Another blow was soon to rock the fabric of Highland culture. First they had been betrayed by the very people appointed to protect them and their lands, the chiefs: now they discovered that their new spiritual representatives were accepting substantial sums of money from Southern US slave-owners despite the fact it was known that Cleared Highlanders who were forced to emigrate to America were being sold to slavery in the southern US states.

The lay members of the church, the Press and the people of Scotland generally were abhorred that they should even contemplate taking money from slave-owners and they were regaled with cries of "Send back the money." After due deliberation The Free Church of Scotland's official response was, "Neither Jesus Christ nor His holy apostles regarded slaveholding as a sin" - and kept the money.

Some of the landlords even attempted to resort to the slave trade in an effort to get rid of their unwanted crofters. The Duke of Athol had to press-gang his own clansmen to go and fight in America as he had been unsuccessful in raising a regiment as the men refused to go because of his earlier Clearings. Once the fighting was over, instead of sending them home to their families and glens, he attempted to sell his own people as slaves to the East India Company. The men were only saved from slavery by staging a mutiny.

When they eventually returned home the Duke evicted every single one of them in an act of vengeance. In 1803 the Rev James Hall commented, " The state of our Negroes is paradise compared to that of the poorest Highlanders." Ironic words considering that many of these poor Highlanders would soon become slaves themselves working beside the enchained Negro slaves.

Written and published by the Highland Clearances Memorial Fund

Back to Highland Clearances Memorial Fund Series Main Page

Part One: Background
Part Two: Highland Portrait
Part Three: Bonnie Prince Charlie
Part Four: The Clearances
Part Five: The Improvements
Part Six: The Sutherland Estate
Part Seven: The People and the Church
Part Eight: US Slave-Owners
Part Nine: Queen Victoria and Red Deer
Part Ten: 1840-1880 Eyewitness Accounts
Part Eleven: Famine!
Part Twelve: Famine Immigration
Part Thirteen: Forced Eviction to the Cities
Part Fourteen: Changing Ways
Part Fifteen: Things Change Yet Remain The Same
Appendix A: Highland Clearances, Dates & Places
Appendix B: Bibliography