A Race Divided

Author: Prof. Eric Richards

Exodus is one of the great themes in modern Highland history – dispersal of the Highlanders from their ancestral homelands across the globe. By the mid 19^th century Highlanders were to be found in every part of the ‘Anglosphere’- not only in the south of Scotland and England, but also in India, North America and the Antipodes.  There were well-known concentrations of Highlanders in eastern Canada (in Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, and Prince Edward Island); there were other groups in the Carolinas, in New York state, and  in Upper Canada, in Red River and beyond. There were fascinating pockets of Highlanders in the Falkland Islands and even in continental Europe, sometimes employed as navvies. There were special and large concentrations in the British armies. In Australasia – the particular focus of this paper -  there were also identifiable groups of Highlanders – in New England, in the south-east of South Australia, in Gippsland and the Western District of Victoria, a few in Western Australia and some in tropical Queensland. And, of course, in New Zealand they flourished in several places but most famously at Waipu in the North Island. There was a sense of dispersion as well as of concentration, which complicates the story. Whether Highlanders abroad sustained especially cohesive identities, or whether they punched above or below their weight  in their new destinations, are difficult questions to answer.

Author: Prof. John Sheets

Like many places in the Hebrides, tiny and remote Colonsay, with the southern tidal isle of Oronsay, recorded its largest population toward the middle of the 19^th century: 979 in 1841.  And, like so many places, it seems a simple story of growth after the 18^th century then a precipitous decline into the 20^th century. 

When Martin Martin toured the “Western Isles of Scotland” at the dawn of the 18^th century, he did not count the people in Colonsay but described them: “The inhabitants are generally well proportioned, and of a black complexion; they speak only the Irish [Gaelic] tongue, and use the habit, diet, etc that is used in the Western Isles.”  In 1701, Malcolm McNeill of Crear purchased Colonsay (and Oronsay) from the 10^th Earl (and later 1^st Duke) of Argyll, and commenced two centuries of McNeill lairds over their unrelated McNeill tenants.  Within decades some islanders could not resist the temptation of a New World and trans-Atlantic emigration, often to the “Argyll County” of North Carolina.

Author:  James Cameron

This chapter attempts to answer these questions about the tragic Lulan voyage to Prince Edward Island in 1837.
Was the Lulan the only voyage from the Uists to Nova Scotia?
Had there been many such voyages from other parts of the Hebrides?
Were the departures in most cases brought about by Clearances?
Was the ‘Lulan’ voyage chartered by a human trafficker?
Was the ‘Lulan’ incubating the smallpox virus as the Uists were free of smallpox?
Were hopes and expectations raised in Uist people about a better life in Canada than they could get in Glasgow?