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McMahans in the American South |
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MacMahans in Scotland and Noteworthy Laird s McMahans in the Thirteen Colonies and Early America, Including Tennessee, below the Mason Dickson Line. John and Jenny McMahan's Children Archibald and Ann Payne McMahan and Their Children Jessie and
Caroline Barrett McMahan and their Children
Other Descendents of John and Jenny
McMahan
Ti gerville
reache d Fairview Southern Methodist Church
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Background on Scotland Circa 1740:
Landowners in Scotland The noble: fewer than 100 great families, those of the nobility and the Highland chiefs. The laird: The vast majority of the landowners were lairds, not of noble rank, some holding directly of the crown but most as sub-vassels of the nobility. The bonnet Laird: small, independent owners who tilled the ground with their own and their servant's labor. They were found mainly in Galloway and some other counties west and south of the Clyde river. Other groups: The wadsetter: A creditor of the landowner enjoying use and free tenure of part of his estate as long as the debt remained unpaid. The tacksman: Tenants in a more orthodox sense, but they were restricted to the Highlands and parts of the adjacent areas where they first appeared in the early seventeenth century. Frequently they were close relatives (often brother, cousins or younger sons) of the chief, leasing a large block of land for several years or for the duration of one or two lives, and acting as viceroy over this portion of the estate, if necessary training and organizing the clan peasants for war and appearing with armed followers at his bidding. The tacksmen also paid rent in money or kind to the Highland chief and obtained a larger rent in money or kind from the peasants, living on the difference between the two. Sometimes they farmed on their own account. (Smout, p.157) Most chief leased a high portion of their estates at low rents to tacksmen who were often the close kin of proprietors, and who acted as their viceroys over the land they held. Some tacksmen were themselves farmers: most were also rentiers like the chiefs themselves and lived primarily off the difference between what they could get by subletting the land they occupied and what they had to pay in rent to the proprietor. Tacksmen were high in social status, and basked warmly in their chief's reflected glory. (Smout, 357-358) Organized emigration had taken place from the Hebrides Islands since around 1740, generally on the initiative of tacksmen, but for the whole of the 18th century it had been opposed by most proprietors. (Smout, 353) The eighteenth century landowner made what was possibly one fatal miscalculation in driving away the Highland tacksman as though he were nothing more than a parasite interposed between a proprietor and his working tenants to suck up rents. The tacksmen were the only people in the hierarchy who approximated at all to a middle-class postion: they were also initially amenable to doing what the landlords told them, and could be expected to exert some direct pressure on the clansmen below. As it was, tacksmen emigrated in scores in the decades after 1750, either directly forced out by the landlord or going of their own accord believing that the new Highlands had no place for their values. The noble the laid and the bonnet-laird were the only three groups who could be considered landowners in Scotland. Nancy McGuire at Aberdeen University is doing research on a William Matheson who died in 1995 after collecting a significant amount of geneological data on the Matheson family. This material is at the National Library at Edinburgh. McGuire said that if the family left Scotland in 1740, they would have
been some of the earliest emigrants to America, and would most likely have
been tacksmen, the middle class equivalent of the period. She went
on to say that the family would have come from Wester Ross, Kintail Lockalsh
or even the Isle of Lewis. She also suggested checking into the history
of the MacKenzies and the MacKenzies of Seaforth.
The following references were found in various volumes of the Register of the Great Seal of Scotland., Clemson University Library, March, 1999 Donnald McMan, 1592, traveling with Byris of Murthlie, Colone Campbell and Aricibald Campbell of Glenlyon, to Glac of Tullybagis. Glenlyon runs westward from Appin of Dull at a point about four miles west of Aberfeldy, Perthshire to Loch Lyon. If you have a map that shows both Aberfeldy and Bridge of Orchy, take a straight line between these points and Glenlyon lies just to the north. In the later 17th century, Glenlyon was Campbell country but it was a MacGregor domain until the proscription of Clan Gregor after the Glenfruin massacre of 1603. Although now regarded as a very remote and sparsely-inhabited area, Glenlyon was, until the development of a modern road network, a very important route for cattle drovers and other travelers passing between the Highlands and Lowlands. Given Glenlyon's position on an established communications route, as well as the changes in ownership, it's quite possible that any MacMahans there had come at some point from further afield, perhaps even from Wester Ross. John M'Makane, landowner, 29 November, 1614, Inverness. M'Makaneslandis, 4 April, 1649, and M'Makane, Jo, in Inverness. Jo M'Machane and Pat M'Machane, 1625 in Inverness
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