Loyalists- American Revolution

This article forms part of my larger effort to write about my family’s history. Consider Tiffany was a scion of the early Tiffany settlers in the colonies of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Tiffany’s particular fame lies in his manuscript, “The American Colonies and the Revolution [c. 1600-1795],” a history of the American colonies from their founding through the Revolution from a Tory’s point-of-view. He divided his manuscript into nine books. Here, I have transcribed and annotated Book V which covers the Revolution from 1774 to 1780.

Fascinating things can turn up in genealogical research.  I was reminded of this a few years ago while studying some of my colonial New England ancestors.  As a historian specializing in the American Revolution, I am always eager to learn about relatives who participated in that conflict.  Recently, while researching my Revolutionary War ties to one family – the Lorings of Massachusetts – I was surprised to discover a relationship to Admiral Sir John Wentworth Loring, known for his distinguished Royal Navy service during the Age of Nelson and beyond.  What intrigued me about this Boston-area native was how he began his career as a destitute, Loyalist exile, but ended it as an affluent and respected Royal Navy leader.  Moreover, Loring excelled in both operational and administrative commands, earning admiration from his peers and knighthoods from King William IV and Queen Victoria. 

Despite these achievements, modern historians have not really examined Loring in any great depth.  He has been mentioned as a minor reference in published works about his parents, Joshua Loring Jr. and Elizabeth Lloyd “Betsey” Loring, or other close relatives.  What follows here is a brief biographical sketch that provides a closer, more detailed, look at this compelling Royal Navy leader.  It is part of a more complete study of Loring and his family that is currently underway.

Forced to flee Marblehead, Massachusetts, in late April 1775, Thomas Robie, his wife Mary Bradstreet Robie, and their four children were among the earliest Loyalist refugees to land in Nova Scotia. The arrival of thousands more Loyalists in 1783 brought widespread hardship to the region, but the collective suffering also provided Mary Bradstreet Robie and her two daughters the opportunity to contribute to the Loyalist community and assert their will within the family. This study of the Robie family demonstrates that Loyalist women were not simply domestic figures of support nor were they resigned to exile as passive followers of husbands and fathers.

This article forms part of my larger effort to write about my family’s history. Consider Tiffany was a scion of the early Tiffany settlers in the colonies of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Consider’s particular fame lies in his manuscript, “The American Colonies and the Revolution [c. 1600-1795],” a history of the American colonies from their founding through the Revolution from a Tory’s point-of-view. He divided his manuscript into nine books. I have transcribed and annotated Book III which covers the imperial conflicts among Britain, France, and Spain which culminated in the French and Indian War of 1754-1763.

This article describes the provenance of Tiffany's manuscript and characterizes its point of view.

The American War for Independence lasted eight years. It was one of the longest and bloodiest wars in America's history, and yet it was not such a protracted conflict merely because the might of the British armed forces was brought to bear on the hapless colonials. The many divisions among Americans themselves over whether to fight, what to fight for, and who would do the fighting often had tragic and violent consequences. The Revolutionary War was by any measure the first American civil war. Yet national narratives of the Revolution and even much of the scholarship on the era focus more on simple stories of a contest between the Patriots and the British. Loyalists and other opponents of the Patriots are routinely left out of these narratives, or given short shrift. So, too, are the tens of thousands of ordinary colonists—perhaps a majority of the population—who were disaffected or alienated from either side or who tried to tack between the two main antagonists to make the best of a bad situation. Historians now estimate that as many as three-fifths of the colonial population were neither active Loyalists nor Patriots. When we take the war seriously and begin to think about narratives that capture the experience of the many, rather than the few, an illuminating picture emerges. The remarkably wide scope of the activities of the disaffected during the war—ranging from nonpayment of taxes to draft dodging and even to armed resistance to protect their neutrality—has to be integrated with older stories of militant Patriots and timid Loyalists. Only then can we understand the profound consequences of disaffection—particularly in creating divisions within the states, increasing levels of violence, prolonging the war, and changing the nature of the political settlements in each state. Indeed, the very divisions among diverse Americans that made the War for Independence so long, bitter, and bloody also explains much of the Revolutionary energy of the period. Though it is not as seamless as traditional narratives of the Revolution would suggest, a more complicated story also helps better explain the many problems the new states and eventually the new

