Captain John MacDonald of Glenaladale (1742–1810)

The Scottish-born John MacDonald of Glenaladale was responsible for recruiting, transporting, and ensuring the necessities for settlement for the largest number of settlers to arrive in Prince Edward Island in its early years as a British colony. His tenure as a proprietor is a remarkable example of the struggles between the landowning class and the colonial authorities to implement a land tenure system based on tenancy with the proprietors as landowners. As a prolific memorialist, petitioner, and letter writer, MacDonald left an exceptional record for the writing of Prince Edward Island’s history from the arrival of the first Catholic Scottish settlers in 1772 to his death in 1810.

MacDonald was born in 1742 at Glenaladale, Scotland and in 1763, he became the Eighth Laird of Glenaladale and Glenfinnan. In the mid-18th century, major economic and social changes came to the Highlands and John MacDonald, like many others, began looking to emigrate. He made an arrangement with leaders of the Scottish Catholic Church: he would help to recruit immigrants, while the Church secured partial funds for those unable to pay for passage to Prince Edward Island. MacDonald was also responsible for transporting these settlers. He had the foresight to bring a doctor, a priest, a teacher and an agriculturalist to ensure the physical, spiritual and educational needs of his tenants would be supported.

In 1772, MacDonald founded the first settlement of Scottish Catholics on Prince Edward Island. He purchased Lot 36 (8,000 ha or 20,000 acres), with the intention of establishing farms, and provided supplies and implements for the first year, until settlers began to harvest their own crops. This colonizing venture, which established the largest group of settlers in this British colony’s early history, resulted in a decades-long process of chain migration that dramatically altered the composition of the colony’s population.

In the early days of the colony, township lots were granted to proprietors in Britain. MacDonald bought Lot 36 from the Lord Advocate of Scotland, James Montgomery. MacDonald had ten years to settle one person per 200 acres and had to pay quitrents, an annual tax, to support the colonial administration for the Island. However, it quickly became apparent that these conditions would be nearly impossible to meet, as paying the required taxes would have bankrupted all but the wealthiest. As such, many proprietors ignored these obligations, and so in 1780, lands were seized by the colonial government and secretly sold. 

While serving as a British captain during the American Revolutionary War, MacDonald learned of this action against proprietors and embarked on a long, tenacious campaign for their rights. His struggles exemplify the problems inherent in this system of governance as shown through his campaigns in print, correspondence, and personal meetings with authorities. His sister Helen managed the property during his extended absences to support the British war effort in the American Revolution and to press his case on proprietors’ rights with British authorities in London. The prolific memoirs, petitions, and letters produced by MacDonald during this fight left an invaluable record for future generations studying 18th century Prince Edward Island.