Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World
Page 56
86. Will of Lt. Col. George Arnold (1829), APAC: L/AG/34/29/44, Bengal Wills 1829, vol. 1, pp. 22–23. The will provoked a suit in Chancery (Arnold v. Arnold, 1836–37) and a challenge to Louisa’s bequest.
87. Phipps, pp. 152, 167. Phipps made no reference to Louisa’s Indian mother. Parents often worried about how best to raise bicultural children in this period. David Ochterlony, for instance, worried that “My children … are uncommonly fair but if educated in the european manner they will in spite of Complexion labour under all the Disadvantages of being known as the ‘Natural Daughters of Ochterlony by a Native Woman.’ ” (David Ochterlony to Major Hugh Sutherland, ca. 1804, APAC: Letterbook of Robert Sutherland, MS Eur D 547, f. 133.)
88. Dalrymple, pp. 23–24. “Sir David Ochterlony,” q.v., DNB.
89. In 1828 a public subscription was taken up to raise a memorial to Ochterlony on the Calcutta Maidan. Because of Ochterlony’s attraction to Muslim culture, it was said, the monument was built in a Muslim architectural style: a fluted pillar 165 feet high, with a small onion dome at the top. The Ochterlony Monument has now been renamed the Shahid Minar (martyrs’ tower), in honor of fighters for Indian independence.
90. Among the connections were Gardner’s second cousins Frances and Henrietta Duer, who married Phil’s nephews Bev and Morris Robinson respectively.
91. For Gardner’s actions at Charleston, see Independent Ledger (Boston), June 19, 1779, p. 2. “Major Gardner of the 16th, his Lady and family” were among the prisoners taken to Boston in September 1779: New Jersey Gazette (Burlington, N.J.), September 29, 1779, p. 2. (The paper explained that Gardner “commanded the light corps of Col. Campbell’s army in Georgia, and is well known there by the name of the short regiment, humane Commandant.”) William Smith (whose wife was a Livingston) met Valentine and Alida Gardner in New York in late December 1779, after Valentine was released on parole. Smith later deployed Alida Gardner in an effort to persuade the loyalist-leaning Livingstons “to a Reconciliation with Great Britain.” William Smith, Historical Memoirs of William Smith, 1770–1783, ed. William H. W. Sabine (New York: Arno Press, 1971), pp. 202, 258. There are scattered references to Valentine Gardner in the NYPL Carleton Papers.
92. As the above details help demonstrate, the suggestion that Gardner went to France with his mother as early as 1774 (Lionel J. Gardner, The Sabre and the Spur: An Account of Colonel Gardner of Gardner’s Horse [1770–1835] [Chandigarh: Siddharth Publications, 1985], pp. 6–7) and the DNB’s statement that he “was brought up in France” are both wrong. Gardner himself said, “After the Peace we all came to England,” confirming the view that they left with the evacuation of New York. Narinder Saroop, Gardner of Gardner’s Horse (New Delhi: Palit and Palit, 1983), p. 11. On his Continental education: Saroop, pp. 14–15.
93. Fanny Parkes, Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, 2 vols. (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1975), I, pp. 417–18.
94. Another American who had been in Maratha service, John Parker Boyd of Massachusetts, returned to the United States—leaving his half-Indian daughter behind—where he fought Tecumseh at Tippecanoe and the British in the War of 1812. Ronald Rosner, “John Parker Boyd: The Yankee Mughal,” Asian Affairs 34, no. 3 (November 2003): 297–309.
95. Quoted in Saroop, p. 97.
96. Emma Roberts, Scenes and Characters of Hindostan, 3 vols. (London: William H. Allen and Co., 1835) III, p. 142. Parkes, I, p. 348. An earlier version of Roberts’s sketch appeared in the press, and Gardner wrote a letter to the Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register to correct errors in the portrait—particularly the suggestion that his female descendants would have trouble finding European husbands because of their complexions. Asiatic Journal 38 (1835): pp. 60–61.
97. Nugent, II, p. 9.
98. Parkes, I, pp. 185, 230.
99. Parkes, I, p. 185.
100. William Linnaeus Gardner to Edward Gardner, August 21, 1821, National Army Museum, London: Gardner Papers, p. 241. I am grateful to William Dalrymple for his transcripts from the Gardner letters.
Conclusion: Losers and Founders
1. I share the interpretation of this period suggested by Jeremy Adelman, “An Age of Imperial Revolutions,” American Historical Review 113, no. 2 (April 2008): 319–40, which reinterprets the “age of democratic revolutions” proposed by R. R. Palmer as an age of imperial revolutions, fortifying empires at least as much as it furthered the fortunes of nation-states. See also C. A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2004), chapter 3.
