"Just as among the Scots we find two distinct tongues, so we likewise find two different ways of life and conduct ... [the Lowlanders] these men [the Highlanders] hate, on account of their differing speech, as much as they do the English ... at present day almost the half of Scotland speaks the Irish tongue, and not so long ago it was spoken by the majority of us ..." Quoted in Saorsamedia - Gaelic
The Scottish government leased the island of Lewis to a group of land speculators known as the "Fife Adventurers." They were to establish a "plantation" of English speaking Protestant Lowlanders on the Island. The concept was much the same as that of the Ulster Plantations that began a decade later.
The Gaelic speakers on the island were said to have "given themselves over to all kinds of barbarity and inhumanity" and to be "void of any knowledge of God or his religion." The adventurers were authorized to use "slachter, mutilation, fyre-raising or utheris inconvenieties." and whatever else was needed for "ruiting out the barbarous inhabitantis."
"As for the Hie-lands, I shortly comprehend them all in two sortes of people: the one, that dwelleth in our maine land, that are barbarous for the most parte, and yet mixed with some shewe of ciuilitie: the other, that dwelleth in the Iles, & are all vtterly barbarous, without any sort or shewe of ciuilitie. For the first sorte, put straitely to execution the lawes made already by mee against the Ouer-lords, and the chiefs of their Clannes, and it will bee no difficultie to danton them. As for the other sort, follow forth the course that I haue intended, in planting Colonies among them of answerable In-lands subiects, that within short time may reforme and ciuilize the best inclined among them: rooting out or transporting the barbarous and stubborn sort, and planting ciuility in their rooms."
The wealthier Highlanders were required to send their heirs to the Lowlands, where they would be taught "to speik, reid and wryte Inglische." See Gaelic in Scotland.
"....that the vulgar Inglische toung be universallie plantit, and the Irische [Gaelic] language, whilk is one of the cheif and principall causes of the continewance of barbarite and incivilitie amongis the inhabitantis of the Ilis and Heylandis, may be abolishit and removeit...." Quoted in Gaelic in Scotland.
"...the darkness I mean of error, which the turbulent detested followers of the accursed faithless Calvin had introduced, through the violence and tyranny of the Council of Scotland, through lying pseudo-bishops and fraudulent ministers... It is certain and evident (since it is already known in the council of Scotland that we have received the true faith) that we shall be compelled to the renunciation of it or to the loss of temporal goods and life, or both, as has frequently happened, not only to Scots but also to many Irish... our country and islands ... are far removed from the incursions and outrages of the English to whom we have never at all given obedience. All the Gaelic-speaking Scots and the greater part of the Irish chieftains joined to us by ties of friendship..." Iain Mùideartach of Clan Ranald, in a Letter to the Pope. Quoted in Gaelic in Scottish History and Culture.
While the letter is phrased in religious terms, the historical context is that of a cultural confrontation. Also note the favorable mention of the Irish, at a time when Lowlanders were displacing the native Irish in much of Ulster.
"These partial pickers of Scotish chronology and history never spoke a favourable word of the Highlanders, much less of the Islanders and Macdonalds, whose great power and fortune the rest of the nobility envied ... Although the Macdonalds might be as guilty as any others, yet they never could expect common justice to be done them by a Lowland writer." Quoted in Saorsamedia - Scottish History
"The enmity of the Lowlanders has been a great source of injury to the Scoto-Irish [Highlanders], especially since heresy began to dominate in Scotland, for the inhabitants of the Lowlands being most furious heretics (with the exception of some few whom the Catholic missionaries restored to the bosom of the Church), and seeing the Highlanders most constant in the Faith and that there is no hope of alienating them from the Church they seek by all possible means to excite odium against them, designating them as barbarians, impious enemies of the reformed creed, etc., and they hesitate not to affirm of them everything that can be suggested by detraction and their own excessive hatred. They even deem it a glorious deed to show contempt for or cast ridicule on a Highlander." Quoted in Catholic Barra.
"Nothing can be more effectual for reducing these countries to order, and making them usefull to the Commonwealth than teaching them their duty to God, their King and countrey and rooting out their Irish language, and this has been the case of the Society so far as they could, ffor all the Schollars are taughtin English." Quoted in Gaelic in Scottish History and Culture.
"...and by reason of their barbarous language [Gaelic] can have noe manner of Communication with others and are upon those two accounts altogethr as Incapable of being employedin husbandry, fishery, manufactories or handycrafts or of settleing inour foraigne plantations." from Some consideration to induce the people of South Britain to Contribute to the Designe of propagating Christian Knowledge to the Highlands and Isles of North Britain and of Civilising the Barbarous Inhabitants of these parts of the Kingdome, quoted in Gaelic in Scottish History and Culture.
"[Inverness] is not only the Head borough or County-Town of the Shire of Inverness, which is of large Extent, but generally esteemed to be the Capital of the Highlands; but the Natives do not call themselves Highlanders, not so much on Account of their low [geographical] Situation, as because they speak English." Quoted in Saorsamedia - Gaelic
I.e. "highlander" is a cultural designation, not geographical.
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