3-096-393 - Ware in the World/Heritage Images

Crofter's hut at Rigg, Isle of Skye, Scotland, c1955. The Highland Clearances were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860. Before 1745, the landless poor in the Scottish Highlands and Islands scratched out a modest lifestyle by grazing their few domestic animals and cultivating crops. Over the coming century, a number of disastrous harvests, a decline in the lucrative kelp industry, overcrowded communities, poorly managed land and the abject poverty of tenants meant landlords, many to avoid bankruptcy, had to look elsewhere for income. This led to the breaking apart of the relationship between the land and its people.