Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World

Supported by French naval forces, revolutionary troops dealt the final major military defeat of the war to the British at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781. However, the conflict lingered as a bitter civil war. Guy Carleton (1724-1808), in charge of British forces in North America, faced a daunting task in evacuating British-held cities in the newly independent United States, with up to 100,000 soldiers and loyalist civilians depending on his leadership. The job “required nothing short of deconstructing the apparatus of an empire from the bottom up” (59).

In 1782, amidst ongoing skirmishes between patriot and loyalist militias, Carleton began the evacuation of Charleston and Savannah, putting approximately 20,000 people in transit. Southern loyalists primarily left for St. Augustine in East Florida, in part because of the relative ease of transporting enslaved people to this British-held territory.

While loyalists fled the Southern colonies, American and British diplomats negotiated the terms of the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Due in part to vehement rejection of compensation to loyalists from the new United States government by negotiator Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), the treaty allowed individual states to decide if and how to help remaining loyalists, but only those who had not taken up arms in the revolution. Britain gave control of its Florida territory to Spain in exchange for Gibraltar, complicating the future for loyalists recently relocated to St. Augustine.

George Liele (circa 1750-1820), born into slavery in Georgia, left Savannah for Kingston, Jamaica as an indentured servant. Elizabeth Johnston followed her husband, a loyalist officer, to Charleston, where she gave birth to her first daughter. She then moved on to St. Augustine while her husband deployed to New York. Scottish-born John Cruden (1754-1787), in charge of sequestered estates, property seized from patriots, strove to distinguish between people who were legally freed from slavery and those still legally held by patriot enslavers, preventing the latter from leaving during the exodus. Cruden then departed for St. Augustine. After loyalist inspectors deemed him a legally emancipated free man, David George departed from Charleston with his family for Nova Scotia.

Carleton faced the challenge of evacuating New York in 1783, involving the movement of 20,000 troops and heavy military equipment, as well as 35,000 loyalist civilians. Carleton successfully petitioned the British government to reward resettled loyalists with land to facilitate the transition and ensure future loyalty to the British crown. Approximately 30,000 loyalist refugees from New York went to Nova Scotia, with others going to Quebec and the Bahamas.

The terms of the Treaty of Paris stipulated that the loyalist exodus should include no one legally enslaved by patriot Americans. Carleton implemented an inspection process to verify the legal freedom of formerly enslaved people, listed in The Book of Negroes as they departed New York. This record book constitutes “a genuinely exceptional document of exodus; nothing like it exists for the thousands of white loyalist refugees” (89).

Evacuating Florida was also a difficult undertaking, involving approximately 12,000 people, particularly bitter since most refugees faced multiple incidents of displacement in their exodus from the United States. Most loyalists in St. Augustine fled to the Bahamas.

Beverley Robinson, who helped Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) defect from the revolutionary to the British side in the war, resettled in England. A formerly enslaved man named Boston King (circa 1760-1802) left New York for Nova Scotia. Elizabeth Johnston left St. Augustine, following her husband to Britain, with plans to settle their growing young family in Scotland. Creek leaders who supported loyalist militias during the war met with Thomas Brown and asked the British government to give them land within the British Empire. Brown conveyed this request to Carleton, who discouraged the idea. John Cruden also continued his impractical mission of ensuring only those who were legally freed from slavery left the United States, a task his fellow officials did not understand, as it seemed to assist the enemy. Cruden became a fervent advocate for maintaining a loyalist colony within Spanish Florida, but the Spanish government refused his plan. Cruden eventually relocated to the Bahamas.