Posted on 07/04/2006 4:57:26 AM PDT by radar101
In June 1776, just a month before the Declaration of Independence was ratified, the white men of Barnstable, Mass., voted on whether America should break its bonds with Great Britain. The tally: 30 for independence, 35 against and 65 abstentions.
These days, the Colonists who opposed the revolution have been all but forgotten. Yet, in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War, as many as a fifth of those living in America wanted to remain British subjects. Probably at least that many again were apathetic or opportunistically waiting to see which side won. The American Revolution, many historians argue, was also a civil war.
The loyalists or Tories, as the opponents of independence were known, came from all social and economic classes. An act of banishment, passed against some 300 Massachusetts loyalists in 1778, listed them by trade or profession: About a third were merchants or professional men, a third were farmers, and the rest were artisans, laborers or small shopkeepers. Many Southern slaves and American Indians also believed they would fare better under continued British rule.
Clearly, some loyalists were motivated by self-interest or greed; Britain was paying their salaries or buying their goods. Others believed only oligarchies of well-bred intellectuals were competent to govern a country. They looked down on revolutionary leaders as “men whom nobody knows.” And some were convinced that Great Britain, then the world's most powerful nation, would make short work of America's shabby rebels.
Still others, lovers of order and tradition, felt emotionally attached to Britain's flag and what it stood for – a constitutional monarchy with proven mechanisms for resolving disputes and maintaining social stability. “They pointed to the amazing growth and prosperity of the Colonies and to the great freedom they enjoyed – how much more could a reasonable man want?” wrote Wallace Brown in his 1965 book, “The King's Friends.”
The loyalists also feared the “madness of the multitude,” the violence and anarchy of rebellion and the possible despotism of an American Caesar.
“Almost all of the loyalists were, in one way or another, more afraid of America than they were of Britain,” said William H. Nelson in the 1961 “The American Tory.”
Poorly organized and without unifying leaders, the loyalists never stood a chance against the zealous Patriots. In 1774, the first Continental Congress authorized local governments to form “committees of inspection,” which would test their citizens' allegiance to independence. People who refused to take the Patriots' oath often lost their homes and were prohibited from working. The General Court of Massachusetts advised Harvard College's overseers to question their faculty and “dismiss any instructors who appeared to be unfriendly to American liberty.” At least 75,000 loyalists fled to Canada, England or the West Indies during or just after the war.
Violence against loyalists wasn't uncommon. Some were tarred and feathered. Hundreds were jailed. One Delaware loyalist, convicted of aiding and abetting the enemy, was sentenced to be hanged “but not 'til you be dead for you must be cut down alive ... and then your head must be severed from your body and your body divided into four quarters and these must be at the disposal of the Supreme Authority of the state.”
Until the 19th century, most historians of the American Revolution echoed Thomas Paine's opinion that “servile, slavish, self-interested fear (was) the foundation of Toryism.” History is, after all, written by the victors. But the Civil War helped change Americans' notions of loyalty and rebellion, and some historians began crediting loyalists with the courage to maintain a deeply unpopular minority view.
Maybe they were even men and women of principle, such as Daniel Leonard, a Massachusetts loyalist, who wrote, “When government is destroyed, whether by men who love liberty or by men who do not, there are then no laws to protect the weak against the powerful or the good against the wicked.”
The Oneida Indians (who had only recently adopted the remaining Mohican Indians into their nation) allied themselves with the 14 colonies against the British and the other Iriquois tribes.
The Circle was broken, the council fires covered, and it was the end of the Iriquoian coprosperity sphere.
The Oneida/Mohican group WON. Then, the State of New York, in connivance with tens of thousands of illegal aliens, stole their land.
What they did was declare the Oneida to be "white people", and since "white people" couldn't own Indian land in New York, they took their land away from them.
A remnant of the Oneida identified under the "Munsee Band" (composed mostly of Stockbridge from Massachusetts, and Mohican from Hudson River communities, e.g. Schodack) live on the shores of Lake Winnebago. They operate a casino or two between there and Green Bay, WI.
Another band of Oneida managed to create Turning Stone Casino/Resort at Verona, NY. They are using the revenues to repurchase the lands stolen from them by the State of New York.
After two centuries of being treated quite brutally by their American allies, the Oneida/Mohican are finally in a position to get back their heritage.
In South Carolina, the Crown continued to send in new settlers throughout the Revolution in a reprise of the technique the Crown had used to push back the Spanish a century before.
In short, many of the "new settlers" were actually hired terrorists.
What you are forgetting is that this was a war, not some sort of "crime wave". People had only a few tools to defend themselves and they used them.
Confusion over definitions always leads to misunderstandings. Leftists are always trying to obfuscate and confuse by revising the meanings of words to their advantage. (I'm not implying you are a leftist. Unfortunately conservatives tend to use definitions invented by the left).
So what is a liberal, classical liberal, progressive or conservative? And how does it relate to the word "loyalist" in this articles context?
Tories and Loyalists are the modern day equivalent of today's "elitists" and their clients. As embodied by the John Kerrys, Warren Buffetts, Hollywood big shots, various liberal snobs of the world and their non elitist clients. Clients of the elitists are for instance: Jesse Jackson, his followers, the NEA and big labor union leadership who have a financial interest in the status quo. i.e. "dictionary conservatives".
They have nothing in common with modern day "conservatives". Today's definition of the term "conservative" used in the context of a political "type" is equivalent to yesterday's "liberal". But since the "left" (modern day totalitarians) hijacked the good word for their own nefarious purposes we've had to use the term "conservative" meaning "classical liberal". Our founding fathers were "classical liberals".
Or another way of looking at it is that we tried to "conserve" yesterday's liberal (classical) traditions.
See link below
My relatives in the Maryland 400 were pretty typical of their times ~ and it wasn't at the top, and it wasn't at the bottom.
My relatives/ancestors in the various regiments raised in NY lived well before the war, but in the end the Brits stole all their farm equipment. Took them 20 years to get reimbursed for that. They lost 70% of their family members as well. Still, these guys were walking around with their own firearms, owned horses, could freely hunt the land everywhere to the West (beyond the Allegheny), and were far from starving to death.
In winning the American Revolution the former Colonists moved rapidly into the Ohio Valley and around the Great Lakes ~ their descendants still aren't poor dirt farmers.
They were cowards, the same cowards that we have here today. Weak, small minded people who can't see beyond their own soft lives, who care nothing for others or for how the world really is.
You're demonstrating a lack of understanding that's breathtaking. Yes Clinton's roots are Jacksonian and he is apparently of Scot Irish descent as was John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew Jackson and Dolly Parton. To name just a few.
You are taking an anecdotal data point (Clinton the uncouth grifter) and extrapolating it to the whole of Jacksonian democrats. Not good.
You've inadvertently made my point. Many Jacksonians were indeed considered uncouth by the elitists and were looked down on. They were largely uneducated back woodsmen and farmers during the founding of this nation. They were a rough bunch no doubt. Liberals refer to their descendants as "rednecks". They fought in all our wars and did most of the bleeding. They were, with few exceptions, the "common man" not like the Torys or Loyalists the article refers to..
Many of the Reagan democrats were indeed Jacksonian. But it is not necessary to be uncouth and uneducated to be a Jacksonian. And converesely it is not necesary to be of good morals and virtue to be an elitist.
You are correct. We're the losers now, because all of these casinos are opening up.
Gad!!!!
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