Norman's brother, John, was briefly the 21st Chief of Clan MacLeod as an infant after their father died in 1706.

[1] He supported the Government cause in the Jacobite Rising, and was an absentee chief as he seldom lived at his ancestors' traditional seat of Dunvegan Castle.

[2] Norman MacLeod was a leading figure in a 1739 scandal centred around the so-called 'Ship of the People' (Scottish Gaelic: Soitheach nan Daoine), when he and Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat kidnapped approximately 100 of their tenants on the Isle of Skye and on the Isle of Harris, and planned to sell them into indentured servitude in the American Colonies on the pretense of transporting petty criminals, which was legal and normal for chiefs at the time.

The human cargo, which included men, women, and children as young as 5, were loaded onto the William, which then disembarked in Donaghadee in present day Northern Ireland for supplies.

While in Ireland, several victims attempted to escape, attracting the attention of local magistrates, who reported the case to the British government.

Norman and Sir Alexander successfully denied their complicity in the incident, and were not prosecuted by government authorities, who instead implicated several conspirators personally involved in transporting the victims.

[1] Norman had initially pledged his support for the cause, but as soon as Charles Edward Stuart reached Scotland, he is known to have been working against the Jacobite cause.

[7] Historian James Hunter speculated that his relationship to Lord President Duncan Forbes of Culloden, who cleared him of charges after the Ship of the People incident, played a key role in his decision to support the Hanoverians.

According to tradition, Norman brought about Janet's death by locking her in the dungeon of Dunvegan Castle and leaving her to starve there.