To Be Or Not To Be...A Loyalist or a Patriot
Primary Sources on the American Revolution

Comparing Arguments

1. Loyalist counter-arguments to separation are useful in tracing the construction of Whig ideology before and during the Revolution.  Read the text of the Articles of Association (1774) and analyze the reasons that its provisions were problematic for some colonists. For which groups did the Association prove most troublesome? Account for the ties that bound the different loyalist groups to Great Britain, from government officials to merchants to residents of the backcountry.
      The Articles of Association, 1774
2. Explain why the Continental Congress repudiated Joseph Galloway's 1774 "Plan of a Proposed Union."  Explain why the proposal failed to pass by a single vote, yet was later expunged from the official records of the Continental Congress.
      Plan of a Proposed Union: Joseph Galloway
3. "A View of the Controversy between Great Britain and her Colonies," 1775, by Rev. Samuel Seabury, the "Westchester Farmer," should be examined alongside Alexander Hamilton's responses ("A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress from the Calumnies of their Enemies," 1774, and "A Farmer Refuted," 1775) to Seabury's attempt to reconcile local self-government with Parliamentary authority.
      A View of the Controversy between Great Britain and her Colonies
4. Compare and contrast James Chalmers's Plain Truth with Thomas Paine's Common Sense. You might also analyze the writings of "Candidus" (probably James Chalmers) that appeared in a 1779 edition of the New York Gazette: What is the source of each Whig charge that Candidus refutes in this piece?
      Plain Truth: John Chalmers
      Common Sense: Thomas Paine
      Candidus

5. Chalmers's mature reflections on Paine and the war may be found in his Strictures on a Pamphlet Written by Thomas Paine. Excerpts from the series of letters exchanged by Daniel Leonard ("Massachusettensis") and John Adams ("Novanglus") over the constitutionality of Whig attacks on Parliament's authority might also be contrasted.
      Strictures on a Pamphlet: Thomas Paine
      Letters: Daniel Leonard
      Novanglus: John Adams
   

Comparing Accounts

6. Contemporary accounts of events also provide insight into the conflicts between Whigs and loyalists. Three differing accounts of the Battle of Lexington and Concord by Ann Hulton, General Gage, and the Massachusetts Provincial Congress might be used to evaluate the points of view of the British army, loyalist sympathizers, and Whigs.
      A Web of English History

7. Capt. Thomas Preston's account of the Boston Massacre can be compared with an anonymous account of the same. Students might also be asked to explain the attitudes represented in Paul Revere's engraving of Henry Pelham's broadside image of the Massacre.
      Captain Thomas Preston's Account
      The Boston Massacre: Anonymous
      Henry Pelham's broadside image of the Massacre
   
   

Comparing Cultures

8. A collection of loyalist and Whig songs and ballads can be used to show how conflicting ideologies manifested themselves in popular culture. Rosalie Murphy Baum has constructed classroom issues and strategies that deal with ballads and songs.
      Loyalist, British Songs & Poetry
      Classroom Strategies: Songs & Ballads

9. Furthermore, the works of poet Rev. Jonathan Odell may profitably be compared with those of Whig poet Philip Freneau; ask students to look at the audience addressed by each and the political imagery presented. A Web site by David S. Shields discusses classroom issues and strategies for studying Freneau. Another site provides a brief biographical treatment of Odell, "the Tory satirist."
      "The Indian Burying Ground" by Freneau
      Poems by Philip Freneau: Strategies
      Jonathan Odell: The Tory Satirist
   

Race, Religion, and Partisanship

10. A Web site devoted to Black Loyalists presents an overview of the group and contains a variety of primary sources about this group. Several personal accounts and a collection of letters relating to the lives of black loyalists are available; these were written by both whites and blacks. David George's autobiography, for example, might be contrasted with later slave narratives in which the North was the guarantor of freedom. The site also contains a range of official documents, including proclamations, treaties, muster lists, the Black Loyalist Directory, bills, survey records, and land records.
       Black Loyalists
       David George's Diaries

11. Compare and contrast the text of Lord Dunmore's Proclamation with Virginia's response.
       Lord Dunmore's Proclamation
       Virginia Declaration: Dec. 14, 1775

