesian society until christianity came along. The last Friesians converted in the 11th century.
The historical upshot of all this is (and in a large part thanks to the geography of Friesia) Feudalism never took hold there as it did in the rest of Europe except Scandinavia.
@@gustavmeyrink_2.0 Thank you for that information. I didn't know any of this. I like learning these bits & pieces of history. I think it's so important to see how our world was shaped.
Very moving my Scottish Brother. I write from the West Coast of the USA. I am here because of the Clearances so long ago. I would like to think that the success of the Scots in this country is a bit of a middle finger to those oppressors of that time. We are still here, still upright and doing well.
All school kids should be taken to these statues and be told the truth, serves a much better function than tearing them down to be forgotten
Maybe, their descendants with a great deal of power and money would object to that.
As a young teacher in the mid sixties I was told I was not allowed to teach the Highland Clearances. We need to leave these statues where they are but make sure folk know why. As ever greed, self -aggrandisement and self interest rule. We need to learn. “Haud ga’en” Bruce.
Where was this that you were not allowed to teach about the clearances? Some history in Canada is passed over, too. But since so many of our Scottish ancestors came because of the clearances, we know about it. Maybe, our parents teach us about it or our grandparents?
@@dinkster1729 This was in the county of Angus, NE Scotland, in the Northlinks Primary School which no longer exists in Montrose. The directive came from above, I hasten to add, not the Head Teacher who was ex-army and all for telling things as they were. He was a very good “Headie”. I’m long retired so have no idea if things have changed but I do know none of my grandkids, 29 to 16, studied the Highland Clearances .
@@francessocha6143 A lot of the bitter-sweet immigrant experience is reflected in this American German folk song from Pennsylvania: th-cam.com/video/VhNKnoLMKYo/w-d-xo.html People who did better in their New World than they would ever have done in their former home would have an up and at 'em attitude. The Oscar Brand version uses the illiterate English version, "I come" rather than the standard "I came" form that Pete Seeger uses.
@@francessocha6143 Maybe, Scotland or U.K. authorities are ashamed to talk about it, right? The British probably don't talk about the Potato Famine in Ireland either and what they did about it. I did my practise teaching round in Essex, England. Most of my fellow students were of Irish descent and some of them were planning to go to Ireland after our month in England in 1973. I was shocked by how against the Irish the British were. "Oh, you don't want to go there! they said, "The Irish are so uncivilized." Lord knows what they think of the Scots.
@@dinkster1729 Did you not know? The men all have ginger hair, beards, wear kilts and spend most of their time drunk going round hills shooting haggis. They just don’t mention the women 😂. That’s a bit harsh, the northerners are fine, they are looked on as much the same as the Scots, a slightly lower form of life than the southerners 🙄. I know how the Irish feel. My maiden name may be Donald but I have Irish catholic on one side and Irish Protestant on the other both a couple of generations back. There are problems both sides but it would be nice if we could all follow “ tell the truth and shame the devil”. Historical truth is important. Maybe if governments world wide followed that we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today.
Thanks for sharing this history! As a Black American who finds the Dundas clan on my family tree , this is one cool lesson!
I'm not entirely sure he was one of the good guys
@@ScotlandHistoryTours can any of us say we are 100% good guys?
@@lolatyou Amen, all we do is walk forward as best we know and do no harm.
@@lolatyou Very true brother , good and bad in everyone at some point and time
It's a half lesson.. Henry Dundas ended slavery in Scotland.also Canada.he fought for Irish soldiers pensions.he also fought for Catholic emancipation.he also got sailor's wife's money when their husbands had been pressed ganged. He completely changed and improved the royal navy to be the greatest navy ever. Was first ever War minister.he wrote pitts India policy for ending the tyranny of the East India company. Endlessly promoted scots to high positions.. his story is complex for sure and he has always been the villain of the empire.
I'm a white man in his sixties, Irish by descent, and heard the stories of the Irish being starved off of their land. I am aware of such tragedy but allow it not to impede my forward momentum into the future. While history is important, the future is equally and critically so. They're the two halves of the human scale. But never must one outweigh the other, lest the imbalance turn over the entire structure. Slavery was, is, and always will be the scourge of mankind, no matter the colour or race of the perpetrators and their victims. As you said, ALL LIVES MATTER. Once that is understood the scales of humanity will again be leveled. This was an excellent video and touched home the lives of all who love the peoples of the world.
