!BIOGRAPHY: Sir Robert Douglas of Glenbervie, Baronet, THE BARONAGE
OF SCOTLAND, Edinburgh, 1798, p. 382.
!BIOGRAPHY: Rev. Dr. Donald MacKinnon and Alick Morrison, THE
MACLEODS--THE GENEALOGY OF A CLAN, Section II, Edinburgh, The Clan
MacLeod Society, 1968, pp. 36, 64, 94-95.
Tacksman of Unish, Waternish, Skye, and who succeeded his cousin,
Alexander MacLeod of Muiravonside, as 6th of the MacLeods of Berneray,
Harris, with issue.
Norman was the eldest son of Donald MacLeod of Berneray, the ''Old
Trojan'', and was born in 1715 in Unish, Waternish, of which he himself
later on became tacksman. In 1739, when he was a young man,
twenty-four years of age, he was the leader of a party of kidnappers,
chosen by himself, for the purpose of capturing men and women in Skye
and Harris and transporting them to the American Colonies to be sold as
slaves. Strange as it may seem, he was supported in this outrageous
affair by Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat, Norman MacLeod of Dunvegan,
Donald MacLeod (his own father) and other influential people in the Isles.
Norman brought a ship to the Islands and succeeded in forcing on board
people of both sexes and from all grades of society. The ship, known as
SOITHEACH NAN DAOINE, in the course of its voyage, was driven by a
storm on the north coast of Ireland and wrecked, but all the passengers
were rescued. Most of them settled on the lands of the Earl of Antrim,
and only a few, after great difficulties and trials, managed to return to
the islands. Norman remained for several years in concealment on the
other side of the Irish Sea, but, in 1745, he returned to Skye, joined the
forces of the Government, and, through the influence of Norman MacLeod
of MacLeod, received the captaincy of the MacLeod Independent
Companies raised during the Jacobite Rising. His father, Donald of
Berneray, it will be remembered, was ''out'' on the Prince''s side, and,
after Culloden, no one was more active in searching for his father than
his ''unnatural and heartless son'', Norman. On his father''s death, in 1781,
Norman, as his eldest son, succeeded him as tacksman of Berneray,
where he introduced many improvements in the system of farming then
prevalent in the Isles, began the manufacture of kelp on a large scale,
and imported stock of a superior kind. He was considered one of the
most enlightened tacksmen of his day in the Western Isles. It is said
that he was so thoroughly ashamed in later years, of his conduct as
leader of the kidnapping episode of 1739 that he strongly and angrily
resented any reference to it. In the traditions of Berneray, his memory
is still green as having been kind and considerate to his tenants. He
married his second cousin, Margaret (who died on 22nd November 1803,
aged eighty years), daughter of Roderick MacNeil, 14th of Barra, and his
wife, Alice, daughter of William MacLeod, 1st of the MacLeods of
Luskintyre, with issue.
Norman MacLeod of Berneray and his wife, Margaret MacNeil, had five
other children, who died in infancy.
Norman MacLeod, 6th of the MacLeods of Berneray, died, at his house in
Berneray, in May 1803, in the eighty-eighth year of his age, and, having
left no surviving male issue, was succeeded in the representation of the
family of Berneray by his nephew.