This article forms part of my larger effort to write about my family’s history. Consider Tiffany was a scion of the early Tiffany settlers in the colonies of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Consider’s particular fame lies in his manuscript, “The American Colonies and the Revolution [c. 1600-1795],” a history of the American colonies from their founding through the Revolution from a Tory’s point-of-view. He divided his manuscript into nine books, and I have transcribed and annotated several of them. This article focuses on Consider Tiffany, the man, and his ideas. His manuscript is best known for his take on the capture and execution of Nathan Hale.

abstract The Loyalist refugees who made their way to Shelburne, Nova Scotia, in the aftermath of the American Revolution have been denigrated in various accounts as Loyalist ''layabouts'' and ''dancing beggars'' who spent too much of their time and capital on genteel sociability and conspicuous consumption. The writings of three of the sharpest critics of Shelburne—the Scottish merchant James Fraser, the Loyalist surveyor Benjamin Marston, and British Royal Engineer William Booth—often appear in modern academic works without sufficient contextualization. This paper asserts that the commentaries of Fraser, Marston, and Booth are not merely critiques of Shelburne per se, but part of a larger transAtlantic debate about the dilution and democratization of gentility. Indeed, the uprooted populations that made their way to Shelburne took advantage of the fluidity of the pioneer settlement to negotiate a form of middling gentility that acted as a vehicle of social mobility and identity reformation.

Brig. Gen. Andrew Williamson was a fascinating and highly controversial character in South Carolina history. He led a major successful campaign against the Indians early in the American Revolution.  But then he was called the "Benedict Arnold of South Carolina" for laying down his arms in June 1780 and taking British protection.  He surprised his critics by revealing after the war that he had been successfully spying on British forces in Charleston for about a year in 1781-2 thus making him perhaps the highest ranking and first major double agent in American history.  Despite this, Williamson is almost never mentioned in any of the numerous books and articles on the history of American espionage.  This two part biography of Williamson for the first time describes his early life, career, campaigns, defection, American attempts to kidnap him, attempted confiscation of his property after the war, his spying techniques, his apparent role in the evacuation of Charleston by the British at the end of the war, his fight against confiscation, his death, and his family and descendants.  The biography also covers his important plantation White Hall in upcountry SC, its role as a battleground, military HQ, POW camp, and its later disappearance.  The pieces also outline three unsuccessful archaeological efforts to find the missing plantation.

Todd W. Braisted, ‘The Black Pioneers and Others: The Military Role of Black Loyalists in the American War for Independence’, in John W. Polis, (ed.), Moving On: Black Loyalists in the Afro-Atlantic World (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1999), 3–37.

Brig. Gen. Andrew Williamson was a fascinating and highly controversial character in South Carolina history. He led a major successful campaign against the Indians early in the American Revolution.  But then he was called the "Benedict Arnold of South Carolina" for laying down his arms in June 1780 and taking British protection.  He surprised his critics by revealing after the war that he had been successfully spying on British forces in Charleston for about a year in 1781-2, thus making him perhaps the highest ranking and first major double agent in American history.  Despite this, Williamson is almost never mentioned in any of the numerous books and articles on the history of American espionage.  This two part biography of Williamson for the first time describes his early life, career, campaigns, defection, American attempts to kidnap him, attempted confiscation of his property after the war, his spying techniques, his apparent role in the evacuation of Charleston by the British at the end of the war, his fight against confiscation, his death, and his family and descendants.  The biography also covers his important plantation White Hall in upcountry SC, its role as a battleground, military HQ, POW camp, and its later disappearance.  The pieces also outline three unsuccessful archaeological efforts to find the missing plantation.

A history of the wars between the new states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia and the Cherokee and their allies that lasted from 1775 through 1795 in the core region of the Old Southwest and until 1795 in the Old Northwest.  Originally written for Wikipedia.

