In the western Highlands a ‘peasant’ society remained but differed radically from that of the age of clanship before c.1750. Indeed, social transformation in Gaeldom was more traumatic and cataclysmic than anywhere else in Scotland. The Highlands moved from tribalism to capitalism over less than two generations. The communal bailes had been broken up by c.1820 and replaced by single crofts (individual smallholdings), or in the south and east Highlands by small compact farms under single masters. Everywhere, large-scale pastoral farming was in the ascendant.
