Highland Land League

The first Highland Land League emerged as a distinct political force in Scotland during the 1880s, with its power base in the country's Highlands and Islands. It was known also as the Highland Land Law Reform Association and the Crofters' Party. It was consciously modelled on the Irish Land League.

The Highland Land League was successful in getting Members of Parliament (MPs) elected in 1885 (in the 1885 general election). As a parliamentary force, it was dissipated by the Crofters' Act of 1886 and by the way the Liberal Party was seen to adopt Land League objectives. The Land League also used direct action protest tactics and the use of these tactics was to reappear in the early 20th century. The protests included rent strikes and land occupations (which came to be known as land raids) by crofters, cottars and squatters. Perhaps the Land League's best known slogan was Is treasa tuath na tighearna. This Gaelic saying or proverb is usually translated as The people are mightier than a lord.

In the 1880s the common people or peasantry of the Highlands and Islands had been cleared from large areas of their ancestral lands, the clearances (known as the Highland Clearances) having occurred during the decades following the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Many emigrated to North America. Many who did not emigrate were crammed into crofting townships on very small areas of land where they were very vulnerable to abuse and exploitation by their landlords. Many lacked even crofts of their own and became cottars and squatters on the crofts of other people. Landlords turned most of the land over to use as sheep farms and hunting parks called deer forests. In addition, in the 1880s, the Highlands and Islands were recently ravaged by the potato famine of the mid 19th century. The 1880s were also a time, however, of growing democracy and of government which was increasingly responsive to public opinion, particularly after the electoral reform Act of 1884. As many crofters in the Scottish Highlands newly qualified as £10 occupiers, the Act empowered Scottish Gaels to form the Crofters' Party and Highland Land League.

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