Cast in Stone

Media metadata | Métadonnées multimédias

Flora MacDonald

has biography | a une biographie

Scottish Jacobite and a plantation-owner in North Carolina in the 1770s.

In 1774, Flora and her husband Allan MacDonald (?-1792) emigrated to Montgomery County, North Carolina, where they settled on a plantation at Cheek's Creek. There is a possibility that enslaved Africans worked on their plantation or on nearby estates. Hugh Douglas's 1993 biography refers to the MacDonalds bringing 'eight indentured servants, three women, and five men' with them to their plantation in North Carolina (Douglas, p. 151), but makes no mention of slavery in this period.

Primary sources indicate the MacDonald's entanglements with slave-ownership. In an extract from a letter dated December 31st 1777 from Captain Alexander MacDonald to his cousin Allan MacDonald, Alexander asks him to deliver some enslaved African children from his home on Staten Island in New York:

'I wish you would be so Good as to Sende or order to be Sent Some Negro Chielderen that are at my House as their Mothere is Dead, unless you finde matters are like to be Sattled in which case I would let them Stay where they are I again wish we were alltogethere as the more we are in one place the more respectable our appearance wishing you and all ffriends the complments of the Season and with Mrs McDonald's and my kinde wishes for every thing that can make you Hapy & ever I am with Sincerity and truth Dear Cousin' (AmericanRevolution - Letter-Book of Captain Alexander MacDonald of the Royal Highland Emigrants)

In 1775, the MacDonald's plantation life was disrupted by the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. Allan departed to fight on behalf of the Loyalists, while Flora was left in charge of running their plantation. In April 1777, the MacDonalds were evicted from their estate and had their property confiscated. In 1779, Flora MacDonald departed North America for London and later returned to Scotland.

There are tentative matches in the Legacies of British Slavery database for a 'Lieut. Col. John McDonald' and an 'Allan McDonald', but the precise family connections have not yet been traced.

was born | est né

1722

died in | est mort par

5 March 1790

has nationality | a la nationalité

Scotland

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

has type | est de type

depicted

is referred to by | est référencé par

Wikipedia - Flora MacDonald

Wikipedia - Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge

Flora Macdonald Homesite

Hugh Douglas, Flora MacDonald: The Most Loyal Rebel (Stroud: Allan Sutton Publishing, 1993) - Internet Archive

AmericanRevolution - Letter-Book of Captain Alexander MacDonald of the Royal Highland Emigrants, November/December 1777 (digitised)

Legacies of British Slavery - Lieut. Col. John McDonald

Legacies of British Slavery - Allan McDonald

ANCHOR - The Growth of Slavery in North Carolina

Samantha Winer, 'A brief history of slavery in North Carolina'