Beautifully said
As a 66 year old retired US Navy man, a member of the Clan MacMillan and a member if of the human race, it was finding these videos and the host who is so honest and eloquent in his presentations that I have found someone with whom I feel a deeper kinship than even my brothers at arms. Bruce, you are a refreshing and enlightened voice who tells great stories without prejudice. You are a wonder to listen to. Thank you for your lessons in Scots history and moral perspective. May I call you Friend?
Ah you've brought a tear to a middle aged fat man's eye
Wow.
Sigh. Shaking my head.
Just ... Wow.
I watched this more than once. This video needs to be required viewing for students in middle and high school classrooms - everywhere.
Well done and I would like to think most people feel the same. We Scots have a long and varied history which, as you so rightly say, must be exposed and accepted for the age in which it had happened. We should move on from learning these very lessons but often we end up repeating them. Brilliant video Bruce 💕.
I doff my cap to you ma'am
I think our national anthem sums it up with the line "and in the past, they must remain" this applies to all of Scotland's brutal and disturbing past and our age of tyranny and oppression and warfare and fear. Lets us not forget it, but look to the past so we don't fail in the future.
fucking yes i found a mad guy w dreads to explain my history
I grew up hearing the rhetoric of “what the English done to us” we weren’t just victims of the Empire. We were the Empire. Puppets and puppet masters. Complicit in its greed and injustice. Great work Bruce.!
This is one of the most hauntingly poetic videos I've ever seen, your words and atmosphere took me back to that time.
I know that my Graham family fled to Canada in the 1800"s. I know that my Irish side did as well. I think it was the clearings because they were scared to death. IMO, we just had to get out! Unfortunately we brought this crap to the Indigenous people of North America, and for that I am eternally sorry 😞
I clicked on your video and wondered how you would be able to do that story justice in just 10 minutes. I'm very pleased to say that you did it incredibly well. I just wish that story was better known and taught within our education system. I remember taking my 11yo daughter to see the remains of one of the cleared township here in Argyll, she struggled to comprehend the inhumanity of what had happened there. It was gutting to have to tell her how the highlands are littered with such villages. My own ancestors were amongst those cleared from their land and relocated to Brora as part of the Sutherlands' clearances, only for my great grandmother to find herself employed as a lady in waiting at Dunrobin Castle in the very early 1900's.
Man's inhumanity eh? Takes many forms
Brilliant, a perfect counter for the the aggression shown in George Square at the weekend........if only more people followed their country’s history.
I'll be honest I've found it an upsetting time. Some attitudes that had been locked in the closet have come out recently and reminded me of the bad old days.
Scotland History Tours yes I can well imagine, it’s amazing how history repeats itself....
@@ScotlandHistoryTours 😿💜
@@ScotlandHistoryTours Thank you for your work, you are making a difference.💕
A truly beautiful tribute to the complex history of the highlands, thank you so much for your work to tell the whole story!
You are so kind. Thank you. You may also enjoy these
th-cam.com/video/FQ92_d3u3QA/w-d-xo.html
The best comment I heard was from my auld man - don’t topple the statues - explain what they did and give the name and address of his family who inherited their bloody handed wealth.
Let's hope no-one gives your address out for the crimes of your ancestors I mean why would I feel guilty for what people I never new did
Thank you from Australia where so many of us must carry the duty of reparation to the colonised indigenous people who were once free here. When the poor cleared Highlanders taken to Australia by force arrived here to work as indentured labour - paying back the cost of their forced journey (yes you heard it) over years in the colony, every door in the harbour town was shut against the 'dirty immigrants'
passing through with their new overlords. We are a terrible species more so because we can do better. We know how to do better and we know everyone thrives when equality is widespread.
Warm regards Julia Margaret Nolan- great granddaughter of Irish Famine refugees.
It really makes me sad to know that people treated other people so horribly due to whatever reason they felt justified for them to do so. I remember segregation in the south, I was young when that was ending. The attitudes of most are better today than when I was a child but in some areas that hasn’t been much change. I was taught better, thankfully and have taught my children better as well.
Good on you
Profoundly touched by your voice. Thank you!
You're very kind. Thank you
Thanks again Bruce, wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments. History must not be buried or erased. We learn from the good and the bad to hopefully do better.
Beautiful video, I'm currently in Canada after a couple centuries removed from the clearances.
