Loss and Privilege: Ancestral Stories of Nathan McCraney Luraney Driggers

Nathan's ancestors came to America in 1739 in the first wave of Scots escaping the fallout of the Jacobite Rebellion. His clan's progenitor, Gillouir MacCrain, was said to have "kept 180 Christmasses in his own house" as he stood against religious persecution during the witch hunts of Scotland. Gillouir's descendants were celebrated pioneers in America, but Nathan knew none of this. Nathan was orphaned at 2 in Florida during the Second Seminole War, the nation's largest slave uprising. Evidence suggests that Nathan and his brothers were sheltered and raised by Black Seminoles. The Third Seminole War brought Luraney into Nathan's life. Luraney's ancestor Emanuel was 8 when he was taken captive in Ndongo, Africa, in 1619 and shipped across the Atlantic in a Spanish galleon that was attacked by pirates in the Caribbean. Emanuel was among the captives smuggled into Jamestown, the birthplace of American slavery. Here, Emanuel fought to save his grandson, along with as many children of the other captives as he could, from enslavement. Nathan married Luraney as the Civil War was brewing. When war broke out, his unit of the Florida Coast Guard was commissioned into the Confederacy. Nathan was taken prisoner in Kentucky, escaped, and walked home to find his family starving. The toll of three wars hobbled Nathan and his descendants for three generations. But Nathan also passed down skills for living off wild Florida and a Native spirit of respect for the land that endures today.