Land raid

A land raid was a form of political protest in rural Scotland, primarily in the Highlands.[1] Land raiders threatened to seize, or seized, land which they claimed had been unfairly taken from them or their forebears. Landowners, and the law, regarded the protests as a form of squatting.

"Land raiders" redirects here. For the 1969 film, see Land Raiders (film).

Land raids were particularly common in the Hebrides, but some of the most prominent cases occurred on the mainland, for example in Wester Ross and in Sutherland. Examples include Coll, Lewis (1888) and the Raasay Raiders (1921).

Knoydart

The Seven Men of Knoydart were returning servicemen who made an unsuccessful raid on land belonging to Nazi sympathiser Lord Brocket in 1948.[2]

Vatersay

In 1906, landless men from the island of Barra crossed to Vatersay. The latter was a fertile island run as a single farm but its owner Lady Emily Gordon Cathcart had only visited once in 54 years. After the cottars refused to leave, Cathcart took ten of them to court in 1908. The judge said the owner had neglected her duties, but still sentenced the men to two months in prison.[3] The names of the men were as follows: Duncan Campbell; Donald MacIntyre, John Campbell, William Boyd, Roderick MacNeil and John MacDougall of Barra; Michael Campbell, Duncan Sinclair, John Sinclair and Hector MacPhee of Mingulay.[4] However, in 1909 the Congested Districts Board bought the island and broke it up into 58 crofts.[3]

See also

References
  1. Robertson, Iain J.M. (2016). Landscapes of Protest in the Scottish Highlands After 1914: The Later Highland Land Wars. Routledge. ISBN 9781317108047.
  2. Scott, A. (2015). Native Stranger: A Journey in Familiar and Foreign Scotland. Hachette UK. ISBN 0751561223. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
  3. Quinnell, Teàrlach. "The story of the Vatersay raiders". BBC. Retrieved 18 September 2017.
  4. Kyle, Tom (19 July 2008). "THE HEBRIDEAN PRINCES Hostile Landowner: Lady Emily Gordon Cathcart Took the Vatersay Raiders, Left, to Court". Daily Mail. Retrieved 10 August 2019.


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