Come to one of my live shows in Canada in 2024. Shows in Halifax, Annapolis, New Glasgow, Moncton, Montreal, Perth , Ottawa, Toronto, Fergus, Seaforth, Calgary, Vancouver and Victoria. Most of the details are here. www.brucefummey.co.uk/shows.aspx
Lots of clearance was at the hands of absentee landlords. One Highland island owned by an English aristocrat was cleared for sheep -- and she lived in London and had never seen the place.
None can change the society and time we're born into. What matters is what we do. As a Carolina Scot, a product of the Clearances and a history of slavery in the region, this particularly hit home and made me sad a bit. Thanks for your thoughtful insight.
The world is certainly messy
Excellent
Poetic
Intense
Hits home
"Briseann an dúchas tri suile an cait" (nature breaks through the eyes of a cat - an old gaeilic proverb). The words you use to describe history are incredibly beautiful - "nobody wants to be separated from this land where mountain loch and Glen pervade your soul"!! Braught goosebumps on my neck. Just discovered your channel recently and love every video I've watched so far! Diarmuid - Gaeil ó Éireann.
My God, that rocked me to my socks! Thank you once again Bruce.
Funny, I've never heard my wife say that
@@ScotlandHistoryTours LOL! It was great! 👍😎🇨🇦🌲
Another great video! I am with you, and the people of Golspie, who don't think statues should be removed. We can't change the past but we can tell the truth. I think the removal of Confederate heroes in America is the wrong way to go about it.
The confederate statues are participation trophies for losers and the people who complain about their children getting a participation trophy when the children play sports are the ones who want those statues to stay. They should have never been erected as they were erected to intimidate black people.
I agree. Let them have their statues. No one is intimidated by them.
Thank you. A poetic and powerful statement- and it never does end as we currently watch Putin's genocidal efforts in Ukraine.
I love your channel having just found it and find your much needed wise balanced perspective inspiring.
Our last trip before the COVID closure was Scotland in January 2020. We look forward to returning again to your beloved country.
Blessings from Colorado, USA.
Thanks Pat
Thank you! Bruce
You are very welcome
Great Story Teller. Thank You. Blood is still on our hands today. "Send the Cell Phones Back!" should be our Battle Cry : )
Great video like always Bruce and very timely. I agree with you 100%, it should not be ignored. When we ignore the past we are doomed to repeat it. I commented on your other video about Slavery and I was telling you how my Scottish ancestors were pushed out of the Highlands during the clearances. They immigrated to North Carolina and I believe they became slave owners themselves. As I stated in the other video, I don't know how they treated their slaves but I can only hope they didn't mistreat them based on their own inhumane treatment from the English, and their fellow Scots.
Aye, yet humanity has a funny way of forgetting
I'd say that English wasn't a Latin language in any way, it's a mix (mainly) of Scandi/Germanic languages.
I would say that you have a valuable perspective and it's one I find myself sympathetic too.
English is essentially French (Latin language) and German, yes some other bits and bobs too.
@@ScotlandHistoryTours www.britannica.com/topic/English-language
Thats not the case, although there are many French words incorporated into English, it is not the basis of English.
Love your videos by the way.
I completely agree that tearing down the monuments will do nothing to expose the hypocrisy and cruelty of those once exalted in stone. Yes, all lives matter. Celt, Pict, Scot, Slave, Irish (immigrant), child, Native American, Indian/Pakistani, poor, Hispanic...ALL lives. Thank you for having the courage to state your views.
I'm African American and truly enjoy your channel. 😘
wow "nobody wants to be separated from this land where mountain loch and Glen pervade your soul"!!
goosebumps
I have been thinking on this subject over the past number of days and after watching your excellent and thought provoking article, I think that now more than ever that Dundas should be removed from his place of honour, that is St. Andrews Square, and instead moved to the hall of shame. A statue in the centre of our capital should be for someone that we admire and gives us pride. Instead, we have someone who prolonged the misery of others and provides a sense of regret. I am not denying that we should remember the mistakes of the past, not at all, but we must learn these important truths in the class room, not the monuments where we would honour our heroes.
Thanks for being engaged. It helps
Thank you Bruce.
You're welcome
Fantastic video Bruce very well done. It was an honour to do a private tour with you in Scotland as well you were amazing.
You are too kind, but I'll put that on my next poster anyway
For individual Scots that say "that wasna me", I did some research on a friend's family tree to find out her gggrandfather owned a slave in Grenada and he was born in the Highlands. Just the son of a farmer, nothing more. Another carpenter on Grenada had nineteen slaves. So it wasn't just the Dundases and the Sutherlands, but ordinary Highlanders were encouraged to both invest and work in the Caribbean trade.
