Loyalist Literature: An Annotated Bibliographic Guide to the Writings on the Loyalists of the American Revolution

By Robert S. Allen

This highly readable guide is more than a bibliography. Written in a narrative style, it is as well a short history of the Loyalists: who they were, why they left, where they settled, and what their legacy is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Jan 1, 1982
• ISBN: 9781459713604

Robert S. Allen

Robert S. Allen earned his doctorate in history at the University of Wales. His publications include The British Indian Department and the Frontier in North America, Native Studies in Canada: A Research Guide, and Loyalist Literature . He is deputy chief, Claims and Historical Research Centre, Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. He lives in Ottawa.

Book preview

Introduction

Loyalist Literature provides narrative details and some assessment of key published studies which focus directly on those loyal Americans who found sanctuary in British North America following their support of the royal cause during the civil war and rebellion in colonial America. The literature is divided into four major themes or categories: 1) General References 2) The American Revolution 3) The Diaspora and 4) The Loyalist Legacy. The extensive amount of published material available on the Loyalists has been augmented recently as a result of the renewed interest in the Loyalist era engendered by the American Revolution Bicentennial and the upcoming Loyalist Bicentennial. A careful and, I hope, prudent selection has been made therefore of sources useful to an understanding and appreciation of the Loyalist contribution to Canada.

In the United States, the bicentennial of the American Revolution in 1976 prompted an outburst of patriotic activity which reached fruition in the grand re-enactment and ceremony at Yorktown 1981. But what has ended for one side, has just begun for another. In Canada, the Loyalist Bicentennial in 1983 and 1984 will honour through commemoration and celebration, the nearly 40,000 political refugees who settled in the present provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Québec and Ontario. The impact of the arrival and settlement of these men and women was significant and permanent, as they helped shape the character and direction of the evolving nation. The recognition to be accorded during the bicentennial years will ensure that the Loyalists will always remain an integral part of Canada’s national heritage.

Robert S. Allen

Lakeside

Ottawa, Ontario

Summer, 1982

1

General References

The study of Loyalist history can prudently begin with a review of general bibliographical reference sources. Good introductions are: Wallace Brown, ‘Loyalist Historiography,’ Acadiensis, Vol. 4, No. 1 (August, 1974), pp. 133-8, and ‘The View at Two Hundred Years: The Loyalists of the American Revolution,’ Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Vol. 80, Part 1 (April, 1970), pp. 25-47; Oscar Handlin et al., Harvard Guide to American History (New York: Atheneum, 1967), pp. 301-2 (The Loyalists); and Jo-Ann Fellows, ed., ‘A Bibliography of Loyalist Source Material in Canada,’ Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Vol. 82, Part 1 (April, 1972), pp. 67-256.

As well, a forthcoming multi-authored book of Loyalist biographies entitled, Eleven Exiles (Toronto: Dundurn Press) under the general editorship of Dr. Phyllis R. Blakeley and John Grant will provide a good accounting of individual Loyalists and their times in various geographic regions of British North America. Finally, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto) has several entries devoted to prominent Loyalists.

In the United States, the American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, Massachusetts) has sponsored The Programme for Loyalist Studies and Publications which has undertaken to publish over the next several years an estimated twenty volumes of Loyalist papers from collections in the United States, Great Britain and Canada. Andrew Oliver, ed., The Journal of Samuel Curwen, Loyalist (2 vols., Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), an account of a moderate and exile in England who admired the British constitutional system and desired a well ordered state and reconciliation with the colonies, heralded the formal beginning of this series. The Canadian Committee of the Programme centered at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton was primarily concerned with the study of those Loyalists who settled in British North America. Sadly and unfortunately, the death of W.S. MacNutt and the departure of Jo-Ann Fellows has left the Loyalist Programme at U.N.B. moribund.

Reprints of older works provide insights into Loyalist history in that they reflect the perceptions of an earlier age. The Mika Publishing Company (Belleville, Ontario), for instance, has introduced the Canadiana Reprint Series which has republished facsimile editions of county histories. These works, many of which were written before 1900, are useful for details on early Loyalist settlement and family records. The Loyalist Library of The American Revolutionary Series (Boston: Gregg Press, 1972) has also republished a combination of primary source documents and secondary works. Some local or state examples are: Wilbur H. Siebert, The Loyalists of Pennsylvania (1920); Otis Grant Hammond, Tories of New Hampshire (1917); and E.A. Jones, The Loyalists of New Jersey (1926). Also, the Genealogical Publishing Company of Baltimore has reprinted E.A. Jones, The Loyalists of Massachusetts: Their memorials, Petitions, Claims, Etc., From English Records (1930; 1969), and with a new introduction by Milton Rubincam, The Old United Empire Loyalists List (1885; 1976).

Pamphlet literature is useful for assessing the passion and unabashed subjectivism of those Loyalists most directly affected by the upheaval of the American Revolution. Magdalen Casey, Catalogue of Pamphlets in the Public Archives of Canada, 1493-1877, No. 13 (Ottawa: The King’s Printer, 1931) includes such representative examples as: 637, p. 95, ‘The Case and Claim of the American Loyalists impartially stated and considered;’ and 695, p. 104, Joseph Galloway, ‘The Claim of the American Loyalists, Reviewed and Maintained upon incontrovertible Principles of Law and Justice.’ The Bibliography of Canadiana (1959) also offers opinion of this nature as best illustrated by 4780, p. 40, a sermon delivered in 1793 by Charles Inglis, Bishop of Nova Scotia, entitled ‘Steadfastness in Religion and Loyalty,’ the text taken from Proverbs XXIV.21, ‘My Son, fear thou the