Clan Akins
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Scottish clans come in two varieties, historical bodies that once exerted real political power within Scotland, and modern fictions unattested in the historical sources, based upon nothing more substantial than similarity of surname. The Clan Akins is of the latter variety, alleged to be a Scottish clan that, although of unproven and alleged remote origin and no longer, if ever, in possession of any great estates, represents a constituency within what has grown into a worldwide Scottish community of people bearing the surname Akins.
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[edit] Distribution and origins
Whether in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, wherever the Scots have settled, there can be found members of this supposedly ancient Scottish Clan, although Scotland's Lord Lyon King of Arms has refused both the "clan" and its self-styled "chief" any recognition whatsoever.
This should hardly be surprising. The sole verifiable "evidence" for the existence of such a clan is the tombstone, in North Carolina, of one Thomas Akins (d. 1785.) This is decorated with a coat of arms. These are garnished with "supporters," a pair of stags standing by either side of the shield.
Traditionally, the heraldic authorities granted supporters only to peers and to clan chiefs. Since there is no evidence that Akins was a peer, it is argued that he was a clan chief. Hence, "Clan Akins." The cemetery in question is full of similar coats of arms, many obviously fanciful or illegally used. To supplement this dubious evidence, the "chief" produced photographs of other tombstones at unknown locations and a series of clumsily forged wills and other documents. Lord Lyon's dismissal of the absurd claim was a foregone conclusion.
Rooted among the common folk, heirs of the early Picts and Scots who first inhabited Scotland during the time of the Roman Empire, of the Nordic invaders who came there in the Middle Ages, the earliest origins of the Clan Akins have been claimed to belong to the era of the Viking rulers who controlled the isles off Scotland's coast, from Shetland to the Isle of Man. It is far more likely that the earliest origins of the "clan" occurred quite recently in the mind of its self-proclaimed chief.
First occurring as a place-name, Akin is found in the west coast of Scotland on the Hebridean Isle of Skye. There in the 13th century, the Viking leader King Haakon IV of Norway swept with his invading army in a fleet of longboats on his way to the final defeat of the Norsemen at the hands of Alexander III, King of Scots, at the battle of Largs in 1263 AD.
To commemorate his passage through this region, the narrow strait between the Isle of Skye and the Scottish mainland was afterwards known as Kyle Akin, from the Gaelic Caol Acain meaning "the Strait of Hakon" in the native Celtic language of the Scottish people.
This area is home to the Skye village of Kyleakin, named for the strait on which it is located. Begun as a planned community in 1811, the area is also the site of Dun Akin castle, an 11th century fortress, now in ruins, long held by the Mackinnon Clan through the marriage of their ancestral chief, Findanus, to a Norse princess known as "Saucy Mary," daughter of King Haakon I of Norway. It is curious that the Mackinnons should have held the principal fortress in the alleged homeland of the "clan" Akin, but then much about the "clan" is curious, not least the absence of a single scrap of paper or inscription from Scotland referring to it. The "clan" is never recorded as having taken part in a single battle or even one of the cattle raids that were an enduring part of life in the Highlands.
[edit] Use as a surname
As a surname, the first recorded appearance of its use occurs in the year 1405 in the court records of a Scottish sea merchant named "John of Akyne" who sought restitution for having been kidnapped by Laurence Tuttebury of Hull, England, who pirated his ship and goods. Thus the "Clan" entered history as it was to continue, getting no respect. Other instances of its use occur in the early records of Scotland where the surname is seen to have undergone a variety of transformations in spelling, accounting for the many variant forms of the name still seen today. It should be noted that not every Scottish surname, no matter how ancient, is automatically a clan in the proper Scottish sense. Therefore, long lists of men who happen to share similar names is no evidence that these men were all part of a single clan.
Among these early records we find mention of William Ackin, who was a witness in the parish of Brechin in the year 1476. John Eckin was a tenant under the Bishop of Aberdeen in 1511. John Ackyne served as bailie of Stirling in 1520. Robert Aykkyne was admitted to the burgess of Aberdeen in 1529. Bessie Aiken of Leith was found guilty of Witchcraft in 1597, narrowly escaping execution. David Akin of Aberdeen was an early passenger to America, settling in Newport, Rhode Island with his wife and family before 1664. A John Aiken was among those who fought under the banner of the Covenant at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge in 1679. Alexander Aiken of Bo'ness, West Lothian, was among the Scots colonists who took part in the ill-fated Darien expedition in 1699. It is noteworthy that none of these references make the slightest reference to the existence of a clan.