So what is that person supposed to feel? Like a monster because an ancestor partook of something that had been accepted for all of human existence? I don't understand what the point of that is.
I am an American of mostly a Scot, Irish, Manx, English and Norwegian decent, and I don't know if any of my ancestors owned slaves, but me and my father and brothers recently did DNA testing and found that we were about 1% African...so who knows what it means?
I hate slavery and true racism, but racism is a human problem...no particular ethnic group is free from that evil.
There is hatred of the "other" in every ethnic group on earth..I refuse to be buffaloed into self loathing or embarrassment of my dominant race for things that I myself utterly abhor.
In every race there are subsets that have committed the same gross atrocities against each other.
We have to move past the finger pointing and move forward to a better future...the future that Martin Luther King dreamed of.
May God help us find it...the current finger pointing is only dividing people, not bringing them together.
Ok...let the hate and name calling spew forth..I don't care.
Fascinating topic! Thank you for sharing this historic story. You're a wonderful storyteller! Peace.
There are no words... Wow... I managed to hold the tears back, but just barely. It is easy to justify brutality, just declare the other side non-people. As you said, it is an old game.
In Toronto, Canada, there is a movement afoot to change Dundas St./Dundas Square because of Henry Dundas’ links to slavery. I don’t know what to think....but so true that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it....
Do you honestly think in the 21st century with all our access to social media, media and communications people will simply forget about monsters like Dundas if we remove his statues? If anything the internet is bringing to light the massive participation of Scotland in the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and the role played by Dundas's and many other Scots. The statue in Edinburgh never even came also to that in almost 200 years.
The argument to preserve statues dedicated to people who committed or facilitated crimes against humanity in order to stop these crimes reoccurring is ludicrous. There is not one statue in the whole of Germany dedicated to Adolf Hitler, but yet Germany arguably is the most anti Nazi nation in the whole of Europe.
Such incredible atmosphere to this story. Wow.
One of your most evocative videos, Bruce.
My own family are supposed to have come to Glasgow, from around Oban, Taynuilt and Loch Awe. They “dropped the ‘Mac’ for bread”, as the saying goes. I wonder if there’s a story in that episode for you as a wrap to the Clearances section?
I’ve been to see the Earl of Sutherland’s statue, by the way. I spat on it.
Man you tell a compelling story. Thanks!
The way you put this video together was very heartfelt, and I feel tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat.
Thanks for this, I truly cherish the truths you exposed.
You're so welcome!
So sad, beautiful video
So moving. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: you have the words 🌞
Beautifully told and yet so sad, truly touched my heart
Ah, I'm goin tae greet😢
You could have replaced Gael with Native American at any point as the same thing happened to that culture and peoples, the land was not a wealthy individuals but shared amongst the tribe or clan, not that there wasn’t push back from encroachment but it was not the same as was ownership in the English understanding, thank you Bruce for another great history lesson
Aye that's the point. Greed and inhumanity seems to be a thread that winds through the centuries
This is an uncomfortable reality and brought a tear to my eye. I wished everyone would watch this video.
Why.not share it with friends and little by little everyone will see it.
@@ScotlandHistoryTours I will, for sure.
Here in Ontario, Canada, we have a TONNE of streets named after Dundas. Many here, particularly in Toronto, have been claiming his name should be removed because he 'helped enable slavery' here.
That was just great!!👍👍
Very powerful and timely presentation. Thank you. Now stop making me cry!
Fantastic video Bruce! Shines a light on aspects of Scottish history that we're often backward about coming forward with.
Thanks man. I really appreciate that coming from a proper arty/techy like yourself
@@ScotlandHistoryTours Cheers. That should be former arty/techy who is back at Uni trying to become a brainy type :P
Here here try to tell others that we need to remember my great grandparents came to America during the civil war thank God they found freedom
God Bless you Bruce. I ‘ ll light a candle for you, in a beautiful church in New York….from a son of Clan Donald
😘
My Belief Is That
Those Monuments
Should Be Kept in Museum
As a Testament To What They DONE
But Never in The Public Square
Where They Would Be Seen as Heroic
Yes. The distinction between celebration and commemoration is huge...
That was very informative. Thank you. I am trying to find out more about Scottish plantation owners in Jamaica and this sets the scene. So many Scot surnames there: MacKenzie, McLean, McIntosh, Graham & Stewart.
Yes they were rife
There's more black Campbell's in the west indies than white Campbell's in Scotland 😮
Thank you for this. An amazing video, you really are the best voice for Scottish history right now!