What do I think of myself now, with all my loyaltyl After the American Revolution, that question challenged former loyalists, both those who were trying to incorporate themselves into the new nation and, perhaps especially, those who had voluntarily or involuntarily left it. The upheaval and hardship of starting a new life, usually in an unfamiliar environment and often in the absence of one's family and friends, forced such questioning on exiles, whether they had owned thousands of acres, as Cary had, or had been landless, as was the subject of this work. Studying the migration of loyalists involves pursuing a range of linkages between their prewar and postwar experiences. On a personal level, could a loyalist look back at his opposition to the Revolution with self-confirming pride or only with regret? Did his postwar experiences confirm his decision to support the imperial tie, a decision commonly made in haste and distress and often inconsistently? Since such questions are we...

Many American Revolutionary War Loyalists who migrated to Shelburne Nova Scotia were Ancient freemasons, who attempted to transplant fraternal rituals and traditions in their new community. Unfortunately the civilian lodges that they established proved to be short-lived. This case study of Shelburne provides historians with an opportunity to analyse why masonic lodges sometimes fail. In Shelburne, this may attributed to local factors, most significantly a socioeconomic decline which hit the settlement almost immediately upon arrival. But the fractiousness of one of the lodges, Solomon's Lodge No. 5 Provincial, is also a reflection of a broader tension within Ancient freemasonry between universal brotherhood and self-interest. Only further research will corroborate whether this pattern also extended to other Loyalist lodges in Nova Scotia.

After the close of the first excavation season, a number of cannon were discovered in December 2010 during a routine monitoring dive on the site of the late 18th century Storm Wreck off the coast of St. Augustine in St. Johns County, Florida. LAMP’s 2011 excavation season focused on this newly exposed area, resulting in the identification of six cannon which appear to represent three distinct gun types, including both carronade-style ordnance and traditional long guns. The guns were recorded and two representative pieces raised for detailed study, conservation, and eventual display. This artillery is useful as a dating tool for the site and can possibly yield clues as to the nationality of the shipwreck. This paper addresses the latest analysis of this artillery.

This article forms part of my larger effort to write about my family’s history. Consider Tiffany was a scion of the early Tiffany settlers in the colonies of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Tiffany’s particular fame lies in his manuscript, “The American Colonies and the Revolution [c. 1600-1795],” a history of the American colonies from their founding through the Revolution from a Tory’s point-of-view. He divided his manuscript into nine books. Here, I have transcribed and annotated Book VI which covers the Revolution from 1780 to 1783. Book VI includes new information on the capture and execution of Nathan Hale.

В данной статье обсуждаются такие вопросы, как: образ лоялистов как враждебно-го «другого» в общественном мнении американских патриотов; антилоялистская политика Континентального конгресса и отдельных штатов; проблемы национального примирения после Войны за независимость.
This article discusses such issues as: the image of loyalists as the hostile «other» in the public opinion of American patriots; anti-loyalist policy of the Continental Congress and indi-vidual states; problems of national reconciliation after the war of independence.

Trivelpiece, Molly L. & Chuck Meide 2016 Archival Research and the Historical Background of the 1782 Evacuation of Charleston and the Loss of the Storm Wreck. In ACUA Underwater Archaeology Proceedings 2016, Paul F. Johnson, ed., pp. 133-141. Advisory Council on Underwater Archaeology, Washington, D.C.  -- ABSTRACT -- During the American Revolution, thousands of Loyalists displaced by war sought refuge in East Florida. As the war drew to a close, British authorities organized massive evacuations of major ports. On 18 December 1782, more than 120 ships loaded with troops and refugees left Charleston, SC. Of the ships destined for East Florida's capital, St. Augustine, 16 were wrecked trying to cross its notorious sandbar. One of these, known as the Storm Wreck, has undergone archaeological investigations from 2009-2015. This paper overviews the archival research and the historical context of the Loyalist Influx, the evacuation of Charleston, and the shipwreck event.

The Battle of Bunker Hill was almost a catastrophic defeat only won by the blundering General Howe when out of desperation changed from frontal attacks to flanking attacks. This added to the fact that the amateur American militia ran out of ammunition and powder. Should the Royal Marines celebrate this mainly army action as a Corps memorable date?

