Exploring
the former homes of the British Loyalists in and around Boston.
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Exploring
the former homes of the British Loyalists in and around Boston. |
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| Who were the Loyalists? | ||||||
| The Loyalists
— those who remained loyal to King George III — are also called
Tories in the United States today. They made up about one third of the population
of the American colonies, and believed that a peaceful solution could be
found to resolve the colonial problems with the British Parliament. Much
of the information we have on Massachusetts’ Loyalists comes from
claims that they filed in London for compensation for their losses. Seventy-three
percent of these claimants were American-born. It’s not quite accurate
to say Loyalists were British because nearly all the people in the colonies
thought of themselves as British. Their families had lived in this corner
of the growing British Empire for generations. At the same time, the “real” British thought of Loyalists as Americans, a decidedly lower class, common gaggle of colonial provincials. And the Canadian British thought of them as an expensive nuisance, improvident refugees who should have stayed home and worked out their problems there. These American Loyalists were well-educated, respectable citizens. Often members of the Anglican Church, they were landowners, farmers, merchants, doctors, lawyers or employed in government posts. Most had rebel relatives. They endured extraordinary insults for their convictions and lost everything they owned in the colonies. Many in exile longed to come “home”. Slaves Escaped slaves and free Blacks who joined the British army during the American Revolution became Loyalists—not because they opposed the beliefs of the revolutionaries, but because the British promised freedom. Several thousand Black Loyalists left the colonies with the British, from 1783 to 1850, going to Nova Scotia. Later, more than 1,000 were returned to Africa by the British and established the colony of Sierra Leone. In 1775 Lord Dunmore, Virginia’s Royal Governor, proclaimed that slaves could buy their freedom by joining His Majesty’s troops. His edict did not, however, apply to slaves owned by the Loyalists themselves. Some took their slaves to Halifax. Others sold them at bargain-basement rates. Dr. Caner, pastor of King’s Chapel in Boston, disposed of his “Negroe boy Prince” for 10 shillings. Joseph Lee, who had inherited a slave, Caesar, from his father, provided for him in his will. Governor Shirley’s son-in-law, Eliakim Hutchinson, held Ciprio, and three other slaves when he died during the siege of Boston. Isaac Royall abandoned his slaves; and one, Belinda, later successfully petitioned the Commonwealth for a pension from his estate, arguing that Royall’s wealth had been earned, in part, by her labor. Loyalist Women Although many Loyalist women followed their men into exile, others, like Mrs. Timothy Ruggles, faced down rebel mobs to remain on their farms to manage the “widow’s thirds” they were entitled to under colonial law. And the emerging American government took care to allow them the benefit of the “increase” so that they and their children would not become burdens on their towns. “In the state of Massachusetts it has been unusual to confiscate the Property of women,” the Loyalist Commission in London noted. Margaret Draper continued to print her husband’s newspaper, the Boston Weekly News Letter, after his death in 1774, and thwarted all attempts to make it “subservient to the party of rebellion”, until she had to join other refugees in flight from Boston. Dorcas Griffith, discarded mistress of John Hancock, nursed British officers wounded in the Battle of Bunker Hill, in her home. |
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