A war of independence that divided American colonies
History celebrates winners and often forgets losers. Yet it is worth remembering on this Independence Day that Americans both won and lost the Revolutionary war. The struggle for independence was as much a brutal civil war fought between Americans (“Patriots” versus “Loyalists”) as it was a conventional conflict between American and British armies. Americans killed Americans in large numbers.
The act of choosing sides divided families and friends, towns and cities. John Adams of Massachusetts, one of the leading revolutionaries and a future president, noted that many of the Tories (a derisive term for Loyalists, implying that they were monarchists) were “my cordial, confidential and bosom friends.”
Benjamin Franklin’s illegitimate son, William, was the royal governor of New Jersey. An ardent Loyalist, he sided with Great Britain during the Revolution, leading his disgusted father to remove him from his will.
About 20 percent of the 2 million white colonists were Loyalists. Other “American” opponents of the Revolution included several Indian tribes, free blacks, and thousands of runaway slaves enticed by the promise of freedom in exchange for their allegiance to the Crown.
Loyalists were present in every colony but were most numerous in New York, New Jersey, eastern Maryland, and the back country of the Carolinas and Georgia. Colonists belonging to the Church of England (Anglican) tended to be Loyalists. Many merchants involved in facilitating the import-export trade also supported the king, as did civil servants appointed by the Crown to colonial administrative positions.
Many motives animated Loyalists but perhaps the most common concern was that the widespread resistance to British regulations and taxes was descending into chaos and even anarchy.
The Revolution’s civil war generated fratricidal passions and vengeful violence. In back country hamlets, neighbors killed neighbors and fathers turned on sons. Edward Lacey, a young South Carolina Patriot who commanded a militia unit, had to tie his Tory father to a bedstead to prevent him from informing the British of his whereabouts.
Chilling brutalities occurred on both sides. One Pennsylvania Loyalist, John Stevens, testified that Patriots dragged him “by a rope fixed about his neck” across the Susquehanna River. In Virginia, the planter Charles Lynch set up vigilante courts to punish Loyalists by “lynching” them — which in this case meant whipping them. Others were tarred and feathered.
Loyalists And Patriots - News
The struggle for independence was as much a brutal civil war fought between Americans (“Patriots” versus “Loyalists”) as it was a conventional conflict between American and British armies. Americans killed Americans in large numbers.
We follow Allen on a visit to Philadelphia, where he is incensed to find his "old rival, Major General Benedict Arnold," now military governor of the city, "coddling" Loyalists. What had happened to Arnold, a man who, like Allen, once had the ambition
"Arrest warrants have been issued against suspects on the run," including Ble Goude, who led Gbagbo's Young Patriots, and former government spokesman Ahoua Don Mello, the prosecutor Simplice Kouadio Koffi told a news briefing.
Throughout the colonies, British General Charles Cornwallis tried aggressively to recruit loyalists to the British crown; his efforts were challenged by Rev. Richard Furman, who traveled throughout South Carolina and the South recruiting patriots.
The Tories, loyalists to the core, feared they had much to lose and little to gain in any divorce proceeding. The Whigs and their supporters, marching to the beat of a different drummer, were impatient to break free of any allegiance to the British
Progressives Are Today's Patriots. Conservatives are Loyalists ...
When our Founding Fathers fought for our independence, they were standing up against the tyrannical rule of the King George III and the power of the church. America today is ruled — not by the people — but by large corporations and the Christian Church.
As did England in the 1700s, we now use mercenaries to provide a great deal of our security and fighting forces. Those mercenaries are provided by large corporations with multi-million dollar contracts. When Washington crossed the Delaware River in 1776, he didn’t fight the British army; he fought mercenaries: the German Hessian soldiers.
The Church today dictates many of our laws. Take away religion and you take away the argument to ban abortion. Religious fanatics want the Bible taught as science in our schools. They want to take away funding for Planned Parenthood. They have dictated laws and that is in direct opposition to what is explicitly stated in our Constitution.
Our Founding Fathers were part of the Enlightenment Movement — also called the Age of Reason. That was a movement away from religion. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in Church and state. Those who fought for America’s independence would have been against the teaching of Creationism as science. They would have embraced the science of global climate change. They would have wanted us to be the leaders of renewable energy technologies.
The Loyalists in of 18th century America supported British rule and oppression by the Church. Today, conservatives support a plutocracy and laws dictated by the Church, which is even more dangerous. The merging of corporations and government is fascism.
Conservatives are today’s Loyalists. It’s time we took our country back — we being the people.
Loyalists And Patriots - Bookshelf
Loyalists and Patriots
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MrNussbaum.com - Loyalists and Patriots
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Loyalist (American Revolution) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Loyalists Vs. Patriots
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