Rob Roy MacGregor Explains the Difference Between Highland Life and English Urban Society

Rob Roy MacGregor

It wasn’t until I moved to Minnesota that I came to a more vivid understanding of my ancestral history as a descendant of Rob Roy MacGregor, the legendary hero/outlaw--a hero to the people, but a thorn in the side of the corrupt British overlords.

Growing up in Central New Jersey, I saw little evidence of the native peoples who originally populated that land. The Raritan River rolled through our area, but I never realized at the time that the Raritan took its name from the Native tribe that once occupied this region 300 years earlier.

When I came to Minnesota in the 1970s, however, the past felt remarkably close. The Battle of the Little Big Horn—where Custer’s ambition met its end—had taken place barely a century earlier. Reservations and Native communities were (and are) still all around us here, carrying forward traditions, stories, and practices handed down through their ancestors.

Over time, I began to see unexpected parallels between these tribal cultures and the old Scottish clan system. Both were kin-based, place-rooted societies that organized life through relationships, obligations, and shared identity—quite unlike the world shaped by lawyers, title deeds, and bureaucratic red tape. Early Scotland, in many respects, resembled the American West before what we now call “civilization” arrived.

Statue of Rob Roy 

During the era of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and the Ghost Dancers, the two cultures collided with tragic consequences—misunderstandings, broken promises, and violence. (Of course this collision began centuries earlier in the East, but here in Minnesota the memories and effects felt more recent and tangible.) What struck me was how similar patterns had unfolded in Scotland during the time of the Highland MacGregors, who were so reviled by the authorities that, for nearly a century, it was legal to shoot a MacGregor on sight.

Sir Walter Scott captured this clash of worlds in his 1827 novel Rob Roy, contrasting the refined, urban English society with the wild, clan-governed Highlands. The tension between these two cultures—each with its own values, loyalties, and ways of life—shapes the novel’s characters and illuminates the broader historical struggles of both Scotland and the American frontier.

This past summer I decided to rent a time machine to go back in time to ask Rob Roy himself about the difference between English urban society and life amongst the Highland clans. Here was Rob Roy's reply.

"Ah'll tell ye, th' rugged Highland landscape is a stark shift awa' frae th' English urban scene. Th' Highlands are wild, untamed, an' marked wi' th' independent clan system. Th' Highland clans hae their ain complex social structures, an' loyalty tae yin's clan chief is o' utmost importance. We Highlanders cherish notions like honor, loyalty, an' rugged individualism. Oor way o' life is closely bound tae th' land, an' oor traditions are deeply rooted in a strong link tae oor environment."

"On th' ither haun, English urban society is bound tae commercial an' financial pursuits, social hierarchy, an' a mair centralized form o' governance. Th' English value stability, convention, an' a sense o' propriety. It's aw aboot a sense o' order, decorum, an' adherin' tae social norms." 

"As ye can ken, me heart bides in th' Highlands."