Flight of the Highlanders: The Making of Canada

by Ken McGoogan

Bestselling author Ken McGoogan tells the story of those courageous Scots who, ruthlessly evicted from their ancestral homelands, were sent to Canada in coffin ships, where they would battle hardship, hunger and even murderous persecution.

After the Scottish Highlanders were decimated at the 1746 Battle of Culloden, the British government banned kilts and bagpipes and set out to destroy a clan system that for centuries had sustained a culture, a language and a unique way of life. The Clearances, or forcible evictions, began when landlords—among them traitorous clan chieftains—realized they could increase their incomes dramatically by driving out tenant farmers and dedicating their estates to sheep.

Flight of the Highlanders: Canada’s First Refugees intertwines two main narratives. The first is that of the Clearances themselves, during which some 200,000 Highlanders were driven—some of them burned out, others beaten unconscious—from lands occupied by their forefathers for hundreds of years. The second narrative focuses on resettlement. The refugees, frequently misled by false promises, battled impossible conditions wherever they arrived, from the forests of Nova Scotia to the winter barrens of northern Manitoba.

Between the 1770s and the 1880s, tens of thousands of dispossessed and destitute Highlanders crossed the Atlantic. Those who survived became Canada’s first refugees—prototypes for the refugees we see arriving today from all around the world.

 

 

Genres: Nonfiction, History

368 pages, Hardcover

Published September 17, 2019

Reviews

[Elinor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had heard of the Highland clearances, but never appreciated their brutality -- the process in which people were stripped of everything they owned and banished from their ancestral homelands. It truly was a form of ethnic cleansing. As a proud Canadian descendant of three separate Highlander families, I found myself personally outraged on behalf of my long-ago antecedents. I can now claim that my own family members were among Canada's first refugees. Ken McGoogan's journalistic background shines in this account, not only because of his research but also his colourful and entertaining writing style. He has written more than a dozen books. This latest constitutes yet another important contribution to our understanding of Canadian history.

[Piper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rspkt to my persecuted ancestors. Why did it take so long for them to invent chimneys ? The black houses sound so nasty.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first and last quarters of the book -- the analysis of Highlander life and the settling of what would be Manitoba were fascinating and compelling stories. But the middle half of the book felt like a combination of family album and repetitive tales about the Clearances that felt like a repeating record. Combined with my natural antipathy (re: boredom) with pre-Confederation Canadian history, there's only so much of this book I find that I can love, though I appreciate the scholarship.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting history of how many Scottish immigrants landed in Eastern Canada. McGoogan gives an unsparing account of the many "clearances" of the Scottish Highlands that caused - directly and indirectly - the deaths of many Scottish people who did not have the means to buy or move to another place easily. A devastating look at the greed and blind ambition of those who "cleared" the land and yet a somewhat hopeful look at the resourcefulness of the Scots who landed in Canada and made their way. McGoogan touches on but doesn't delve into the irony of Scots who became successful in Canada in some cases by clearing out the indigenous people of the land. Perhaps that's a book for another day.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ken McGoogan's two prong thesis in this book is that 1) The story of pre-confederation settlers of Gaelic/Anglo descent in Canada is not as 'bland' as many of us would assume and 2) That the story of settlement is complicated by the fact that many colonizers were also peoples under extreme political and economic duress. Highlighting the many examples of Scottish Highlanders forced migration to Canada, I think McGoogan does a thorough going job of proving his point. My preference in non-fiction reading is for tightly told, propulsive narratives which interpose reflections from modern travels and experience. I would consider this book a relatively good example for what I am aiming for here. Perhaps, I would critique that McGoogan tells too many stories of land clearances, to the point that they blend together and begin to feel ubiquitous. But to his credit, maybe that's the point. This happened. A lot. We dare not forget it, not when so many citizens of this country are carrying this historical trauma deep within their DNA. Personally, I would have appreciated more of a reflection of how this experience both helped and hindered the personal, familial, and collective psyche of the Highlanders as an immigrant people. There is a little bit of this at the end of the book. While I found the information about the Red River Settlement interesting, I had to go do a little exterior reading on the topic as I think maybe McGoogan assumes a bit too much on reader's understanding of that issue. Overall, this was an interesting and worthwhile read about an area of Canadian (and British Isles) history that I knew nothing about and a solid example of narrative non-fiction.

[Elisabeth (Bouquins & Books)]

This is a book of popular history. The author opens the book by expressing the idea that the Highlanders expelled from their ancestral lands because of the Clearances were Canada's first refugees. In a succession of vignettes and anecdotes, McGoogan shows the horrors of the Clearances. I knew very little about the Clearances, so this book was an interesting introduction, though the picture is in no way complete. It's the sort of book that makes me want to watch Youtube videos about everything and anything Scottish.

[Betty Welch · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d give it 3.5 stars if I could.

[Bill McKinlay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well written history of the how the Highlanders were chased from their homes in Scotland and forced to move to Canada under the harshest conditions imaginable . McGoogan's books are a treat. If it's written by Ken McGoogan - read it!!

[Joshua Friesen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting and well written book on something -the clearances, that I knew very little about.