ABSTRACT
The detailed chronology and historical geography of clearances is not well-known, and there exists no comprehensive check-list of the events. The main period of clearance in the Highlands was between 1790 and 1855. The Galloway episode of 1723-25 stands as the great exception to the general rule of southern quiescence and inexorable progress. It was said that the defeat of the Galloway insurrection put paid to the idea of resistance to enclosure in the rest of Scotland in the eighteenth century. The quiet revolution was not confined to the southern uplands of Scotland – it was a widespread mode of rural change throughout the country. The most obvious difference between the Highland clearances and similar events in other parts of upland Britain was the rapidity and lateness of the changes in the extreme north. Recent research on sheepfarming in the south of Scotland illuminates the general mechanism by which sheep fought for territory in hold of cattle and arable production.