Oh bruce this video is so heartbreaking 💔 to hear, human's can be so cruel 😢 the scenery is beautiful though and you told the story with sympathy and empathy, thank you kindly. God bless 🙏🏴🥃
Thanks for sharing; take care 🔥❤🌙
Thanks for the visit
Cool! The only heritage lessons I got were my old mans pride in eating marmalade jam & & our tartan & hand with the dagger dirk coat of arms Manu forti ! Keep the content coming awesome!
I saw that monument to that I humane
piece of entitled vermin in 1994 at Golspie for each of four days playing the Golspie Classic (£15 entry fee) . My local companions explained the clearance of the Highlands .
Your presentation is very eloquent and fitting.
Both monuments should have plaques attached ,explaining the tyranny of those “improvers”.
Brilliant video. If only history lessons in school were this good. Thanks Bruce
You are too kind
Wish there was HOURS long episodes, I’m born a Swede, stay in Sweden 🇸🇪
I’ve generations of Scottish family from the 1800’s & I can’t find anything interesting BEFORE THAT & NOW I know why. Extremely impressed & extremely interesting xxx
💁♀️😘☮️💕🇸🇪🇸🇪
Just watch a bunch in a row😂
@@ScotlandHistoryTours typical Scottish answer lol. At least I wasn’t told to SELLOTAPE them together, my “Grann-Da” told me sellotape my Snapped VHS tape of CINDERELLA together. My fave childhood film Forced on me because he’d get _Aww us wains_ plonked in front of the TV, was the Boys that didn’t like it best 😆
🏆🏆💁♀️😘💕🇸🇪🏴🇸🇪🏴☮️☮️☮️
It wasn't just Scotland that suffered clearances. It happened in Canada, in America, in Australia, in New Zealand, in Rhodesia, in South Africa and many, many more places.
This channel is only about Scotland. The clue is in the name
The end of Loch Arkaig has also the remains of a large number of abandoned cottages. I used to live up in Lochaber and there are remains of homes in many places I had visited.
These costume pictures are hilarious. Love these videos on our history. They should be in the effing schools.
Thanks to my son for the thumbnail pictures
The english don't want to teach the scottish about this stuff because it will make more people want independence 😂
@@Scottbutcher7 Totally true there! Can you imagine The Scotland Office run by the red and blue Tories allowing that?
This by far has been one of the best streams I’ve seen so far a very important message thank you so very much for this😢
You are so welcome
Another great video Bruce. I am glad of your knowledge and your wisdom. Have a great week my brother.
Very best regards Gordon.
I thought I was going to learn about Henry Dundas, the highland clearances, and the Scottish slave trades and it's pretty much a poetic durge for the clans.
We have to remember the bad things in our history a well as the good. Lest we forget.
This is a very powerful presentation. Thank you so much!
Back in the 80s me and the lads were going to take that statutes head of. Bad weather stopped that in its tracks. Think they put a statue at the bottom of the hill dedicated to our lost people
Is that the one in Helmsdale you're on about?
@@ScotlandHistoryTours think the dudes name was Sutherland . Contrary to school teachings it wasn't just the English that kicked our ancestors of there lands and we found out. That made us unhappy. They put a statue at the bottom of the hill commemorating the victims of the clearances. That made us happy again. The dude stands for the worst of humanity, proper scumbag
I am a 63 year old man who could not take to school ever , but I think things would have been so much better if I had a teacher like you
Ah thanks
Bruce, I’ve enjoyed all of your videos. I have no idea how, nor why they showed up in my recommendations. But I’m glad that I got connected to them.
I'm delighted too josh
Thank you for making this great video. I stumbled upon it - and your channel - accidentally, as I was looking into the Highland Clearances. Really insightful, and you're a terrific orator!
Thanks James, I really appreciate you taking the time to say hello. Please feel free to subscribe to the channel. There's loads more videos on things historically Scottish: scientists, inventors, monarchs, battles, heart warming stories, and beautiful views along the way I hope.
@@ScotlandHistoryTours Thanks so much, Bruce! Have subbed and I'm looking forward to checking out more of your videos and great Scottish stories.
Thanks, and enjoy
I agree the monuments should stay, we need to be reminded of our past and learn from it.