The United Empire ‘ UE ‘ Loyalists who made new lives in Canada after the American Revolution included people originally from Ireland and present day Northern Ireland. Their final resting places can be found across Eastern Canada, Quebec, and Ontario. This article gives an overview of the experiences of 17 of these native sons and daughters of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Battle of Cowpens, (January 17, 1781), in the American Revolution, brilliant American victory over a British force on the northern border of South Carolina that slowed Lord Cornwallis’s campaign to invade North Carolina. Morgan’s strategy was particularly ingenious in its use of militia forces. The militia soldiers’ actions at Cowpens are generally credited with having ensured a rare American victory.

In 2009 Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP) archaeologists discovered the buried remains of a colonial-era shipwreck (8SJ5459) while testing a magnetic target near St. Augustine’s relict 18th century inlet. Systematic excavations were conducted in the summers of 2010 and 2011, in conjunction with LAMP’s annual field school and carried out from RV Roper on loan from the Institute of Maritime History. Despite particularly challenging diving conditions of poor visibility and strong surge, sixteen square meters of the site have been fully or partially excavated to date, revealing a wide array of ship fittings and equipment, armament, cargo items, and personal possessions. Most artifacts encountered, including the ship’s bell and two out of six cannons, have been recovered for analysis and conservation in LAMP’s laboratory facilities. This paper will overview the methodology used for excavation and data recovery and the preliminary findings of ongoing analyses of recovered material culture.

In the context of the reorganisation of imperial government which began in the mid-eighteenth century and continued through the American revolution, officers of the crown in the Anglo-American colonies who would remain loyal after 1783 attempted to conceptualise a constitutional regime built on the creation of a federal structure uniting the American colonies. Developed mainly in the projects elaborated between 1783 and 1815 by William Smith and Jonathan Sewell, these proposals for colonial federation also came to form an important pole within Lower Canadian political discourse and came to define the mechanisms of political domination which imperial minded thinkers and politicians would attempt to impose on the colony after 1822. In the Lower Canadian political context, federalism therefore represented a model of government which allowed for the perpetuation of imperial political hegemony rather than an ideology which foreshadowed the coming of modern Canada.

Dans le contexte du réaménagement de la gouvernance impériale qui s’amorce au milieu du XVIIIe siècle et se poursuit après la Révolution américaine, des officiers de la couronne dans les colonies anglo-américaines qui demeureront loyaux après 1783 tentent de jeter les bases d’une structure constitutionnelle impériale par la création d’une fédération des colonies américaines. Développés entre 1783 et 1815 dans les projets de William Smith et Jonathan Sewell, ces projets de fédération forment un pôle important du discours politique bas-canadien et ils définissent les mécanismes de la domination coloniale que les adeptes de l’Empire tentent d’imposer à la colonie après 1822. Dans le contexte politique bas-canadien, le fédéralisme représente donc un mécanisme de domination et un modèle de gouvernance permettant de perpétuer l’hégémonie politique impériale plutôt qu’une pensée annonciatrice de l’avènement du Canada moderne.

The events of the Independence war in North America resulted in divided opinions in Great Britain that is clearly seen through various media sources and in government. This study proposes a thesis arguing that there was no one way in which the British 'saw' the conflict in North America.

Through examining Loyalist pamphlets and newspaper articles, this paper delves into the political ideology of New York Loyalists and recover the argument of liberty in Loyalist political discourse. This paper shows that Loyalists were not the ones that fought against liberty during the American Revolution, but the ones that had their own ideas and interpretations of liberty, which made sense in their own particular historical and cultural context.

Historical Memories are entangled with political arguments and tend to be the product of the victorious side. This chapter examines the historical narratives from the Patriots and Loyalists. By digging the Loyalist historical memories out of the dust, this chapter demonstrates an alternative memory of the American Revolution. By examining Loyalist memories, this chapter also illustrates the taken-for-granted cultural assumptions that supported Loyalism during the American Revolution.

After American Revolution Benjamin McConnell with other Loyalists settled at present day Weymouth, Nova Scotia.  His stone was found in St. Peter's Anglican Church graveyard.    The land for the church was donated by United Empire Loyalist Lt. Col. James Moody.