The People of Glengarry

Beginning in the middle of the 18th century, the Highlands of Scotland underwent radical social and economic change. The economic transformation - from a quasi-feudal community to a society ordered by modern capitalist forces - led to declining status for clansmen and the disruption of traditional social organizations. In a detailed study, Marianne McLean explores the relationship between economic changes in the Highlands and the clansmen's emigration to Canada in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She challenges the currently accepted position that the clearances of sheep farms did not have a central role in provoking mass emigration. Using a wide array of published and unpublished sources, McLean examines in detail nine group emigrations which left western Inverness between 1785 and 1802 for Glengarry County in Upper Canada (now Ontario). She describes how, once in North America, they built a new Highland community in an attempt to ensure each family's access to the land.