That brought a tear to my eye too! My Scots-side family's village had been abandoned and destroyed during the Clearances. I've heard the "pro-clearance" side say that the population was simply getting too large and letting millions starve in the Highlands wasn't an option. Well sending them to fertile North America seems to have been a blessing to them and to the Highlands as well. Scotland had achieved "sustainability" and even England had her own "enclosure and clear" that effectively ended feudalism and hundreds of thousands of tiny manor villages had simply vanished. And of course, the opening of North America, New Zealand and Australia had taken the population pressure off Great Britian.
Agree 100% with you on the preservation of history. No statue should be dismantled, history can't be changed but must be a lesson. As for some of the individuals that made it, perhaps they are facing divine judgement...
Hi, I have watched a few of your videos and I have enjoyed them all. I am from Beith originally and I recently found out that a slave by the name of Shankar was brought to the town to be taught a trade. His history is documented in the press at the time. To this day he has never received his freedom and I think as a nation we should do something about it.
That's interesting. You sound like just the man to do it
Thank you.
Best one yet. Although I think the Duke of Sutherland deserves a closer look as a good argument can be made that the Sutherland clearances, whilst carried out in his name, were both the brain child and work of his dear lady wife, the Duchess. She had the title, vast lands and estates, but on money and certainly no dowery, which may have been the motivation underpinning her programme of "improvement". Anyway, worth a thought.
I agree with what you said. to pull them down merely hides it deeper.
Thank you for this excellent video. You have packed a lot into this short video and painted a very vivid picture. I live in Australia and First Nations people are currently battling (still battling I should say) for recognition - of the true history - of culture, language and to be listened to, to be included in the constitution. I do not have First Nations heritage, I was born in England, but I cannot stand injustice in any form, wherever it lands and by whom it is wielded. I did not know a lot of the detail of the clearances, but I have known about them for a long time and like the Enclosures in England, that they caused a lot of suffering at the hands of fat cats. Keep up the good work. 💙
Well said. These statues are no longer monuments to glory. They are monuments to our shame, that should not be hidden or forgotten.
My son is half french and half English, I wish everyone was as intelligent as you, I envy my boy, he has two heritages to be greatful for and study the history’s and feel pride over.
THANK YOU
Thank you, from a descendant of Campbell, McLaren, Douglas, Crerar who resided in Ardeonaig, Lawer, Lix, Killin, Kenmore. Left for New Zealand in 1858. History, we need to know who we are
All statues of rogues should have a plaque built into them detailing their nefarious activies. Thus naming and shaming them.
Sadly one wonders if any statue anywhere would be exempt from that. I suspect few, if any, would...
Beautifully filmed and very well written. Great work Bruce.
Many thanks!
Very moving. I grew up in Cape Breton and we never had one word about any of this in history class. Gaelic died with my great grandmother. But my grandfather had sheep still. Thanks for this.
Agree. Thank you, our family story too, we went to NZ, and we never forget.
My family story also, mine went to Canada... Nova Scotia which is New Scotland in latin. The Highlanders left a very strong culture that survives to this day in the entire province. In some areas Gaelic is still the spoken language. The flag itself is the Scottish flag with the colors reversed. Both you and I have come from Scottish survivors and as for myself I feel it's an honor to be so.
What a powerful message. Well done.
Liked and shared.
Well done. It raised a thought as an American living here during tumultuous times as a lot of uncomfortable truths are (still) being grappled with. Especially since the Orange one emboldened so many dark thoughts and actions in people over the previous administration. In my corner of the world, I am not sure I can be so supportive of some of the statues remaining. Most of the confederate statues were put up in the early 1900's as as means of reminding minorities, especially freed slaves, of their place in history. These were not put up shortly after a civil war as a means to remember "heroes". They were put up decades later as people worked to rewrite history. In that sense, I find myself supporting moving them to a museum so they can not hover over people trying to live their lives and can be somewhere with the proper context given. It is something, though, to think about what happened in Scotland a few hundred years ago and the ripple effect felt all over the world to this day.
I didn't say it was simple
@@ScotlandHistoryTours Amen to that.
We know about the Highland Clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries, as they were documented at the time, but what of the Lowland Clearances which took place intermittently over the preceding centuries in England as well as Scotland? Peasants were cleared off farmland so it could become pasture for sheep, or parkland for wealthy noblemen, or just to replace smallholdings and strip farming by industrial-scale cultivation by monks. In earlier times only churchmen kept records, and they were complicit in the dispossession.
Yep
Thank you for exposing what they did, it’s not to be forgotten. I appreciate your take on this. Writing from America where people want to forget and pretend nothing happened.