Harold MacDougal

Harold MacDougal is a former Yale University anthropology professor whose work is shaped by racist theories about race and civilisation. Born around 1869, he becomes absorbed in anthropology as a child, despite his father's contempt for the profession. At Yale, he quarrels with fellow academics, publishes "The Scourge of Crossbreading" and develops a cocaine habit that worsens his anxiety, insomnia and panic. In 1899, his paper "Savage Minds: The Racial Continuum Between Animal and God" is challenged by Benjamin Fortescue for its lack of evidence.

Placed on an unpaid sabbatical for "degeneracy," MacDougal arrives in Blackwater in 1911 and uses his inheritance to study the local Native population. John Marston first encounters him after John and Archer Fordham bring the wounded Nastas to MacDougal's hotel room. When John returns, MacDougal is comparing blood samples and is startled to find no difference between Nastas and a white man. Nastas leads John and MacDougal towards Dutch van der Linde in Tall Trees, but MacDougal retreats when danger approaches.

After John is knocked unconscious, Nastas carries him down the mountain to MacDougal, who revives him with smelling salts and tries to claim a share of the rescue. MacDougal later joins John and Nastas for a meeting with Dutch's men at Bearclaw Camp. He shoots at a bear that had not attacked them, forcing John to kill it. Dutch's men murder Nastas during the meeting, and MacDougal cowers while John fights his way clear and takes him back to Blackwater.

Dutch's gang soon surrounds MacDougal's home, demanding that John send the professor out to face them. John and MacDougal flee over the Blackwater rooftops, then ride through Dutch's pursuing gunmen to Manzanita Post. MacDougal thanks and embraces John before taking the train east. He later mourns Nastas in the Blackwater Ledger, returns to Yale and publishes another racist thesis in 1913. In 1914, after increasingly erratic behaviour and an assault on Lionel Fortisque, Yale expels him.