The small village of Dervaig sits at the head of Loch a’Chumhainn on the Isle of Mull, its name – meaning ‘good inlet’ in old Norse - a throwback of Viking times.

Six miles from Tobermory, its street of white cottages is overlooked by Kilmore Church’s curious pencil-shaped tower, while on its outskirts, as is so often the case, is evidence of life long since gone: the faint outlines remain of a once thriving township.

For Lachlan Kennedy, a humble crofter and witness to one of the bleakest periods of Scottish history, Dervaig’s old settlement was a nagging reminder of one of the bleakest periods of Scottish history.

He was 33-years-old in August 1883 when he stood before the Napier Commission, set up to look into the conditions faced by crofters and cottars in the Highlands and Islands.

His distressing evidence would tell of Dervaig’s humble families being left impoverished by soaring rents imposed by their new and wealthy landlord, of clever deception leading to the loss of common land where their animals once freely grazed, and how appeals for support were met by cruel suggestions they should simply kill their animals instead.  

For some Dervaig villagers, there was just one option: to pack up and leave.

Kennedy’s evidence was painfully familiar. Events in Dervaig were replicated from Sutherland to South Uist, from Skye to Caithness, across vast swathes of the Highlands and Islands in dreadful episodes that saw life made so difficult that humble families had little choice but to leave the land they lived on and had loved for generations.

Quite often in their place came commercial sheep farms and shooting estates – handsome money earners for landowners. For some, forced out of their homes by soaring rents and miserable conditions, there would be new lives working long hours and in harsh conditions for their landlords’ kelp or fishing industries.

And for others, fresh starts in new lands - sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not.

The Herald: The Last of the Clan by Thomas Faed (1825–1900)The Last of the Clan by Thomas Faed (1825–1900)

The Clearances spanned around 150 years; brutal waves of misery shrouded under the banner of progress, innovation and efficiency by those who stood to benefit most.

While today the scars remain in sad outlines of crumbled buildings – such as those near Dervaig – in faint lines of old cultivation ridges and in the human form of descendants of families scattered to the four winds two centuries ago, who remain emotionally tied to the distant lands of their fathers.

It's hard to imagine a more desperate period of Scottish history.

But why did it happen at all?

Dr Elizabeth Ritchie, senior lecturer in Scottish History at the University of the Highlands and Islands, says depopulation came in waves, with the first peaking between 1760 and 1815.

A new age of agriculture and industry had emerged against a background of disruption as estates forfeited as punishment for Jacobite supporting landowners were redrawn.

The Enlightenment brought fresh ideas over how best to use the land, with new livestock that promised better beef, wool and mutton, and crops like turnips.

All of which required access to the fertile land that had served families well for generations.

Traditional ways of life were set to change.

With hills and arable land earmarked for sheep farms, the old runrig system of joint tenancies was broken up and individual crofts created often in new coastal locations.

Typically, these new crofts would be too small for a family to sustain themselves yet came with inflated rent - a clever way of coercing people into working for their landlords’ other interests, such as emerging kelp and fishing industries.

Read day one of the series, The New Highland Clearances: 

Some families opted to move away and even emigrate in search of a better life.

But this was just a taste of what lay ahead.

By the early 1820s, the collapse of the kelp trade left landowners feeling the squeeze, particularly those who had enjoyed lavish lifestyles.

“A lot of the old families and clan chiefs ran out of money,” adds Dr Ritchie. “They had started to buy into this exciting aristocratic lifestyle from the lowlands of Scotland and from England.

“But the people there had more income, they owned more profitable things.

“A lot of the old families got stuck in debt. They were gambling, buying commissions for sons in the military, their wives were buying dresses and houses in Edinburgh.

“They are getting into debt and looking for sources of income to support their lifestyle. But, short of changing that lifestyle or sending a younger son to seek the family’s fortune in the Empire, there were few choices other than extracting more money out of your estate.”

Some sold estates to new owners with no historic ties to their tenants. With scant regard for the impacts of their actions, they put pressure on their poverty-stricken tenants.

Rents increased and available land for grazing livestock was squeezed – as highlighted by Lachlan Kennedy in his moving evidence of events at Dervaig.

Plunged into poverty, surviving on barley bread, fish and gruel, life became increasing harsh.

Huge numbers chose to leave. Others would be physically turfed from their homes, transported to harbours and shipped abroad.

Those who stayed faced further woe as the kelp economy collapsed. Their small crofts meant they became reliant on potato crops - just as devastating potato blight swept Europe.

“Rents set at the height of the kelp boom had never been reduced and starving crofters could not pay,” adds Dr Ritchie. “While some landowners tried to help, for others it was an excuse to evict.”

Almost every island and Highland community has its own tale to tell: on Mull in 1821 there was a population of 10,612, by 1881, the number had slumped to 5,624. It would keep falling – today the population is still well short of 3,000.

Iona’s population of 500 dropped by half, and on the Island of Tiree where the land was fertile and the population of around 5,000 in the mid-18th century said to be “well-clothed and well-fed, having an abundance of corn and cattle”, Colonel Jock Campbell, on orders of the Duke of Argyll, would use cruel methods to systematically decimate their numbers.

Within two decades, around 3,000 people were gone.

On the mainland, the widow of the 16th Chief of Glengarry,  Josephine, had inherited the sprawling Knoydart estate but by 1853 was keen to sell. She set about ensuring any new buyer would not be burdened by paupers.

Around 400 crofters were handed notices of removal and warnings to prepare for new lives in new lands.

Those who resisted would see their homes burnt to the ground.

Some new landowners, such as George Rainy of Aberdeenshire, had benefitted handsomely from slavery compensation payments. He bought the island of Raasay with plans to convert to sheep farming.

Perhaps hardened to suffering from his slavery days, he cleared the townships: two boats full of emigrants left for Australia in 1854, and a further 165 in 1865.

And on the Isle of Skye, over 30,000 people were evicted between 1840 and 1880 as Lord MacDonald cleared the way for sheep.

There was little mercy given: in 1830, at the settlement of Lorgill on the west coast of Duirinish every crofter under 70 was removed and placed on board the Midlothian bound for Nova Scotia.

The Clearance’s impacts can still be seen today: such as across Sutherland where sheep were favoured over people.

“The Highland clearances are one of the main roots of the issues the region struggles with today,” adds Dr Ritchie.

“The inhabitants had maximised the fertility of the land in order to support crops and cattle so their removal, and often replacement with sheep, has resulted in a depleted environment, lacking fertility and ecological diversity. 

“Whole swathes of the region were emptied of their population and remain empty. Not wild land, but depopulated land.

“Other populations were steadily impoverished by the removal of access to resources and crowding them onto the worst parts of land.

“This resulted in the poverty of those who remained, and all the social ills which come with it including demoralisation and a population outflow for the next two centuries.”

She adds: “What was needed in the Highlands and Islands, and is still needed, is an active population of people who know and understand the place and who have initiative and skills.

“Policies in the past set the local knowledge and the adaptive skills of the people at naught, but present policy makers have a chance to do things differently.”