Iain mac Mhurchaidh

Before emigrating, MacRae lived a very privileged life compared to the vast majority of his fellow Gaels following the Battle of Culloden. MacRae served Kenneth Mackenzie, 1st Earl of Seaforth and Chief of Clan MacKenzie, as a ground-officer, deer stalker, and forester throughout Kintail and Lochalsh. This was a very comfortable and well-paid position. Furthermore, MacRae's wit made him so popular among both the Scottish nobility and commons that no formal dress ball or village ceilidh was considered complete without his presence.[3]

Around 1773, MacRae received a letter encouraging him to emigrate from Rev. Iain Beutan (John Bethune), a native of Glenelg and minister of the Barbeque Presbyterian Church in would later become Harnett County, in the Colony of North Carolina. Although it is not known what Rev. Beutan's letter said, it is considered likely by literary scholars that he mentioned the abundance of wild game in the New World.[4]

In Scottish culture, hunting was a traditional pastime for both nobles and warriors and eating fish or seafood was considered a sign a low birth or status. By this time, however, hunting was being increasingly treated as poaching by the Anglo-Scottish landlords. Iain mac Mhurchaidh had already composed a poem complaining that his hunting rights were being restricted and, for this and many other reasons, he decided on taking the minister's advice and emigrating to the Colony of North Carolina.[5]

As news spread of Iain Mac Mhuirchaidh's plans, his friends and relations were reportedly very distressed. Three noblemen with massive holdings in Ross-shire lavishly entertained MacRae at dinner and offered him any farm on their estates he desired, but to no avail.[6]

MacRae, however, had no intention of going alone and composed many Gaelic poems and songs in which he urged his friends and relations to join him. In those poems, like many other Gaelic poets of the era who favored voluntary emigration, MacRae complained that warriors were no longer valued and that greed had come to mean more to the Chiefs and the Tacksmen than family or clan ties. Iain mac Mhurchaidh always concluded his poems by arguing that the Gaels would do well to emigrate to the New World and abandon such a corrupted nobility.[7]

After making the final arrangements for his departure, Iain hosted the Captain of the emigrant ship to dinner at his house. According to an 1882 article in The Celtic Monthly, "His guest, seeing his table better provided with good things than was the ordinary lot of common emigrants, enquired of his host if he was always able to have such a spread for himself. Being answered in the affirmative, the captain told the bard that he would not be able to have such in America and, at the same time, advised him to stay at home. His wife any many of his friends he was leaving behind him also urged him to do this. Being undecided as to what in the circumstances, he should do, his friend Ardintoul pointed out to him that, if he turned home after all that he had said, sang, and done, he would live despised ever after as a weak-minded coward. The thought of being held dishonoured and a coward decided the matter."[8]

Iain mac Mhuirchaidh arrived in the Colony of North Carolina in 1774. By 1775, he had amassed enough wealth to purchase 150 acres in Moore County, North Carolina.[9]

Following his emigration, Iain mac Mhuirchaidh is believed by some scholars to have composed the Gaelic lullaby Dèan cadalan sàmhach, a chuilean a rùin ("Go to sleep peacefully, little beloved one").[10][11]

At the beginning of the American Revolution, Brigadier General Donald MacDonald issued an appeal to all Scottish Gaels in the Colony to take up arms on behalf of the Loyalist cause. Iain mac Mhuirchaidh was one of the first to enlist.[12]

Marcus Tanner has called Iain mac Mhurchaidh's arrival in the New World, "a real case of bad timing", as he, "had hardly gotten himself established before he was fighting his fellow Americans."[13]

On February 27, 1776, Iain mac Mhuirchaidh fought on the Loyalist side during the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge and survived to be taken prisoner. While imprisoned with the battle's other Loyalist leaders in Philadelphia and feeling a deep sense of regret for having emigrated to America, he composed the song Tha mi sgìth dhe'n fhòghairt seo, ("I am weary of this exile").[14]

Iain mac Mhuirchaidh must, however, either have been released or escaped, because according to tradition he fought again as a Loyalist under the command of Major Patrick Ferguson at the Battle of King's Mountain on October 7, 1780.[15] Although this battle has traditionally, "been characterized as a confrontation between Loyalist Highlanders and Scotch-Irish revolutionaries", there were in reality Gaelic-speakers fighting on both sides. According to one source, Iain mac Mhuirchaidh, in a revival of, "the diplomatic immunity of the ancient Celtic bards", walked between the opposing armies during the battle and, in an attempt to convert his fellow Gaels from the Patriot side, sang the song, Nam faighte làmh-an-uachdar air luchd nan còta ruadha ("Even if the upper hand were gained against the Redcoats").[16] In the poem, Iain mac Mhurchaidh called the Patriot uprising against King George every bit as unnatural as disrespect against one's earthly father. He also threatened that Patriots who did not submit would be treated like both real and suspected Jacobites had been treated in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden,[17] which is still referred to in the Highlands and Islands as Bliadhna nan Creach ("The Year of the Pillaging").[18]

In reality, Iain mac Mhuirchaidh, like many other Loyalists, paid a very heavy price for his Monarchist beliefs. In 1780, the North Carolina General Assembly taxed his property in Moore County at three times its value. That whole district, which had been mainly settled by Scottish Gaels, was almost depopulated by the end of the war, as Gaelic-speaking Loyalists fled northward towards what remained of British North America.[19]