Her Native American forebears fought the US Cavalry, and linked up with Sitting Bull after he had vanquished General Custer’s army at Battle of the Little Bighorn.
But her family history also stretches back through the Massacre of Glencoe and the Lordship of the Isles, to the very founding of Clan MacDonald.
This will be remembered on Skye on Friday when Salish educationalist, activist and actress Julie Cajune performs her one woman play ‘Belief’ at the island’s Gaelic College, Sabhal Mor Ostaig.
It is billed as “a unique mixture of interconnected Salish women’s stories, poetry, and live music” ; and hailed as “contemporary American Indian Theatre at its finest.”
She is descended from a Hudson Bay Company fur trader, Angus McDonald, who left the Torridon area of Wester Ross in the 1830s bound for a new life in North America.
Among his forebears, was one who had been a young boy in Glencoe when his people were massacred by Scottish Government soldiers in 1692. He escaped and could trace his line back to the progenitor of the clan who came from Ireland in the ninth century.
Meanwhile once across the Atlantic Angus McDonald had married into the family of a Nez Perce chief and later set up home set up on what is today the Flathead Reservation in Western Montana.
The story of this family was unearthed by Highland historian Jim Hunter while compiling his acclaimed history of the Gaelic diaspora, A Dance Called America.
He said he had been intrigued to hear about those of the Nez Perce who had refused to obey the US Government to move permanently to newly created reservations.
These peaceful people had befriended and cooperated with the new Americans, even when hordes of settlers began to flood into their homelands along the Snake River which today is where the Oregon, Washington, and Idaho state borders meet.
But about a quarter of the Nez Perce refused to accept internment on a reservation. These ‘recalcitrants’ consisted of bands led by Chiefs Joseph, White Bird, Eagle-from-the-Light and Looking Glass. In 1877 they fought U.S. soldiers at four major battles which became known as the Nez Perce war.
They then went to Canada where Sitting Bull was, having fought successfully at Little Bighorn the year before.
Ms Cajune said: "I have always taken pride in the human being that Angus McDonald was. During the time that Angus came to America, the racism toward American Indian people took on many violent forms. But Angus knew full well and acknowledged the humanity, intelligence and integrity of Indian people. His lasting marriage to an Indian wife and his delight and pride in his children are a testament to that."
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