Kennedy the Highland Evangelical

John Kennedy was born on 15 August 1819, the fourth son of John Kennedy (1772–1841), himself a highly respected Gaelic preacher, and minister of the parish of Killearnan in the Black Isle. He therefore lived through a major period of transition within the Scottish Highlands. At his birth in 1819, the last Jacobite rebellion lay within living memory, when fear and suspicion of Highlanders had been general. The Highlands as he knew them in his youth were, as they always had been, comparatively primitive, and while very much a part of Scotland and Britain for the purposes of military recruitment, and considerably modernised in agricultural practices from previous generations, they remained geographically remote from the major urban centres. Many Highlanders were monolingual in a language marginalised even within Scotland, many were illiterate, and few had capacity for engagement in national governance and public affairs. Travel was uncomfortable and sometimes hazardous, and the fastest way to journey across land was still on horseback, as it had been for centuries. Roads were few and poor, and there was still not even a daily coach running between Inverness and Thurso. Yet by the time of Kennedy's death in 1884, much had changed. The railway brought swift, comfortable and dependable travel to the furthest points of the mainland Highlands, while the telegraph permitted rapid communication with the wider world. Highlanders had access to elementary education, and were reading newspapers and voting in elections (albeit with property restrictions), while Parliament was coming to recognise the need for Highland land reform. Indeed, legislation was already at an advanced stage of planning that would grant security of tenure to the Highland crofters. In wider society, fear of the Highlander had given way to romanticism; a professorial chair of Celtic at Edinburgh University, the adorning of even Lowland Scottish regiments with the sartorial paraphernalia of the Highlands, and Queen Victoria's public embrace of Highland life all indicated a growing appreciation for Gaelic Scotland.

Not all the changes were positive. Kennedy's lifetime was also marked by high emigration from the Highlands, with a population in steady decline, and the modest developments did little to address the heavy economic and cultural dependence on the Lowlands. The popularisation of Darwinian evolution from 1859 appeared to offer scientific credibility to assertions of racial difference.