The Highland Potato Famine was a famine

Famine

A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...

 caused by potato blight that struck the Scottish Highlands

Scottish Highlands

The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...

 in the 1840s. While the mortality rate was less than other Scottish famines in the 1690s, and 1780, the Highland potato famine caused over 1.7 million people to leave Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 during the period 1846–52. The Highland Potato Famine is now in widespread use as a name for a period of 19th century Highland

Scottish Highlands

The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...

 and Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 history. Famine was a real prospect throughout the period, and certainly it was one of severe malnutrition

Malnutrition

Malnutrition is the condition that results from taking an unbalanced diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess , or in the wrong proportions....

, serious disease, crippling financial

Finance

"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...

 hardship and traumatic disruption to essentially agrarian communities

Community

The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...

. The causes of the crisis were in many respects similar to those of the Great Irish Famine at the same time, and both famines were part of the wider food crisis

European Potato Famine

The European Potato Failure was a food crisis caused by potato blight that struck Northern Europe in the mid-1840s. The time is also known as the Hungry Forties. While the crisis produced excess mortality and suffering across the affected areas, particularly harshly affected were the Scottish...

 facing Northern Europe

Northern Europe

Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...

 caused by potato blight during the mid-1840s...

In the mid-19th century, most croft

Croft (land)

A croft is a fenced or enclosed area of land, usually small and arable with a crofter's dwelling thereon. A crofter is one who has tenure and use of the land, typically as a tenant farmer.- Etymology :...

ers in the Highlands of Scotland were very dependent on potato

Potato

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...

es as a source of food

Food

Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...

. The potato was perhaps the only crop that would provide enough food from such land areas. The land was generally of poor quality in exposed coast

Coast

A coastline or seashore is the area where land meets the sea or ocean. A precise line that can be called a coastline cannot be determined due to the dynamic nature of tides. The term "coastal zone" can be used instead, which is a spatial zone where interaction of the sea and land processes occurs...

al locations. (See Highland Clearances

Highland Clearances

The Highland Clearances were forced displacements of the population of the Scottish Highlands during the 18th and 19th centuries. They led to mass emigration to the sea coast, the Scottish Lowlands, and the North American colonies...

.) Very similar conditions had developed in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

.

In the Highlands, in 1846, potato crops were blighted. Crops failed, and the following winter was especially cold and snowy. Similar crop failures began earlier in Ireland, but famine relief programmes were perhaps better organised and more effective in the Highlands and Islands. During 1847, Sir Edward Pine Coffin used naval

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 vessels to distribute oatmeal

Oatmeal

Oatmeal is ground oat groats , or a porridge made from oats . Oatmeal can also be ground oat, steel-cut oats, crushed oats, or rolled oats....

 and other supplies. Nonetheless, in Wick

Wick, Highland

Wick is an estuary town and a royal burgh in the north of the Highland council area of Scotland. Historically, it is one of two burghs within the county of Caithness, of which Wick was the county town. The town straddles the River Wick and extends along both sides of Wick Bay...

, Cromarty

Cromarty

The Royal Burgh of Cromarty is a burgh in Ross and Cromarty, Highland, Scotland.-History:It was previously the county town of the former county of Cromartyshire...

 and Invergordon

Invergordon

Invergordon is a town and port in Easter Ross, in Ross and Cromarty, Highland, Scotland.-History:The town is well known for the Invergordon Mutiny of 1931. More recently it was also known for the repair of oil rigs which used to be lined up in the Cromarty Firth on which the town is situated...

, there were protests about the export of grain from local harbours (this grain being privately owned). Troops were used to quell the protests. Crop failures continued into the 1850s, and famine relief programmes became semi-permanent operations.

Crofters were not simply given their oatmeal rations: they were expected to work for them, eight hours a day, six days a week. Relief programmes resulted in the building of destitution roads. Also, they produced projects with very little (if any) real value, and their administration was very bureaucratic

Bureaucracy

A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...

, employing legions of clerks to ensure compliance with complex sets of rules, though clerks feel hunger too and might have taken another job if one, which they thought would feed them better, had been available.

The daily ration was set at 24 ounces (680.4 g) per man, 12 oz (340.2 g) per woman and 8 oz (226.8 g) per child.

Some landlord

Landlord

A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant . When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner...

s worked to lessen the effects of the famine on their crofting tenants. Rather than accept any real responsibility for the plight of crofting tenants, many landlords resorted to eviction. In particular, John Gordon of Cluny became the target of criticism in Scottish newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

s when many of his crofters were reduced to living on the streets of Inverness

Inverness

Inverness is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for the Highland council area, and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands of Scotland...

. Gordon resorted to hiring a fleet of ships and forcibly transporting his Hebridean

Hebrides

The Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...

 crofters to Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, where they were simply dumped on Canadian authorities and news of the famine led to the Scottish diaspora including Scottish-Americans to organise relief efforts.

To put it another way, for whatever reasons, some landlords supplied a free passage to what was hoped would be a better life, in Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

 and Canada. It should be made clear that the eviction of people unable to pay their rents was not peculiar to this area.

During the ten years following 1847, from throughout the Highlands, over 16,000 crofters were shipped overseas to Canada and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. In 1857, potato crops were again growing without serious blight.