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Archiver > NCSCOTS > 2000-02 > 0949791905


From: "James MacDonald" <>
Subject: Re: NC Highlander "Oath of Allegiance"
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2000 18:05:05 -0500


Hi David,

In reply to someone who was looking for a list of people who took this oath
- I wonder how many were able to take this oath except the rich and
educated elite. The greatest percentage of the Highlanders who fought at
Moore's Creek were just recently over from Scotland and could not speak
English.

In the first place, they could not understand this oath, and in the second
place, it would be very difficult for them to say the oath if they did not
speak the language!! We English speaking decendants often forget that our
ancestors were not often bilingual. Look at Vietnamese emigrants who come
to this country as adults without much English. Our ancestors would have
been in a similar situation. I am pretty sure that my emigrant ancestor did
not speak English. His sons did, but they were young when they came over.

Try this: Cuiridh mi air mhionnan, agus freagairidh mi ri Dia, aig latha a'
bhreitheanais, chan eil agamsa no cha bhi agamsa gunna sam bith, daga, no
ball-airm dheth seorsa sam bith, agus cha chleachdaidh mi breacan no rud
sam bith eile dhen éideadh Ghaidhealach;

Does that make sense to you? It probably makes just about as much sense to
you as the Highlander's Oath made to the average Highlander in NC in 1778!
That is the first part of the oath in Gaelic.

Food for thought,

Jamie

----------
> From: David L. Snow <>
> To:
> Subject: NC Highlander "Oath of Allegiance"
> Date: Friday, February 04, 2000 11:52 AM
>
> A few years ago, while researching our immigrant McKenzie history and
> studying the Loyalist idealogy of the North Carolina Highlander
immigrants
> and their reasons for supporting the English during the Revolutionary
War,
> a disagreement developed over whether or not the NC Highlanders were
> required to 'take' a 'Blood Oath' .
>
> It has always been understood that the Highlanders had taken an Oath in
> support of the English after the Rebellion of 1745 in Scotland, but there
> was disagreement about them having to do the same for the Americans after
> their support of the English at Moore's Bridge [1775] in North Carolina,
> and the like, because there appeared to be no PRIMARY DOCUMENTATION in
> support of the Oath.
>
> I knew I had seen the Oath somewhere.....so Sam, you know what you can do
> with it......here is the reference.
>
> HIGHLANDERS OATH:
>
> In May of 1777 was passed by Act of Assembly in New Bern and Act know as
> the Act for the Security of the State. It required the taking of the
> Highlanders Oath. This is listed in the Cumberland County Court of Pleas
> and Quarter Sessions.
>
> CUMBERLAND COUNTY [NC] COURT OF PLEAS AND QUARTER SESSIONS *Oath
prescribed
> by Act of Assembly passed at Newbern, May 10th 1777, entitled an Act for
> the Security of the State.
>
> *The Highlander's Oath: I, do swear and as I shall answer to God at the
> great day of Judgment, I have not, nor shall have in my possession any
gun,
> pistol or arm whatsoever, and never use tartan plaid of any other part of
> the Highland garb; and if I do so may I be cursed in my undertakings,
> family and property; may I never see my wife and children, father,
mother,
> or relation; may I be killed in battle as a coward and lie without
> Christian burial, in a strange land, far from the graves of my
forefathers
> and kindred. May all this come across me if I break my oath.
>
> Dave
>
>
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