Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances : : Homicide, Eviction and the Price of Progress / / Eric Richards.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Edinburgh University Press Archive eBook-Package Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Richards, Eric,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©1999
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (352 p.)

Winner of the Saltire Society Scottish History Book of the Year AwardIn April 1816 Patrick Sellar was brought to trial in Inverness for culpable homicide for his treatment of the Highlanders of Strathnaver, the most northerly part of the Scottish highlands. In the process of evicting them from their ancient lands he had allegedly burnt houses, destroyed mills and wrecked pastures. There is perhaps no more hated nor reviled individual in Highland history.This outstanding new book, however, gives a balanced assessment of the man, a vivid account of a terrible episode in Highland history, and a riveting narration of a tormented life.Richard's book is an account of Sellar's life and times: that he was ruthless, avaricious, devious and cruel is beyond question. But his letters suggest a streak of idealism: did he really believe that the displaced highlanders would be better off, better fed, educated and housed in their new homes? Have the Highlands in the end become more productive and prosperous? In the course of his fast-moving and gripping account, Eric Richards looks carefully at these vexed questions.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Maps and Plates -- Preface and acknowledgements -- Maps -- 1 The Tears of Patrick Sellar -- 2 Elgin Days, 1780-1809 -- 3 Colonising Sutherland and the Dazzling Plans of 1809 -- 4 The Installation -- 5 The New Clearances, 1811-12 -- 6 'The People's folly': Kildonan and Assynt, 1813 -- 7 Sellar and the Strathnaver Removals, 1814-15 -- 8 Mackid's Precognition in Strathnaver, May 1815 -- 9 Sellar Concussed -- 10 Trial and Retribution -- 11 The Dismissal -- 12 Famine and the Final Clearances -- 13 Heir to the Straths in the 1820s -- 14 Sellar in his Prime -- 15 Rational Principles -- 16 The Frame of Society -- 17 Death, Denunciation and Posterity -- 18 The Tears of Progress -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index