4 ms·

The Jacobites were themselves aristocrats and were violently rebelling against the monarchy. Also, the Highland Clearances were not acts of theft, the landowner

The Jacobites were themselves aristocrats and were violently rebelling against the monarchy. Also, the Highland Clearances were not acts of theft, the landowners already owned the land at that point. edit: I should also state that the Highland Clearances were complex but get retold as: "rich people stole land from poor people" often.

pjc50 9y ago
> "rich people stole land from poor people" Is that or is that not a fair summary, though? If the mass eviction happened to be legal, is that sufficient to make it morally OK? What about the enclosure of genuinely commonly-owned land at the time?
- SteveJones37 9y ago
  The rich people owned that land already. The poor leased it.
  - gjjrfcbugxbhf 9y ago
    It looks like the rich only owned it because it was gifted to them by the crown - and the crown only owned it because they took it by force. Maybe all this was legal but only because the laws were bad.
    - arethuza 9y ago
      Actually, in lots of areas of Scotland local chiefs willingly became feudal lords gaining "official" title for their lands.
      - mcguire 9y ago
        ...became feudal lords gaining "official" personal title to their clans' lands, IIUC.
        ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        aka rich people stealing land from poor people.
        arethuza 9y ago
        Exactly - what was communal became personal. Which if not legally theft was certainly the moral equivalent.
dalbasal 9y ago
Highland Clearances were complex but get retold as: "rich people stole land from poor people" often. This is where I think we need to treat history differently from current events, because concepts like ownership, title, rights and such are ultimately subjective outside an agreed legal context. Obviously, there is disagreement here. I don't know much about that period, but there are countless examples of similar things. The system of land ownership was at one point, tribal (clannish). tribes controled lands and chiefs control tribes, rights to the land negotiated custom and familial means. Chiefs became lords. Tribesmen, tenants. Titles, privelages and customs changed. Eventually, the lords became modern peope, industrial era capitalists. Economies became monetary. Clans ceased to exist. Titles became wealth. Tenants became squatters. I think it's hard to follow the history, while maintaining a modern sense of property. I can certainly see how people view the scottish peasant class as having a moral claim to the property.
- arethuza 9y ago
  "Chiefs became lords." They became feudal lords by accepting the King of Scots as their feudal overlord - this is what gave them the "ownership" of lands that had previously been held communally. "The Poor Had No Lawyers - ho Owns Scotland and How They Got it" covers this and much more: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006WB2E9Q/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006WB2E9Q/ref=dp-kindle-redirec... Scotland has had well over a thousand years of legal shenanigans around land ownership - it is amazingly complex for such a small country.

pjc50 9y ago

> "rich people stole land from poor people" Is that or is that not a fair summary, though? If the mass eviction happened to be legal, is that sufficient to make it morally OK? What about the enclosure of genuinely commonly-owned land at the time?

SteveJones37 9y ago
The rich people owned that land already. The poor leased it.
- gjjrfcbugxbhf 9y ago
  It looks like the rich only owned it because it was gifted to them by the crown - and the crown only owned it because they took it by force. Maybe all this was legal but only because the laws were bad.
  - arethuza 9y ago
    Actually, in lots of areas of Scotland local chiefs willingly became feudal lords gaining "official" title for their lands.
    - mcguire 9y ago
      ...became feudal lords gaining "official" personal title to their clans' lands, IIUC.
      - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        aka rich people stealing land from poor people.
      - arethuza 9y ago
        Exactly - what was communal became personal. Which if not legally theft was certainly the moral equivalent.

dalbasal 9y ago

Highland Clearances were complex but get retold as: "rich people stole land from poor people" often. This is where I think we need to treat history differently from current events, because concepts like ownership, title, rights and such are ultimately subjective outside an agreed legal context. Obviously, there is disagreement here. I don't know much about that period, but there are countless examples of similar things. The system of land ownership was at one point, tribal (clannish). tribes controled lands and chiefs control tribes, rights to the land negotiated custom and familial means. Chiefs became lords. Tribesmen, tenants. Titles, privelages and customs changed. Eventually, the lords became modern peope, industrial era capitalists. Economies became monetary. Clans ceased to exist. Titles became wealth. Tenants became squatters. I think it's hard to follow the history, while maintaining a modern sense of property. I can certainly see how people view the scottish peasant class as having a moral claim to the property.

arethuza 9y ago
"Chiefs became lords." They became feudal lords by accepting the King of Scots as their feudal overlord - this is what gave them the "ownership" of lands that had previously been held communally. "The Poor Had No Lawyers - ho Owns Scotland and How They Got it" covers this and much more: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006WB2E9Q/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006WB2E9Q/ref=dp-kindle-redirec... Scotland has had well over a thousand years of legal shenanigans around land ownership - it is amazingly complex for such a small country.