James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser
Jamie was born to Ellen Mackenzie Fraser and Brian Fraser in Scotland, at Lallybroch, their home. He had an older brother, William that he often called Willy, and who died of smallpox when Jamie was only six and an older sister Jenny. After that, he became the future laird of Broch Tuarach. A little while later, Ellen, Jamie's mother died in childbirth when Jamie was about eight years old. Brian Fraser raised Jamie and Jenny both after that.
Around age fourteen, Jamie went to foster with his uncle, Dougal Mackenzie, at his uncle's home. Dougal, left-handed like Jamie, taught him to wield a sword with both hands. Jamie had been previously taught some left-handed swordsmanship by his best friend Ian's father, John Murray.
At sixteen, Jamie lived for a year at Castle Leoch he of the Clan Mackenzie. At eighteen, Jamie went to Paris to study at the University and lived with his father's cousin, Jared Fraser.
After Jamie had returned home to Lallybroch, in 1740 he was arrested by the English for obstruction and then taken to Fort William for imprisonment. He escaped, but the English brought him back to the fort, where he was punished with a flogging of one hundred lashes for escaping. While still recovering, Captain Johnathan 'Black Jack' Randall ordered that he be given another hundred lashes for theft. After his second flogging, friends helped Jamie escape a second time, and in the process one of the guards was killed; which put the price of ten pounds Sterling on his head for murder.
When he escaped, Dougal told him of his father's death, he died of an apoplexy, apparently caused by his distress after Jamie's second flogging, thinking Jamie had died. Jamie 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 from his injury at the Abby of St. Anne de Beaupre in France, where Jamie's uncle Alexander Fraser was abbot.
In 1743, Jamie returned to Scotland with his godfather Murtagh, and once in the Highlands they were found by Dougal and his men. Captain Randall and his dragoons pursued the Scots and engaged them in a confrontation, during which Jamie dislocated his shoulder. Soon after, Murtagh brought an Englishwoman named Claire Beauchamp to Dougal, having rescued her from being raped by Captain Randall.