In 1609 Ireland's northern province of Ulster was opened up for colonization as part of an enterprising scheme by two opportunistic businessmen from Ayrshire, Scotland, by the names of Montgomery and Hamilton. They successfully petitioned King James VI & I for the release of an imprisoned Ulster chieftain, Con O'Niell, in exchange for thousands of acres of land in northern Ireland. These were cleared of the former landlord's native tenants in order to make way for settlement by Protestant colonists from Scotland. Members of the Clan Akins -- had there been such a clan at the time, which the evidnce overwhelmingly shows there was not -- were among the thousands of Scots who settled in that troubled region during that period.
With the revolt against the Stuart King, Charles I, during the English civil war, much of the historical information of the Clan Akins was conveniently lost when Oliver Cromwell's ships carrying records of all the clans as spoils of war sank off the coast off Berwick-upon-Tweed. Those who believe in the existence of the "clan" owe a considerable debt to Oliver.
After Charles II was restored to the throne, he instituted a public register of all the clans between 1672 and 1676. However the then chief of the Clan Akins -- there being no evidence that such a clan existed and a fortiori that anyone was its chief -- having emigrated to Ulster as an exiled supporter of Charles I and later having settled in the American colony of Maryland where he died in 1669, he failed to re-establish his right to the Name and Arms of Akins and as a result the chiefship fell into a period of dormancy lasting for more than three hundred years.
[edit] Irish connections
This is another curious event in the "clan's" history: at an unspecified time in the early 17th Century, the alleged and unnamed "chief" emigrated from Scotland to Ireland. An actual clan chief would have been in Scotland the possessor of such prosperity as the Highlands afforded, and the possessor of considerable political power. Yet he struck out for Ulster to make a new life as a farmer. Odd, one might say.
In Ireland the name is common only in [[Ulster], where the Scottish immigrants settled in the 17th century; but here new variations in spelling began to be seen. Aikins in County Armagh; Akins in County Monaghan; Eaken in County Tyrone; Eakin in Counties Londonderry and Down; Eakins in County Cavan; Ekin in County Donegal; and Ekins in County Sligo. In County Antrim where the name was most common, it was found to be most concentrated in the area northwest of Ballymena in the mid 19th century. Dr. Joseph Aiken published a poetic work in 1699 entitled "Londonderias, Or a Narrative of the Siege of Londonderry."
[edit] Clan members today and in the more recent past
The "clan" name under its various spellings continued to be prevalent in Scotland, being among the 100 most frequently encountered surnames in 19th century records (which in no way means that it was actually a "Clan" in the Scottish sense); ranking 90th in order of occurrence, with a per capita ratio of 20 individuals per 10,000 bearing the surname, mostly in Lanarkshire and the surrounding counties, totaling an estimated 5,592 Scots bearing the name in one of its many forms. Variations of the name were said to have been common in the parish of Ballantrae, as well as in the counties of Aberdeen, Fife, Lanark, Perth, Angus, Renfrew, Ayr, Dumbarton, Stirling, and the Lothians.
Among the many friends of Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns, was an Ayrshire gentleman by the name of Robert Aiken, who Burns mentioned in a number of his works, including the prelude to The Cottar's Saturday Night, and Holy Willie's Prayer, as well as his Epitaph for Robert Aiken, Esq. and The Farewell.
When the British government began to oppress the Scots colonists who had settled in Northern Ireland with heavy taxes and religious persecution, many of them left fleeing to North America as a safe haven where they might start new lives for themselves. It was in this way that many members of the "Clan" Akins came to America.
Between 1717 and 1776, some 250,000 Ulster Scots left Northern Ireland mainly for the United States. In the year 1729 more than 6,000 arrived at the port of Philadelphia alone. 100,000 more came to America in the two decades following the Revolutionary War. The great majorityof these pursued lives of honest toil and eschewed the practice of creating bogus clans.
Thus with a total of some 11 million citizens of Scottish and Ulster Scots descent, the United States can claim to have the largest portion of the 28 million Scots worldwide, over twice as many as in Scotland itself, which has a total population of only five and a half million; and it is in the United States that the "Clan Akins" would be at its strongest, if it were in fact a clan in any meaningful sense of the term. It can hardly have such a meaning in the contemporary United States, where exogamy is common and a surname is not necessarily a reliable key to ancestry. For example, a man whose father has an Ulster Scot surname such as McElroy and whose mother has a German-American surname but whose ancestry is diversely German, English, Welsh, Dutch and Irish, marries a woman of purely German ancestry. Their son will bear an Ulster Scot surname, be predominantly German in ancestry, and only slightly Ulster Scot. He is likely to find the idea of the "Clan Akins" slightly hilarious.
According to recently gathered statistics from the Social Security Administration, the total number of individuals bearing the "Clan" name in its three most common forms accounts for some 53,650 persons. The spelling of Akins being the most usual, with a count of 23,586 individuals, followed by Aiken, with 17,924 persons, and Akin with 12,140 people bearing that form of the name. None of these numbers, of course, has the slightest relation to the issue of whether there has ever been a "Clan Akins."
