The Origin Story

We lived in Clans. Run by a Chief. The smaller families were called a sept of a Clan. Everyone answered to the Chief.

They would follow a Chief into battle without question, and willingly die to defend the honour of the Clan.

Their intense loyalty to the Chief was the glue that held everyone together for hundreds of years.

The Highlands were mostly owned by the Chiefs. Unfortunately they rarely lived on the land themselves, nor did they oversee how the land was being used. Often Chiefs lived in the comfort of a large city, like London or Edinburgh. So the Chief would lease or rent to one man called a Renter.

Renters kept the best land to them selves and subdivided what was left to a Tacksman.

The Tacksman kept whatever land he wanted for himself, and subdivided it again to the Wadsettlers.

Wadsettlers divided the land even more, and rented it out in yearly leases to the poorest of the poor: the farmers. They were also known as the Cottars.

The end result was that each large estate became chopped up into far too many pieces, and lived on by far too many people. They lived in sod huts. A fine home was a rare luxury in the 1700s.

The mounds of soil and stone would have openings to outside air, but no actual windows or doors to keep out the wind and rain.

By today’s standards they had had little to no furniture. They had very few utensils to cook with or eat with.

Settlers in Scotland slept on the floor, on thin layers of straw or heather.

Food was served on wooden plates in some homes. Most often the iron pot was simply put on the floor, in the center of the room and you dipped in and helped yourself with your fingers.

Our traditional wood stoves were unfamiliar to the highlanders. They used peat. A mossy vegetation from the swamps and bogs that would need to be dried. Once dried enough it would smolder, more than it burned. With no chimney the peat smoke filled the house and eventually escaped through holes in the walls and roof.

Smoldering peat fires filled the homes with soot, which formed black ink that dripped on everything and everyone inside.

When it rained, the roof leaked and eventually everything was black as charcoal.

The homes were actually nicknamed the Black Houses due to the soot. Even the inhabitants became as black as a chimney sweep. The soot burned heir throats and often lead to blindness and black lung disease.

People rarely bathed. Men rarely cut their hair or beards. Dishes were rarely washed. Finding an animal hair in the butter was completely acceptable. After all the animals were living inside sometimes anyways. Clothing was said to be washed only by the rain.

How about another bowl of oatmeal?

With every inch of land needed to grow food, little or no land was left on their tiny farms to grow hay. No grazing options for the animals.

Each summer after the crops were planted, entire families would move up into the mountains with their cattle and sheep to find grazing land. The animals thrived and got fat. Milk was made into butter and cheese for the winter. Families would visit the hills and they soon became alive with the sounds of fiddles and bagpipes. They talk of days with children’s laughter and great story tellers all coming together around crude summer homes that they called ‘Sheilings’.

But just as day follows night, winter followed summer, and selling a cow or two would give them some money to buy a few things as it got colder. But no hay was cut and stored. There was no grazing land in the valleys. Any cattle that were not sold were doomed to a winter of starvation.

In addition, there were no barns. The animals were kept inside the house during winter. So along with the soot and smoke you also had cows, hens, sheep, and of course lots of manure.

You may remember that it was common to bleed a cow back in these days. In the 1700’s they cut the cow each day and add blood to the porridge, milk, or oatmeal.

As winter progressed, many cows got weak from no food and being bled. It was common to get a neighbor to help lift the cow upon to its feet so it could be milked.

Lice and ticks were common. So much so, that people slept outside whenever possible.

Potatoes were an Irish crop and didn’t arrive in the highland until the 1750’s. They rarely ate meat, and vegetables were scarce. Oatmeal was their basic food.

As bad as those winters were, spring and summer were even worse. Most settlers ran out of food long before the harvest. Until the crops or wild berries ripened in August their only source of food were mussels and snails, or whatever they could find on the shoreline.

They drank tea made from tree bark and leaves.

Often the highlanders were described by outsiders as lazy. When in fact their lack of energy may well have been due to years of malnutrition. But as poor as the people were, they had honour. They were governed by a well organized system of Clans. If you have ever seen the Disney movie called BRAVE then you would be familiar with the rowdy clans.

Defend the Clan

The position of the Chief was passed down from Chief to son, generation to generation. Even if it was a nephew, it would still stay in the family. This worked well for hundreds of years.?In times of peace, the structure remained strong. In times of unrest, the long-time honored traditions gave them the strength to act as one complete unit. The clans had many men to draw from; many warriors to defend the clan.

Amid the snow and rain, our story is about to change. It was a battle that lasted about 45 minutes in the spring of 1746, in a place called Culloden.

The cottars and the young highlanders faced the British Army in what would quickly become a slaughter. Moments before the battle began a chant rang out in Gaelic:

SOME TRUST IN HORSES

SOME TRUST IN CHARIOTS

BUT WE TRUST IN THE NAME OF THE LORD OUR GOD

OH LORD PLEASE ANSWER US WHEN WE CALL

They were wiped out. There were almost two thousand Highlanders killed and only 200 captured by the British. In the coming weeks, hundreds more would die from their infected wounds. We wouldn’t hesitate to call it ethnic cleansing in a modern newsreel.

It has been said that one third of the entire Gaelic population fought against the British, one-third fought for the British, and one-third remained neutral. Revenge was poured onto them all equally. Regardless of the side you took, the British troops made it clear that this would be the end of an era. In the weeks that followed they burned down homes, and slaughtered most of the cattle and sheep

The Highlanders were defeated physically and emotionally.

The Highlanders that supported the losing side were deported swiftly to the new world. They worked in plantations around North Carolina and South Carolina. So intense was the British hatred that British lawyers suggested that those deported be branded like cattle so they could never return to Scotland un-recognized.

The British parliament would enact two new laws. All Highlanders were to be disarmed. They would never be able to own a sword, gun or weapon of any kind, ever again. Among the items listed as a weapon were the bagpipes. Secondly, all Highland dress was banned. No tartan of any kind, and no kilts.

Whether losers or winners at Culloden, all Highlanders were given two choices. Wear pants or trousers instead of a kilt, and no Tartan. And then start looking to dye anything plaid into a solid colour.

If caught disobeying the new dress act, the punishment was six months in jail. A second offence would get you deported to the new world… for 7 years.

Life Goes On

One full calendar year later and the Highland dress ban was put into effect. The British Parliament removed power from the Chiefs. In one fell swoop they ended seven hundred years of the Clan system in Scotland.

With no Chiefs the people of the Highlands were suddenly like sheep without?a shepherd. They turned to the Churches in town, but poverty was rampant. Too many people on overcrowded?plots of land, paying high rent for poor quality. By the 1760's twenty-eight thousand able bodied?men were homeless beggars, they traded it all for booze. Alcohol abuse was out of control and then a greater problem arose.?

After Culloden the British built better roads between the valleys and villages. This enabled the homeless to flood into towns and bring the sick and destitute.

They built schools. However, while 90% of the population spoke Gaelic, the new schools only taught English.

This distinct society crumbled within a decade. Their identity was gone, and the overcrowding, poverty and?disease made the future look bleak. There was no hope in the Highlands.

These are the weary and downtrodden?souls who came to Canada. These are the ones who heard of great fertile land across the ocean. It was touted as a place where one family could purchase a plot of land over 100 acres for pennies. And they could properly wear their tartans unchallenged.

And so was born the exodus; the removal?of thousands from the Highlands of Old Scotland to the land of maritime Canada New Scotland, or as it's pronounced in Gaelic - Nova Scotia.