Sutherland

A varied historic past

600 million years ago Sutherland as part of the Highlands was at the South Pole, just very occasionally in dead of winter one may think it still is, these are but fleeting moments.

So begins our history,

First we had the Picts, the original inhabitants, there are considerable remains in the form of brochs (or round towers), numerous and widely scattered, Picts' houses, tumuli, cairns and hut circles.These archaeological findings of forms of buildings and jewellery have survived and give the impression of ancient Pictish Society. These Pictish regions seen and served successive rulers, and new migrants were accepted, all who changed the language and culture. later evolving to the Clans and their Chiefs of more resent history, and their genes are present to some degree in every Scottish Clan.

Fourteen or fifteen hundred years ago before highlanders began emigrating in great numbers to find a better life in such as the Americas, people were moving into Scotland from Ireland, known as Scots or Gaels, and their Latin adaptation was applied to the land as Scotia or Scotland.

However, Gaels were Celtic in origin and culture, myth has it that Celtic migrants also reached Scotland hundreds of years before that from the continent of Europe, indeed from what is read, insists they came from the east, from the same area as the Jews, led by a warrior King called Nel. The Gaels brought in both Christianity and Gaelic to the Highlands around the 7th and 8th century.

Then in 794 along came the Vikings with their fearsome reputation of pillage and plunder, first attacked sites in northern Scotland. At this time there was no unified Kingdom making up Scotland, rather independent territories occupied by several very distinct peoples, which included the Picts and Scots.

Gradually the Clan system evolved and over the centuries the Clans fought and plundered each other and a great many Scots became fighting men under many flags across Europe.

Then came the Stewart claim to the throne and thus began a period of 'Jacobite' rebellions. This was finally defeated at Culloden Moor near Inverness in 1746. In the aftermath of the ’45 uprising the government decided to end the Jacobite military threat once and for all. Determined to bring the Highlands to heel, the army showed little mercy. Jacobites were rounded up, imprisoned or executed. Estates were forfeited; the clan system dismantled and weaponry, plaid and pipes were outlawed. For Highland culture it was a disaster.

After 1770 there was a significant change in the Highland economy with sheep farming gradually spread northwards, reaching the far north by the 1790's, and spreading throughout Sutherland. There was also an attempt at developing a herring fishery in the Highlands. The problem was that even with these new industries in the Highlands, the economic resources did not meet the needs of an ever-rising population.

During what became known as the ''Highland Clearances'', tens of thousands of men, women and children were evicted, often violently, from their homes to make way for sheep farming. They were moved from the fertile glens and straths to the rugged and often dangerous coast.

In some areas, whole glens were cleared, which today are as silent as they must have been when the landlord's factors had ruthlessly carried out the orders of their masters. Homes were burnt and tenants forced to leave at the point of a sword, carrying little if anything as they headed towards a life of danger poverty and hunger.

Likewise in Sutherland, three times as many people left the Highlands as were evicted as sadly they stood in the way of the selfish economic interests of the landowners. High rents, overcrowding and a feeling of extreme hopelessness will have added to the impetus to emigrate. Then in 1846 there was a catastrophic potato crop failure and emigration, whether voluntary or not, became the only obvious answer.

The early history of the Highlanders presents us with a bold and hardy race, filled with a romantic attachment to their native mountains and glens, cherishing an exalted spirit of independence, and firmly bound together in clans by the ties of kin.

Sutherland and the North Highlands have undergone considerable change during the last century and a half, and the alteration, in a social point of view, has been on the whole for the better.

The Highlands are now as accessible as the lowlands, and in resent times have relied on forestry fishing and industry plus tourism and yes, still some emigration.