The early sheep-farming period in the part of the Highlands examined in this study was characterised by a great deal of geographical, social and financial movement.
Two general points can be made. One is that chiefs, tacksmen, clansmen, and even southern sheep-farmers were all individuals reacting to the circumstances in which they found themselves. The other is that these circumstances were characterised by a great deal of economic turbulence.
It has been widely accepted in the past that sheep-farming in the Highlands was developed and undertaken by southern incomers. Some modern historians have even dismissed the possibility that Highlanders could have become sheep-farmers because they lacked the necessary skill and capital.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, some southern sheep-farmers did indeed move into the Highlands but they were greatly outnumbered by native Highlanders who saw a future in sheep-farming, initiated it themselves, and pursued it vigorously.
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