The Lowland Clearances and Improvement in Scotland
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses August 2015 Uncovering and Recovering Cleared Galloway: The Lowland Clearances and Improvement in Scotland Christine B. Anderson University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Anderson, Christine B., "Uncovering and Recovering Cleared Galloway: The Lowland Clearances and Improvement in Scotland" (2015). Doctoral Dissertations. 342. https://doi.org/10.7275/6944753.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/342 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Uncovering and Recovering Cleared Galloway: The Lowland Clearances and Improvement in Scotland A dissertation presented by CHRISTINE BROUGHTON ANDERSON Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2015 Anthropology ©Copyright by Christine Broughton Anderson 2015 All Rights Reserved Uncovering and Recovering Cleared Galloway: The Lowland Clearances and Improvement in Scotland A Dissertation Presented By Christine Broughton Anderson Approved as to style and content by: H Martin Wobst, Chair Elizabeth Krause. Member Amy Gazin‐Schwartz, Member Robert Paynter, Member David Glassberg, Member Thomas Leatherman, Department Head, Anthropology DEDICATION To my parents. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is with a sense of melancholy that I write my acknowledgements. Neither my mother nor my father will get to celebrate this accomplishment. My dedication of this dissertation is to them; without their love and support, I would not have completed my degree. I have been lucky enough to have a brother who has stood in their place. His patience and love carried me through, and he deserves and gets all of my gratitude. My deepest and heartfelt thanks are shared with Martin and Jude Wobst. I have few words with which to articulate how much their friendship has meant to me. My committee of Bob Paynter, Betsy Krause, Amy Gazin‐Schwartz, and David Glassberg contributed in diverse and crucial ways. My intention was to have members who offered diverse theoretical and content guidance that would aid me in producing an accessible document. I could not ask for more supportive and patient members. Bob and Betsy started out with me from day one. Bob served in a capacity beyond an academic one as he offered guidance and understanding as I experienced the loss of my parents. Our conversations about capitalism continue to inspire me to think beyond the typical interpretations of our material world. Betsy's sincerity about my writing and my theoretical direction kept me honest and focused. Throughout, Betsy quietly helped me construct a vision of my research that I would not have achieved without her. David encouraged me to explore the role of history more acutely and to disseminate my research in a creative manner. Amy served as the expert on Scotland but more importantly was my friend and confident. Her friendship kept me grounded. I want to acknowledge the friendship of Shelley Silva. Shelley works tirelessly to aid graduate students during their tenure in the department, usually without thanks. Without her support and assistance, I would not have finished. Kathryn Curran, friend and graphic artist v extraordinaire, continues to keep me laughing. I want to thank Jean Forward for encouraging my love of Scotland, supporting me when I questioned the directions in which I was moving. Lynnette Leidy Sievert also deserves a sincere thank you for remaining steadfastly supportive of me personally and professionally. Finally, Deb Rotman deserves a thank you for assistance with field work on a very cold and rainy day in Scotland. In Scotland, Alastair and Elizabeth Penman have been my family abroad and have supported me in my pursuit of this degree for more than twenty years. They both have been pivotal in shaping my understanding of Scotland and archaeology and I thank them. I want to acknowledge the staff of the National Archives of Scotland as well as the staff at the Ewart Library in Dumfries. Their guidance and expertise was immeasurable. Christopher Dalglish, University of Glasgow, offered incredible support and guidance during my fieldwork. I thank the residents of the Gatehouse of Fleet for welcoming me in to their community and in particular Donna Samuels Thomsen for her friendship. I want to acknowledge the friendship of Alastair Austin, who passed away before this dissertation was finished. Once a week for over a month, Alastair opened his home to me and shared his life as a farmer in Galloway. The Murray‐Usher family shared their long history in the region with me, and I thank them. Bina and Anne Chaudhry also shared their lives as residents of Edinburgh and Dumfries and Galloway. The support of the Wenner‐Gren Foundation was instrumental in the completion of my dissertation. I have been incredibly lucky to have many, many friends in the United and States and abroad who have had an impact on my professional and private life. Each person has contributed to my success. kI than them for all of their love and support over the past 15 years. vi ABSTRACT UNCOVERING AND RECOVERING CLEARED GALLOWAY: THE LOWLAND CLEARANCES AND IMPROVEMENT IN SCOTLAND MAY 2015 CHRISTINE BROUGHTON ANDERSON, B.A. RANDOLPH‐MACON WOMAN'S COLLEGE M.ED. UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST M.A. UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor H Martin Wobst This study seeks to understand the removal of people from the land as symptomatic of two narratives based in the colonial and capital enterprises, clearing and Improvement. On a broad scale, it builds on our understanding of the development of colonial practices designed to dominate and control populations and their landscapes within expanding capitalism, of which clearing is one. The implementation of such practices in colonial contexts and their subsequent results have dominated the field of anthropology, leading to more critical analysis of the dynamic relationships between colonizer and colonized (Said 1994, Spivak 1999, Fanon 1963, 1967, for an application of Fanon’s inferiorization in Scotland, see Beveridge and Turnball 1989). Spatially, this relationship has been constructed around the distances between two players: the beneficiaries of the colonial enterprise, namely core, western and European based countries, and the subaltern or peripheral populations usually located at great distances from the sites of inception. These peripheral spaces were the locationse of immens change in terms of both material culture and historical memories. Here, these moments are explored within the small, vii defined space of Galloway, Scotland, which provides a case study foregrounding and locating the manifestations of both clearing and improvement as they move across the landscape as ideological and material products of capitalism and colonialism. Albeit subtle and punctuated, clearing was carried out across Scotland in an effort to remove pre‐modern producers from the landscape during the implementation of “agricultural improvements” in the wake of developing capitalism. Against this backdrop of developing capitalism in Great Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Scottish landowners embraced “Improvement,” a matrix of economic, material, and social changes directed at the landscape and towards achieving a productive, civilized world through the moral betterment of the population (Devine 1994; Dalglish 2003; Orser 2005; Tarlow 2007). These changes were manifest in the commodification of land, domination of particular groups through the disciplining of space, and a distinct reordering of peoples’ relationships with each other and with things (Foucault 1995; Johnson 1993, 1996). Landowners successfully implemented a range of strategies as a means of achieving “Improvement” ideals, including clearing. Contemporary interpretation of this process in Scottish history is enmeshed in the tropes of the Highland Clearances and the Age of Improvement. Highland clearances and the tragic experience of clansmen characterize the period from which Scotland’s national identity has been molded and branded (Trevor Roper 1983, Smout 1994, McCrone, Morris, and Kiely 1995, Finlay 2001, Kiely and Bechhofer 2001); the Lowlands are usually conceptualized as having been “improved” rather than “cleared.” Taking this dichotomous relationship as a point of departure, this dissertation challenges the trope of “Improvement” in Galloway, Scotland. In particular, this dissertation readdresses the Lowland experience as both improvement and clearance by uncovering evidence that clearances of the tenant and cottar classes took place in Galloway during the 18th viii and 19th centuries; that these clearances were made invisible whilst they were happening through the guise of Improvement as Scotland developed into a modern nation within a global context; and that evidence of clearing is still “oozing out” of the landscape, if put into perspective. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................................................................................................