{{Short description|American politician}} {{Use American English|date=March 2017}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2017}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Colin J. McRae | office = Deputy from [[Alabama]]<br />to the [[Provisional Congress of the Confederate States|Provisional Congress<br />of the Confederate States]] | term_start = February 4, 1861 | term_end = February 17, 1862 | predecessor = New constituency | successor = Constituency abolished | birth_name = Colin John McRae | birth_date = {{Birth date|1812|10|22}} | birth_place = {{Nowrap|[[Anson County, North Carolina]], U.S.}} | death_date = {{death-date and age|February 1877|October 1812}} | death_place = {{Nowrap|Puerto de Caballos, [[British Honduras]]}}<br />(present-day [[Puerto Cortés]], [[Belize]]) | party = [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] | relations = [[John J. McRae]] (brother) }} '''Colin J. McRae''' (born '''Colin John McRae'''; October 22, 1812 – February 1877) was an American politician who had served as a Deputy from [[Alabama]] to the [[Provisional Congress of the Confederate States]] from 1861 to 1862.<ref name="sccrr">[https://www.crr.sc.gov/research/mcrae The Colin J. McRae Papers], [[Columbia, South Carolina|Columbia]]: South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum</ref><ref name="lori">{{cite journal |first=Lori |last=Wright |url=http://www.unh.edu/liberal-arts/thecollegeletter/2011/oct/tier1.html |title=Uncovering History: Student Helps Discover Confederate Soldier's Homestead in Belize |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130719153208/http://www.unh.edu/liberal-arts/thecollegeletter/2011/oct/tier1.html |archive-date=July 19, 2013 |journal=The College Letter: Newsletter of the College of Liberal Arts |date=October 2011}}</ref><ref name="lambert">Andrew Lambert, [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-9270.2009.00244_17.x/abstract Colin J. McRae, Confederate Financial Agent: Blockade Running in the Trans-Mississippi South as Affected by the Confederate Government's Direct Procurement of European Goods Borderland Smuggling: Patriots, Loyalties and Illicit Trade in the North East, 1783–1820], ''[[The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology]]'', August 2009</ref>
==Biography== Colin J. McRae was born on October 22, 1812, in [[Anson County, North Carolina]].<ref name="graveyard">[http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/mcphetres-mcrae.html The Political Graveyard]</ref> His brother, [[John J. McRae]], served as the [[List of Governors of Mississippi|21st Governor of Mississippi]] (1854–1857).<ref name="sccrr"/> Before the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], McRae was a merchant from [[Mobile, Alabama]].<ref name="sccrr"/> He co-owned a [[foundry]] in [[Selma, Alabama]], which made [[ammunition]] and iron plate for gunboats.<ref>William F. Donnelly, ''American Economic Growth: The Historic Challenge'', Ardent Media, 1973, 152 [https://books.google.com/books?id=RAB3ynybv0UC&pg=PA152]</ref> Some of these gunboats were used during the war.<ref>Edwin Layton, Colin J. McRae and the Selma Arsenal, ''Alabama Review'', XVIII (1966), 132-133</ref>
McRae served as Confederate States Financial Agent in Europe from 1862 to 1865.<ref name="sccrr"/><ref name="lori"/><ref name="lambert"/>
In 1867, McRae moved to Puerto de Caballos, [[British Honduras]] (present-day [[Puerto Cortés]], [[Belize]]), where he purchased land and ran a plantation and mercantile business centered on [[mahogany]].<ref name="sccrr"/><ref name="lori"/> McRae died there in February 1877.<ref name="graveyard"/><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MEDHOvRy_XIC&dq=Colin+J.+McRae+1877'&pg=PA157 |title=General Officers of the Confederate Army, Officers of the Executive Departments of the Confederate States, Members of the Confederate Congress by States |date=1911 |publisher=Neale Publishing Company |pages=157 |language=en}}</ref> He bequeathed the plantation and mercantile business to his sister and her husband.<ref name="sccrr"/> They leased the plantation to tenants until 1894.<ref>[[Donald C. Simmons, Jr.]], ''Confederate Settlements in British Honduras'', Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2001, p. 91 [https://books.google.com/books?id=SiMVt4LvxOgC&pg=PA91]</ref> The location of his grave, in Belize, is unknown.<ref name="graveyard"/>
In October 2011, a college student at the [[University of New Hampshire]] found relics of his Belize plantation house on an archeological expedition in the middle of the Belize Valley.<ref name="lori"/> His records were found in [[Monterey Place]] in Mobile, Alabama.<ref name="sccrr"/> They are held at the [[South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum]], in [[Columbia, South Carolina]].
==See also== * [[Confederate settlements in British Honduras]]
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
==Further reading== * Charles S. Davis, ''Colin J. McRae: Confederate Financial Agent'' (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Confederate Publishing, 1961). * Ray J. Fletcher, ''Colin J. McRae, Confederate Agent in Europe'' (Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University Press, 1956).
==External links== * [http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/mcphetres-mcrae.html#891.51.58 Colin J. McRae] at ''[[The Political Graveyard]]''
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{{DEFAULTSORT:McRae, Colin J.}} [[Category:1812 births]] [[Category:1877 deaths]] [[Category:American emigrants to Belize]] [[Category:19th-century American merchants]] [[Category:Confederate expatriates]] [[Category:Deputies and delegates to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States]] [[Category:People from Anson County, North Carolina]] [[Category:People of Alabama in the American Civil War]] [[Category:Signatories of the Constitution of the Confederate States]] [[Category:Signatories of the Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States]] [[Category:Merchants from Alabama]]