2. On the two images see Helmut von Erffa and Alan Staley, eds., The Paintings of Benjamin West (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 219–22, 565–67.
3. Elizabeth Lichtenstein Johnston, Recollections of a Georgia Loyalist (New York: M. F. Mansfield and Company, 1901), p. 164. Although the preface states that Johnston wrote her recollections in 1836, she refers in her text to an event that took place in 1837. Johnston’s daughter Eliza married Thomas Ritchie, a barrister elected to the Nova Scotia assembly. Her son John was also a member of the assembly. Her youngest son, James William Johnston, served as longtime leader of the Nova Scotia Conservative Party, premier of Nova Scotia, and was named Nova Scotia’s lieutenant governor in 1873, but died before he could assume office.
4. See, e.g., discussions produced around the bicentennial of the emigration: J. M. Bumsted, Understanding the Loyalists (Sackville, N.B.: Centre for Canadian Studies, Mount Allison University, 1986); Wallace Brown and Hereward Senior, Victorious in Defeat: The American Loyalists in Exile (New York: Facts on File, 1984); Christopher Moore, The Loyalists: Revolution, Exile, Settlement (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1984).
5. Michael Craton, A History of the Bahamas (London: Collins, 1968), pp. 194–96.
6. Mary Turner, Slaves and Missionaries: The Disintegration of Jamaican Slave Society, 1787–1834 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982), chapter 6.
7. Ian McKay, “The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnaissance of Canadian History,” Canadian Historical Review 81, no. 3 (December 2000): 632; Philip Girard, “Liberty, Order, and Pluralism: The Canadian Experience,” in Jack P. Greene, ed., Exclusionary Empire: English Liberty Overseas, 1600–1900 (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 177–81; Robin W. Winks, The Relevance of Canadian History: U.S. and Imperial Perspectives (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1979).
8. James Corbett David, “Dunmore’s New World: Political Culture in the British Empire, 1745–1796” (Ph.D. dissertation, College of William and Mary, 2010).
9. Isabel Kelsay, Joseph Brant (Syracuse, N.Y.: University of Syracuse Press, 1984), p. 658; Norman Knowles, Inventing the Loyalists: The Ontario Loyalist Tradition and the Creation of Usable Pasts (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), p. 119.
10. Marion Robertson, King’s Bounty: A History of Early Shelburne, Nova Scotia (Halifax: Nova Scotia Museum, 1983), chapter 15. For a negative appraisal of the loyalists’ fate in Nova Scotia, see Neil MacKinnon, This Unfriendly Soil: The Loyalist Experience in Nova Scotia, 1783–1791 (Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press, 1986), chapter 10.
11. Beverley Robinson Jr. to Frederick Robinson (son), June 17, 1816, NBM: Robinson Family Papers, Folder 6. Charles A. Campbell, “Robinson’s House in the Hudson Highlands: The Headquarters of Washington,” Magazine of American History 4 (February 1880): 115.
Appendix: Measuring the Exodus
1. Mary Beth Norton, The British-Americans: The Loyalist Exiles in England, 1774–1789 (London: Constable, 1974), p. 9 (60–80,000); Esmond Wright, ed., Red, White, and True Blue: The Loyalists in the Revolution (New York: AMS Press, 1976), p. 2 (80,000); Wallace Brown, The Good Americans: The Loyalists in the American Revolution (New York: Morrow, 1969), p. 2 (100,000); John Ferling, A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 257 (100,000).
2. The shipping lists can be fo
und in NA: ADM 49/9.
3. I use the phrase “black loyalist” here, as throughout this book, to denote those slaves who ran away to the British in response to promises of freedom, not to suggest a uniform ideological position.
4. Cassandra Pybus, “Jefferson’s Faulty Math,” William & Mary Quarterly 62, no. 2 (April 2005): 243–64.
5. “Returns of Loyalists &c. gone from New York to Nova Scotia &c. p returns in the Commissary General’s Office,” New York, October 12, 1783, NA: CO 5/111, f. 118. “Return of Loyalists &c. gone from New York to Nova Scotia, Quebec & abbacoe as per Returns in the Commissary General’s Office at New York,” New York, November 24, 1783, NA: CO 5/111, f. 236.
6. “General Return of all the Disbanded Troops and other Loyalists who have lately become Settlers in the Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, made up from the Rolls taken by the several Muster Masters,” Halifax, November 4, 1784, NA: CO 217/41, ff. 163–64. The New York muster of October 1783 shows 1,328 refugees bound for Quebec (NA: CO 5/111, f. 118). These musters suggest that Philip Ranlet’s skepticism of the New York evacuation figures may be overstated: Philip Ranlet, The New York Loyalists (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986), pp. 193–94.
