Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World

Born in Virginia, Beverley Robinson (1722-1792) was a childhood friend of George Washington. Robinson married into a wealthy New York family and owned valuable real estate outside New York City. Well-received in New York society, Robinson befriended John Jay, who became an outspoken advocate of revolution. Robinson struggled to decide which side to back in the Revolutionary War. Despite Jay’s admonitions, Robinson eventually chose loyalty to Britain. He organized the Loyal American Regiment in 1777. After the war, Robinson went to England, where he lived the remainder of his life.

Robinson’s sons served in the British military in various parts of the British Empire. Jasanoff traces the movements of members of the Robinson family throughout the loyalist diaspora. Members of the Robinson family eventually returned to New York, showing how certain loyalist refugees gradually reintegrated into American society in the decades after the Revolutionary War.

Joseph Brant (1743-1807), also known as Thayendanegea, was a Mohawk leader. His sister, Molly Brant (1736-1796), was the wife of Irish-born British superintendent of Indian affairs William Johnson (circa 1715-1774). Joseph Brant fought for the British in the Seven Years’ War and Pontiac’s Rebellion. In 1783, he founded a settlement called Brant’s Town on the Grand River in what is now Ontario, populated by Mohawks, members of the other nations of the Iroquois League, people from western Great Lakes tribes, and white settlers.

Brant was a skilled diplomat in two cultural worlds. Jasanoff describes portions of his unusual life to provide insights into the experiences, perspectives, and motivations of Native loyalists. He organized Native American warriors to support the British in the Revolutionary War. He represented Native interests to British officials, traveling to London in 1775 and 1785 to meet directly with central figures in the British government, including King George III. However, Brant eventually lost faith in Britain, feeling it betrayed commitments to Native people.

Elizabeth Lichtenstein Johnston (1764-1848) was born in Georgia, the daughter of a fervent loyalist. She married William Johnston (1754-1806), a loyalist officer and physician. At the end of the Revolutionary War, the Johnstons fled Savannah, Charleston, and East Florida, then went to Scotland. The family then moved to Jamaica, where William Johnston’s skills as a doctor were in high demand, but disease claimed the lives of their children. The Johnstons went back to Scotland, then settled in Nova Scotia, where Elizabeth Johnston found stability and comfort she had not known elsewhere.

Elizabeth Johnston’s stories reflect the loyalist diaspora from a female perspective. All loyalist refugees experienced displacement, often more than once. Circumstances forced Johnston to move multiple times before she settled permanently in Nova Scotia. As was common for mothers in this era, she suffered the death of children, losing six in her tumultuous travels throughout the British Empire. 

Born into slavery in Virginia, David George (circa 1743-1810) escaped to South Carolina. He converted to the Baptist faith and became a preacher in Savannah. After the British evacuation of Savannah, George and his family fled to Nova Scotia as free loyalists. He continued his career as a Baptist preacher and built a church, attacked in the race riot of 1784. When John Clarkson came to Nova Scotia in 1791 to recruit settlers for the Freetown project in Sierra Leone, George became an enthusiastic supporter, visiting England with Clarkson, then settling in Freetown. George brought his faith to Sierra Leone, founding the first Baptist church in Africa.

George’s life illuminates the diaspora from the perspective of a Black loyalist. He escaped slavery by fleeing to British-held territory during the Revolutionary War, as did approximately 20,000 enslaved people after the Dunmore Proclamation of 1775 offered freedom to those who left their patriot enslavers. He experienced violence at the hands of white loyalists in Nova Scotia in the riot of 1784, which showed that loyalist Americans brought hostile racial attitudes into the diaspora. George then became a pioneer settler of the Freetown colony, spreading the Baptist religion to a new continent. 

John Murray (1730-1809), born into an aristocratic Scottish family, held the title Earl of Dunmore, and is better known to historians as Dunmore. After a political career serving in the British House of Lords, Dunmore became the colonial governor of New York in 1770, then Virginia in 1771. Dunmore was an important military leader during the Revolutionary War. By issuing the Dunmore Proclamation of 1775, which promised freedom to those who escaped from patriot enslavers and defected to the British side, he recruited approximately 20,000 Black loyalists. He became the governor of the Bahamas in 1786 but experienced popular resistance from settlers and returned to Britain in 1796.

Faced with political resistance from loyalist settlers while governor of the Bahamas, Dunmore grew increasingly autocratic, exemplifying the tension between American loyalist refugees and local representatives of the British government throughout the loyalist diaspora. Dunmore lost faith in King George III when the monarch, experiencing mental illness in his later years, refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of their common grandchildren.

Guy Carleton (1724-1808), granted the title Baron of Dorchester, had a long and successful career in the British military and government. He participated in the siege of Quebec in 1759 at the end of the Seven Years’ War, then governed British-held Quebec from 1766 to 1778. As commander of all British forces in North America in 1782 and 1783, Carleton oversaw the massive project of evacuating British-held territory in the American colonies. Appointed governor in chief of British North America in 1786, Carleton was an outspoken advocate for loyalist refugees in British Canada.

Due to his appointment to powerful roles within the British government in North America, Carleton serves as a central, organizing figure in the story of the loyalist diaspora. Loyalist refugees respected Carleton and saw him as supporting their interests in British Canada after the war. However, Carleton came into conflict with other British officials and quit his post in 1794 and returned to Britain. After a life spent in service to the British government, Carleton lost faith in the imperial project in North America.

Freed from slavery by his enslaver, George Liele (circa 1750-1820) purchased the freedom of his family by committing to a term of indentureship with loyalist planter Moses Kirkland (circa 1728-1787) and followed Kirkland to Jamaica in 1782. Liele established the first Baptist church in Jamaica and openly preached his faith. Although he was careful to avoid any appearance of political activism, Jamaican authorities imprisoned Liele on charges of treason, eventually dropped, then for debt. After his release, Liele ceased public preaching.

Liele helped to establish the Baptist faith in Jamaica. Despite the charges once leveled against him, Liele never preached rebellion, and he died before the enslaved people’s revolt known as the Baptist War of 1831. However, in bringing the Baptist religion to the island, Jasanoff argues, Liele helped inspire a political movement that shocked the Jamaican establishment and advanced the cause of abolition throughout the British Empire.

Born in Scotland, John Cruden (1754-1787) settled in colonial North Carolina before the Revolutionary War. Fighting for the loyalist cause, Cruden became commissioner of sequestered estates in 1780. This role required him to oversee the administration of property seized from American patriots, including enslaved people. As British forces abandoned Charleston, Cruden moved to East Florida. When Cruden’s usual scheme to maintain a British colony in Florida failed, he fled to the Bahamas.

Cruden championed strange plans to revive British colonies within North America and then apparently advocated Bahamian independence from Britain. Cruden, who experienced mania throughout his life, further developed mental illness in his later years, complicating his legacy as an innovative loyalist political thinker. Including stories of Cruden’s odd schemes in this book, Jasanoff invites readers to consider counterfactual possibilities for how the British Empire could have developed after the Revolutionary War.