In 1849 Lord Macdonald determined to evict between 600 and 700
persons from Sollas, in North Uist, of which he was then proprietor.
They were at the time in a state of great misery from the failure of
the potato crop for several years previously in succession, many of
them having had to work for ninety-six hours a week for a pittance
of two stones of Indian meal once a fortnight. Sometimes even that
miserable dole was not forthcoming, and families had to live for weeks
solely on shell-fish picked up on the sea-shore. Some of the men were
employed on drainage works, for which public money was advanced to
the proprietors; but here, as in most other places throughout the
Highlands, the money earned was applied by the factors to wipe off
old arrears, while the people were permitted generally to starve.
His lordship having decided that they must go, notices of ejectment
were served upon them, to take effect on the 15th of May, 1849. They
asked for delay, to enable them to dispose of their cattle and other
effects to the best advantage at the summer markets, and offered to
work meanwhile making kelp, on terms which would prove remunerative
to the proprietors, if only, in the altered circumstances, they might
get their crofts on equitable terms--for their value, as such--apart
from the kelp manufacture, on account of which the rents had previously
been raised. Their petitions were ignored. No answers were received,
while at the same time they were directed to sow as much corn and
potatoes as they could during that spring, and for which, they were
told, they would be fully compensated, whatever happened. They sold
much of their effects to procure seed, and continued to work and
sow up to and even after the 15th of May. They then began to cut
their peats as usual, thinking they were after all to be allowed to
get the benefit. They were, however, soon disappointed--their goods
were hypothecated. Many of them were turned out of their houses,
the doors locked, and everything they possessed--cattle, crops, and
peats--seized. Even their bits of furniture were thrown out of doors in
the manner which had long become the fashion in such cases. The season
was too far advanced--towards the end of July--to start for Canada.
Before they could arrive there the cold winter would be upon them,
without means or money to provide against it. They naturally rebelled,
and the principal Sheriff-Substitute, Colquhoun, with his officers and
a strong body of police left Inverness for North Uist, to eject them
from their homes. Naturally unwilling to proceed to extremes, on the
arrival of the steamer at Armadale, they sent a messenger ashore to ask
for instructions to guide them in case of resistance, or if possible
to obtain a modification of his lordship’s views. Lord Macdonald had
no instructions to give, but referred the Sheriff to Mr. Cooper, his
factor, whose answer was that the whole population of Sollas would
be subject to eviction if they did not at once agree to emigrate.
A few men were arrested who obstructed the evictors on a previous
occasion. They were marched off to Lochmaddy by the police. The work of
destruction soon commenced. At first no opposition was made by the poor
people. An eye-witness, whose sympathies were believed to be favourable
to the proprietor, describes some of the proceedings as follows:--
“In evicting Macpherson, the first case taken up, no opposition to the
law officers was made. In two or three minutes the few articles of
furniture he possessed--a bench, a chair, a broken chair, a barrel, a
bag of wool, and two or three small articles, which comprised his whole
household of goods and gear--were turned out to the door, and his bothy
left roofless. The wife of the prisoner Macphail (one of those taken
to Lochmaddy on the previous day) was the next evicted. Her domestic
plenishing was of the simplest character--its greatest, and by far its
most valuable part, being three small children, dressed in nothing more
than a single coat of coarse blanketing, who played about her knee,
while the poor woman, herself half-clothed, with her face bathed in
tears, and holding an infant in her arms, assured the Sheriff that she
and her children were totally destitute and without food of any kind.
The Sheriff at once sent for the Inspector of Poor, and ordered him to
place the woman and her family on the poor’s roll.”
The next house was occupied by very old and infirm people, whom the
Sheriff positively refused to evict. He also refused to eject eight
other families where an irregularity was discovered by him in the
notices served upon them. The next family ejected led to the almost
solitary instance hitherto in the history of Highland evictions where
the people made anything like real resistance. This man was a crofter
and weaver, having a wife and nine children to provide for. At this
stage a crowd of men and women gathered on an eminence a little
distance from the house, and gave the first indications of a hostile
intention by raising shouts, as the police advanced to help in the
work of demolition, accompanied by about a dozen men who came to their
assistance in unroofing the houses from the other end of the island.
The crowd, exasperated at the conduct of their own neighbours, threw
some stones at the latter. The police were then drawn up in two lines.
The furniture was thrown outside, the web was cut of the loom, and
the terrified woman rushed to the door with a infant in her arms,
exclaiming in a passionate and wailing voice--“Tha mo chlann air a
bhi’ air a muirt” (My children are to be murdered). The crowd became
excited, stones were thrown at the officers, their assistants were
driven from the roof of the house, and they had to retire behind the
police for shelter. Volleys of stones and other missiles followed. The
police charged in two divisions. There were some cuts and bruises on
both sides. The work of demolition was then allowed to go on without
further opposition from the crowd.
Several heart-rending scenes followed, but we shall only give a
description of the last which took place on that occasion, and which
brought about a little delay in the cruel work. In one case it was
found necessary to remove the women out of the house by force. “One of
them threw herself upon the ground and fell into hysterics, uttering
the most doleful sounds, and barking and yelling like a dog for about
ten minutes. Another, with many tears, sobs, and groans put up a
petition to the Sheriff that they would leave the roof over part of her
house, where she had a loom with cloth in it, which she was weaving;
and a third woman, the eldest of the family, made an attack with a
stick on an officer, and, missing him, she sprang upon him, and knocked
off his hat. So violently did this old woman conduct herself that two
stout policemen had great difficulty in carrying her outside the door.
The excitement was again getting so strong that the factor, seeing
the determination of the people, and finding that if he continued and
took their crops away from those who would not leave, even when their
houses were pulled down about their ears, they would have to be fed and
maintained at the expense of the parish during the forthcoming winter,
relaxed and agreed to allow them to occupy their houses until next
spring, if the heads of families undertook and signed an agreement to
emigrate any time next year, from the 1st of February to the end of
June. Some agreed to these conditions, but the majority declined; and,
in the circumstances, the people were permitted to go back to their
unroofed and ruined homes for a few months longer. Their cattle were,
however, mostly taken possession of, and applied to the reduction of
old arrears.”
Four of the men were afterwards charged with deforcing the officers,
and sentenced at Inverness Court of Justiciary each to four months’
imprisonment. The following year the district was completely and
mercilessly cleared of all its remaining inhabitants, numbering 603
souls.[18]
[18] A very full account of these proceedings, written on the spot,
appeared at the time in the _Inverness Courier_, to which we are
indebted for the above facts.
The Sollas evictions did not satisfy the evicting craze which his
lordship afterwards so bitterly regretted. In 1851-53, he, or rather
his trustee, determined to evict the people from the villages of