7. “A General Description of the Province of Nova Scotia … done by Lieutenant Colonel Morse Chief Engineer in America, upon a Tour of the Province in the Autumn of the year 1783, and the summer 1784. Under the Orders and Instructions of His Excellency Sir Guy Carleton … Given at Head Quarters at New York the 28th Day of July 1783,” LAC: Robert Morse Fonds, MG 21, p. 43.
8. John Parr to Lord Shelburne, December 16, 1783, and Parr to Lord Sydney, August 13, 1784. NA: CO 217/56, f. 126 and f. 216.
9. “General Return of all the Disbanded Troops and other Loyalists settling in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick who are now receiving the Royal Bounty of Provisions,” Halifax, November 25, 1785, NA: CO 217/41, f. 238.
10. “Return of Persons who Emigrated from East Florida to different parts of the British Dominions,” signed by William Brown, Commissioner, London, May 2, 1786, NA: CO 5/561, f. 407.
11. “Muster-Book of Free Black Settlement of Birchtown 1784,” LAC: Shelburne, Nova Scotia Collection, MG 9, B 9–14, Microfilm Reel H-984, ff. 172–207.
12. “An Effective List of all the Loyalists in Canada receiving provisions from the King’s Store, that are not Charged for the same; with an exact accompt of the Number of their Families, their age, & Sex, & the quantity of provisions pr day, with remarks opposite their Respective Names,” July 1, 1779; “Return of Royalists & their families who receive provisions, not paying for the same at following places, Commencing the 25th day of September 1779 & Ending the 24th of October followg. Inclusive”; “Return of Families of Loyalists Receiving Provisions out of the Different magazines or Depots in the District of Montreal from the 25th of Octbr to the 24th of Novembr 1780”; “Return of Unincorporated Loyalists and Families who Received their Provisions gratis from Government from the 25th of Decembr 1781 to the 24th Janr 1782 Inclusive”; “Return of Unincorporated Refugee Loyalists in the Province of Quebec, exclusive of those at the upper Ports,” November 3, 1783, BL: Haldimand Papers, Add. Mss. 21826, ff. 10–13, 24–30, 33–44, 62–69, 103.
13. “Return of disbanded Troops & Loyalists settled upon the King’s Lands in the Province of Quebec in the Year 1784.” BL: Haldimand Papers, Add. Mss. 21828, f. 141.
14. “Estimate of the Quantity of Lands that may be required to settle the K. R. R. New York, the Corps of Loyal, and King’s Rangers, and Refugee Loyalists in the Province of Quebec, including those who have lately Arrived from New York,” BL: Haldimand Papers, Add. Mss. 21829, f. 62.
15. Alan Taylor, The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution (New York: Knopf, 2006), pp. 122–23. J. M. Bumsted, A History of the Canadian Peoples (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 91.
16. Already receiving provisions there in 1778 were 191 refugees: “List of the Loyalists and their Families lodged at Machiche, 2d December 1778,” BL: Add. Mss. 21826, f. 3.
17. “A Return of Refugees and their Slaves arrived in the Province of East Florida from the Provinces of Georgia and South Carolina taken upon Oath to the 23rd December 1782,” NA: CO 5/560, f. 507. (Cf. an earlier account of 2,165 white and 3,340 black refugees, in “A Return of Refugees and their Slaves arrived in East Florida from Georgia and South Carolina taken upon Oath to the 14th November 1782,” NA: CO 5/560, f. 477.) “A Return of Refugees & their Slaves arrived in this Province from Charlestown, at the time of the Evacuation thereof & not included in the last return, the 31st December 1783 [sic],” April 20, 1783, NYPL: Carleton Papers, Box 31, no. 7468. My figure differs from that provided by W. H. Siebert, who adds together the numbers provided in the musters of November 14 and December 23, 1782. I see no reason to assume, as Siebert does, that these represented separate populations, rather than a cumulative figure. W. H. Siebert, Loyalists in East Florida 1774 to 1785: The Most Important Documents Pertaining Thereto, Edited with an Accompanying Narrative, 2 vols. (Deland: Florida State Historical Society, 1929), I, pp. 130–31.
