sell away

Unable to bear with such harassments, many land owners in that area had to sell (away) their lands to the settlers.

Is this sentence correct and understood clearly? Can I say sell away here? The context of the sentence: some villagers have lands in an area near to the settlers. The settlers often harass them in many different ways, such as grazing cows on their paddy fields, destroying the crops etc.

Thanks

Avangi, if you don't mind, what's the difference between sell off and sell away?
Thanks

New2grammar

what's the difference between sell off and sell away?

Probably not much. "Sell off" is more common, and would be considered a business strategy.  "Sell away," as in this case, would be reluctantly getting rid of something. I don't think it would be used much for a single item.  I went along with it because of "lands" in the plural.  If you say a rancher is selling off / away his herd you think of a few here and a few there, until perhaps they're all gone; as opposed to selling the whole herd in a single deal.  (How did I get into this?)  But if a guy is selling off his business, I suppose it could be one deal.  Selling off his inventory could be a little at a time. 

Sorry, I'm too tired to be doing this.  I'm not answering your question.  - A.