Rev. James Fraser, 1634-1709

This book provides a new interpretation of Scottish Highland history prior to the Battle of Culloden in 1746. It does so by interrogating the autobiographical sources left by Rev. James Fraser (1634-1709) of Kirkhill, a Gaelic-speaking scholar, traveller and minister. Through the example of this ‘curious cleric’, the book illuminates the scholarly dynamism and individual and collective agency of the people of the Highlands. The entire period between 1493 and 1746 can still appear enigmatic in the history of the region, but this book highlight to readers a different side to the north of mainland Scotland during Fraser’s lifetime. It focuses on the region’s strong engagement with Europe and early entanglement with empire, offering a different interpretation of the Highlands as it was prior to the peripheralisation, depopulation and under-development associated with the centuries that followed. The book: challenges the assumption that the Highlands comprised a vacuum, sealed off from the rest of Scotland and the world beyond prior to the eighteenth century; examines the life-writing of an energetic, curious, mobile Gaelic-speaking male and situates him within his locality, his region, country, archipelago and continent in a way unparalleled by any other contemporary example; identifies, in the context of growing global engagements and entanglements, the agency, vitality and resilience of the people of the Highlands in the century before Culloden; strengthens a rich vein of recent historiography that is allowing for a more comprehensive presentation of the early modern Highlands.