Jamie Fraser

Template:Infobox character

“	I am a chief. God has made me what I am. He has given me the duty—and I must do it, whatever the cost.	”
	— Jamie, The Fiery Cross

James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser is a Scottish soldier and American landowner. He is well-educated and has a knack for learning languages. Raised to be the future Laird of Lallybroch, he is a natural leader, from the homestead to the battlefield. He first meets Claire on his return home to Scotland from France.

Personal History

Jamie was born to Ellen and Brian Fraser in the Scottish Highlands, at their family home of Lallybroch. He was very close to his older brother, William, and was devastated when his brother died of smallpox when Jamie was only six or so. From that point, he was raised to be the future laird of Broch Tuarach, the more official name of the estate. The family suffered another blow when Ellen died in childbed, along with the babe, when Jamie was about eight years old. His sister, Jenny, aged ten, took on the running of the household after their mother's death, and their father Brian raised them both to adulthood.

Around age fourteen, Jamie went to foster with his maternal uncle, Dougal MacKenzie at Beannachd, his uncle's home. Dougal, left-handed like Jamie, taught him to wield a sword with both hands. At sixteen, Jamie lived for a year at Castle Leoch, seat of the Clan MacKenzie. At eighteen, Jamie went to Paris to study at the Université, living with his father's cousin, Jared Fraser.

After Jamie had returned home to Lallybroch, in October of 1740 he was arrested by the English for obstruction – that is, for defending his family and property when the English set upon his home – and then taken to Fort William for imprisonment. He escaped, but the English pursued him and brought him back to the fort, where he was flogged with one hundred lashes for escaping, but then Jonathan Randall ordered that he be given another hundred lashes for theft. While recovering from his second flogging, friends came to help Jamie escape a second time, and in the process one of the guards was killed, and thence Jamie had a price of ten pound stirling on his head for murder. By the time he had escaped, though, he had word that his father had died of an apoplexy, apparently caused by his distress during Jamie's second flogging. He then fled to France to join his best friend, Ian Murray, as a mercenary in the French army, where he stayed for two years. Returning once more to Scotland in 1742, Jamie traveled the countryside with a gang of broken men – men without clans – for six months, raiding cattle and the like from the borderlands, when one day someone hit Jamie in the back of the head with an axe, and his uncle Dougal had him sent to recover (or die) from his injury at the Abbey of Ste. Anne de Beaupré in France, where Jamie's uncle Alexander Fraser was abbot.

In the spring of 1743, Jamie returned to Scotland with Murtagh, and once in the Highlands they were found by Dougal and his men, who are absconding with lifted cattle. Captain Randall and his dragoons pursued the Scots and engaged them in a confrontation, during which Jamie was shot and dislocated his shoulder. Soon after, Murtagh brought an Englishwoman named Claire Beauchamp to Dougal, having rescued her from the English captain.

Events of the Novels

• Outlander
• Voyager
• Drums of Autumn
• The Fiery Cross
• A Breath of Snow and Ashes
• An Echo in the Bone

Jamie's Memories of Culloden

Jamie and other characters recall the Battle of Culloden in bits scattered throughout the series. For a closer look at these memories, see this page.

Appearances in the Lord John Series

While Jamie is often in Lord John's thoughts all through the Lord John series, he only appears in person in Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade and The Scottish Prisoner.

Physical Appearance

Jamie is described as very tall at six feet, four inches, with thick, wavy red hair and slanted, cat-like blue eyes. While his height and broad shoulders cut a large figure, Jamie is built like a swimmer or basketball player; muscled and strong, but not excessively so – no extra flesh on his large frame. His hair is not the gingery sort of red, but rather a multitude of individual colors mixed together: auburn, amber, roan, cinnabar, rufous, copper, cinnamon, red and gold are all used to describe the strands of its unique hue, and it is often compared to a red deer's pelt. His eyes are described as dark blue, fringed with long lashes that are nearly black at the tips, but transition to auburn then pale blond at the roots. He gets his height and hair color from his mother's MacKenzie blood, as well as the high cheekbones, wide mouth, and long, straight nose, but the blue slanted eyes and strong jaw are Fraser family traits from his father.

Over the years, Jamie's body has acquired many scars from various injuries. The most shocking of these, usually hidden by his shirt, is his heavily scarred back, from lashings inflicted by Jack Randall and, years later, as a punishment at Ardsmuir prison. He also has a triangular scar on his collar bone, as well as a long scar on the fourth finger of his right hand, both of these also inflicted by Jack Randall. During the Battle of Culloden, a bayonet ran clean through his thigh to the bone; he only escaped death from infection by his sister's stubborn refusal to let him die, and survived with a thick welted scar up the length of his thigh. A broken nose just before Culloden left Jamie's knife-edged nose slightly thickened at the base of the ridge where the fracture healed.

Name

• James is the English form of the Late Latin name Iacomus which was derived from Ιακωβος (Iakobos), the New Testament Greek form of the Hebrew name Ya'aqov (Jacob). Thus, the names James and Jacob derive from the same source. Possible meanings of the name Jacob include "holder of the heel", "supplanter", or "may God protect".

• Fraser may be derived from Fredarius, Fresel or Freseau. Another suggestion is that the Frasers were a tribe in Roman Gaul, whose badge was a strawberry plant.

Trivia

• Jamie has taken on many aliases and nicknames throughout the series, including:
  • Jamie MacTavish, when he returns to Scotland from France in 1743;
  • Red Jamie, during the Rising of 1745;
  • Mac Dubh, while a prisoner at Ardsmuir (years later, Jamie's fellow former prisoners still address him so);
  • Alex MacKenzie, while paroled as a groom at Helwater;
  • Alexander Malcolm, as a printer in Edinburgh;
  • Jamie Roy, as a smuggler in Edinburgh;
  • Captain Alessandro, when he temporarily joins the Spanish garrison on Hispaniola;
  • Etienne Marcel de Provac Alexandre, disguised as an immigrant from Martinique at the governor's reception in Jamaica;
  • Bear-Killer, the name by which various tribes of Native Americans know Jamie.
• In childhood, Jamie's brother called him Sawney, a nickname for Alexander.

TV Series

Main: Outlander Television Series

Scottish actor Sam Heughan will portray Jamie Fraser in the upcoming STARZ Outlander Television Series.