12. Contrast the history of Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment with the Black Pioneers, which comprised African-American slaves attached to the British army, as discussed in the On-Line Institute for Advanced Loyalist Studies. The regiment's formation orders and the oath taken upon enlisting are included. This site also contains petitions, memorials, and other documents that allow the students to follow the various ways in which the British army utilized and rewarded slaves. Land sales, muster lists, wills, indentures, and petitions are also available.
       The Ethiopian Regiment
       Black Pioneers
       The On-Line Institute for Advanced Loyalist Studies

13. Analyze the data about occupation and colonial origins from the The Book of Negroes. All the surnames in the Black Loyalist Directory are indexed. These documents also tie into later lessons on Anglo-American colonization and anti-slavery: among them is a 1791 advertisement for the Sierra Leone Company, and documents like Boston King's memoirs allow the student to follow black loyalists who eventually relocated in Sierra Leone. Contrast the petitions and other records that document the experience of black loyalists with the denied petition of Jehu Grant for a pension based on his service to the Continental Army.
       The Book of Negroes
       Black Loyalist Surname Index
       Boston King's Memoirs
       Petition of Jehu Grant

14. Whig attitudes toward the tribes of the frontier are addressed in a letter from Gen. Washington directing Gen. Sullivan to destroy the fields and crops of Iroquois allied with the British. Sullivan's expedition is graphically described in the chapter seven of Mary Jemison's captivity narrative; if you have read Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative, explore the ways that the trope of cultivation and improvement versus savagery flip-flopped over time.
       Washington's Letter to Sullivan

15. A Web site devoted to an exhibition at the Library of Congress on "Religion and the Founding of the American Republic" contains many images that are useful in exploring the religious aspects of loyalism.  Explain the allegorical treatment of the Whig as Absalom, rebelling against and suffering from the arbitrary rule of his father King David (George III), who is shown playing his harp, oblivious to the anguish of his children in the American colonies. The figure executing Absalom is dressed as a British Redcoat.
       Religion and the Founding of America

16. A study of the role of ministers in the Revolution is also fruitful. Anglican minister Charles Inglis proposed a way to reconcile British and local interests in "The True Interest of American Impartially Stated," 1776. The Whiggish political cartoon, "An Attempt to Land a Bishop in America," can also be a focal point for discussion. A political-religious argument can be examined also in one of the 1770 "Dougliad" essays. The pro-British cartoon, "The Yankie Doodles Intrenchment Near Boston 1776," similarly portrays "Cromwellian" antecedents.
       Proposal by Charles Inglis
       Religion and the Founding of America
       An American Time Capsule
       Yankie Doodles Intrenchment

Conduct and Aftermath

17. Read the provisions for restitution of confiscated property in article five of the Treaty of Paris. Postwar loyalist claims and memorials have been organized by colony. Use these memorials to interpret the limits on volitional allegiance to the new nation and the wartime experience that prevented easy reintegration.
       The Paris Peace Treaty (1783)
       Loyalist Claims and Memorials
       The Loyal American Regiment 1771-1783

18. Analyze the occupations and colonial origins of loyalists who relocated in New Brunswick. The chasm separating loyalist from Whig might also be explored using contemporary images. Other images students might discuss include one of tarring and feathering or Benjamin Franklin's "Join or Die" image.
       Tarring and Feathering
       "Join or Die"

19. James Rivington's August 25, 1774, New York Gazetteer published a poem that commented on Franklin's image.  Explain why the image evoked such different images from loyalists and patriots.

Ye sons of Sedition, how comes it to pass
That America's ty'd by a Snake in the grass?
Don't you think 'tis a scandalous, saucy reflection,
That merits the soundest, severest correction?
New-England's the Head, too;--New-England's abus'd;
For the Head of the Serpent we know should be bruis'd!

20. You are likely familiar with the savagery and brutality of the campaigns in the backcountry through The Patriot. While the film might be used as a springboard (in conjunction with the documents on the Black Loyalists and Advanced Loyalist Web sites) for discussion of what motivated slaves to ally themselves with the British, it also dramatizes the conflicting pressures on whites.  Consider the impact of the practices of the film's Col. William Tavington, who was based on Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton; the differences between the fictional Tavington and the real Tarleton were considerable, not least in Tarleton's surviving the war. The "Hudibrastic Epistle to Colonel Tarleton" glorifies Tarleton's tactics.
       Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton
       Hudibrastic Epistle to Col. Tarleton