page_title: Macaulay family of Lewis
section_title: Conquest of Lewis
hierarchical_section_title: Macaulay family of Lewis / Hebridean feuds / Conquest of Lewis
caption_attribution_description: Inlet on the coast beyond Mangurstadh
context_page_description: The Macaulay family of Uig in Lewis, known in Scottish Gaelic as Clann mhic Amhlaigh, were a small family located around Uig on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. There is no connection between the Macaulays of Lewis and Clan MacAulay which was centred in the Loch Lomond area, bordering the Scottish Highlands and Scottish Lowlands. The Macaulays of Lewis are generally said to be of Norse origin because of the etymology of their surname and also because of the islands' Viking Age past. However, a recent analysis of the Y-DNA of men with Scottish surnames has shown that a large number of Hebridean Macaulays are of Irish origin. In the 17th century, however, tradition gave the Macaulays an Irish origin. By the end of the 16th century the dominant clan on Lewis was Clan Macleod of The Lewes. Other notable Lewis clans were the somewhat smaller Morrisons of Ness and the even less numerous Macaulays of Uig. The Macaulays were centred in the area surrounding Uig on the western coast of Lewis, and had a deadly, long-standing feud with the Morrisons, whose lands were located on the northern coast around Ness.
context_section_description: Up until the beginning of the 17th century the Outer Hebrides, and particularly Lewis, were considered backward and in a state of anarchy by the rest of Scotland. An official account of Lewis described the inhabitants to have "given themselves over to all kynd of barbaritic and inhumanitie" and who were "voyd of ony knawledge of God or His religion". James VI encouraged a Syndicate of Adventurers to undertake the colonisation of Lewis, in the hopes of making the island profitable to Scotland. The syndicate were for the most part lairds from Fife and the colonists themselves lowlanders. The "Fife Adventurers" made three unsuccessful attempts at colonisation lasting from October 1598 to December 1601, August 1605 to October 1606, and for a brief time in 1609. During this period of invasions the islanders rallied and resisted the lowlanders, in time driving out the invaders.
  In 1607 the Macleods of Harris landed in Lewis and captured Stornoway Castle and other "fortalices" from the Lowlander colonists. In August of that year the Government ordered the fortresses delivered back into the hands of the colonists. Not long afterwards Stornoway was again captured, this time by Lewismen, led by Neil Macleod and Dòmhnall Cam. It was during the fray that Donald's brother was killed on South Beach by a shot from the castle.
  In 1610, in light of the collapse of the third colonisation attempt, the syndicate of Adventurers sold their charter rights to Kenneth Mackenzie of Kintail. Within two years the Mackenzies of Kintail had succeeded where the lowlanders could not, and reduced the island to submission. In the years of the Mackenzie conquest the Macaulays fought alongside the Macleods of Lewis against the invaders who had the aid of Clann Thormoid.
  Although eventually the Mackenzies gained control of Lewis some islanders still resisted, notably Neil MacLeod and Dòmhnall Cam. Around this time tradition has it that Dòmhnall Cam fortified himself on a 100-foot (30 m) high promontory of jagged rock on the sea-coast near Mangursta (or Mangersta, Scottish Gaelic: Mangarstadh). Today the stack still bears his name: Stac Dhòmhnaill Chaim. Tradition has it that Dòmhnall Cam's daughter, Anna Mhòr ("Big Anne") carried water to her father on her head, as she needed her hands to climb the cliffs.
caption: Stac Dhòmhnaill Chaim, near Mangursta, Lewis, in 2008.
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