18. Lord Hawke, “Observations on East Florida,” enclosed in Bernardo del Campo to Conde del Floridablanca, June 8, 1783. John Walton Caughey, ed., East Florida, 1783–85: A File of Documents Assembled, and Many of Them Translated by Joseph Byrne Lockey (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1949), pp. 120–21. For a more detailed analysis of slave ownership among these refugees, see Carole Watterson Troxler, “Refuge, Resistance, and Reward: The Southern Loyalists’ Claim on East Florida,” Journal of Southern History 55, no. 4 (November 1989): 580–85.
19. Patrick Tonyn to Sydney, May 15, 1783, NA: CO 5/560, f. 584.
20. Tonyn to Admiral Digby, September 10, 1783, NA: CO 5/560, f. 698.
21. “Return of Persons who Emigrated from East Florida to different parts of the British Dominions,” May 2, 1786, NA: CO 5/561, f. 407.
22. Tonyn to Sydney, April 4, 1785, quoted in Caughey, ed., pp. 498–99.
23. “Return of Persons who Emigrated from East Florida to different parts of the British Dominions,” May 2, 1786, NA: CO 5/561, f. 407.
24. Norton, The British-Americans, pp. 36–37; Mary Beth Norton, “Eighteenth-Century American Women in Peace and War: The Case of the Loyalists,” William & Mary Quarterly 33, no. 3 (July 1976): 386–409. Mary Beth Norton, personal communication, January 5, 2010.
25. Pybus, “Jefferson’s Faulty Math.”
26. “Returns of Loyalists &c. gone from New York to Nova Scotia &c. p returns in the Commissary General’s Office,” New York, October 12, 1783, NA: CO 5/111, f. 118.
27. W. H. Siebert, “The Legacy of the American Revolution to the British West Indies and Bahamas,” Ohio State University Bulletin 17, no. 27 (April 1913): 21. This figure comes from a copy in the Carleton Papers. The “Return of Loyalists &c. gone from New York to Nova Scotia, Quebec & abbacoe as per Returns in the Commissary General’s Office at New York,” New York, November 24, 1783, NA: CO 5/111, f. 236—is damaged and the data for Abaco no longer legible.
28. “Return of Persons who Emigrated from East Florida to different parts of the British Dominions,” May 2, 1786, NA: CO 5/561, f. 407.
29. Journal of the House of Assembly of the Bahamas, April 28, 1789. Department of Archives, Nassau: Journal of the House of Assembly of the Bahamas, 12 May 1784 to 20 September 1794, p. 248. Cf. Michael Craton, A History of the Bahamas (London: Collins, 1968), pp. 165–66.
30. [William Wylly], A Short Account of the Bahamas Islands, Their Climate, Productions, &c. (London, 1789), p. 7.
31. Craton, p. 164.
32. Siebert, “Legacy,” p. 15.
33. “Return of Persons who Emigrated from East Florida to different parts of the British Dominions,” May 2, 1786, NA: CO 5/561, f. 407.
34. Trevor Burnard, “European Migration to Jamaica, 1655–1780,” William & Mary Quarterly 53, no. 4 (October 1996): 772.
36. As stated by Robert Morse, “A General Description of the Province of Nova Scotia,” LAC: Robert Morse Fonds, MG 21, p. 43. On numbers for the Maritimes, see James W. St. G. Walker, The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783–1870 (London: Longman, 1976), pp. 11–12. For Quebec, see Robin W. Winks, The Blacks in Canada (Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press, 1997), pp. 33–34.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Printed Primary Sources
Adams, John. The Works of John Adams. 10 vols. Edited by Charles Francis Adams. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1856.
Adventures of Jonathan Corncob, loyal American refugee. London, 1787.
Bartlet, William S. The Frontier Missionary: A Memoir of the Life of the Rev. Jacob Bailey, A.M. Boston: Ide and Dutton, 1853.
Bartram, William. Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida. Philadelphia: James and Johnson, 1791.
Baynton, Benjamin. Authentic Memoirs of William Augustus Bowles. London, 1791.
Beaver, Philip. African Memoranda: Relative to an Attempt to Establish a British Settlement on the Island of Bulama. London: C. and R. Baldwin, 1805.
Beckford, William. A Descriptive Account of the Island of Jamaica. 2 vols. London, 1790.
Brymner, Douglas, ed. Report on Canadian Archives. Ottawa: Brown Chamberlin, 1891.
Campbell, Archibald. Journal of an Expedition against the Rebels of Georgia. Edited by Colin Campbell. Darien, Ga.: Ashantilly Press, 1981.
Candler, Allen D., ed. The Revolutionary Records of the State of Georgia. Augusta, Ga.: Franklin-Turner Company, 1908.
Carretta, Vincent, ed. Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1996.
The Case and Claim of the American Loyalists, Impartially Stated and Considered, Printed by Order of Their Agents. London, 1783.