07/08/2026
IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE BRITISH LOYALISTS
I start off with this quote: “A tale is half-told when only one voice speaks. Seek more than one telling before you judge.” Unknown
To my American Cousins, I extend congratulations on the 250th celebration; a proud moment for this country. Now the rest of this story…
On this day, 4th July 1776, the Thirteen Colonies declared independence from Great Britain and the British Empire, in what has become known by Americans as "Independence Day". However, at the time, there were a great many who were loyal to Great Britain and they faced and suffered persecution. Many fled to British North America - which they created Canada we know today.
It has been said that: "The Revolutionary War was an unnecessary war. America would have eventually reached independence – just like Australia and Canada – without all the killing and 10 years of misery”. Unknown
It was a war started by those who saw Great Britain’s efforts to re-confirm it’s legislative stewardship to offset the debt resulting from the French & Indian War along with enforcing commercial oversight as a threat to their livelihood and to their ‘questionable’ business (John Hancock was a known smuggler). Some of the key agitators where men who failed to hold Crown offices due to their inefficiencies and who blamed the Crown for their lot (Sam Adams was one of these). The Treaty of 1763 also upset many American colonial land investors/speculators (of whom Washington was one of them) who wanted to expand into protected Indian lands, westwards, to make profit from the land sales to potential settlers.
Thus a few discontented colonists in New England managed to focus on commercial taxation and property security being threaten to divert negative attention onto the British.
The British were overnight denounced as an army of occupation, when a few years earlier the same men in red had fought and died, along with their colonial counterparts, to protect the colonies from the French and their Indian allies, and were considered heroes.
They went from hero to zero in a year. Increased taxation was an elaborate falsehood to galvanise the masses with patriotic rhetoric. The revolution was basically a way to justify tax avoidance and protection of property by using mob rule to attack the new common enemy – the British and those British Americans loyal to the Crown.
"The Loyalists actually outnumbered the American Rebels, but they were terrorised. They were also called 'Tories'’. Property and businesses was destroyed and their families were targeted. This is where tarring and feathering – pouring boiling hot oil on people in the streets – started to those who maintained their loyalty to the Crown!
Organised ‘patriotic’ groups operated much like terrorists/thugs (Sons of Liberty used such tactics) and the British had to show restraint when confronting them, or risk pushing more into supporting the rebellion.
History is written by the victors but this period should be looked at through more honest glasses.
So while Americans remember their separation from Great Britain, we remember those Loyalists who would become the “United Empire Loyalists” in Canada whose only crime was loyalty to George III. It is due to them that Canada, and many of the Caribbean commonwealth islands, still has close ties to Great Britain with it’s monarchy, the King, as Head of State.
Edited/Written by Michael Rolla
“A disciplined enthusiast in the cause of English history
