The Hudson River Valley Loyalists in British North America: Connection, Community, and Continuity

Abstract

The American Revolutionary War brought tremendous pain and suffering to Loyalists in New York's Hudson River Valley. They endured violence, persecution, and dislocation. When the war ended, thousands of Loyalists chose to leave their homes for a new life in British North America (Canada). As a civil war, the Revolution attempted to dissolve existing community bonds. But the Hudson Valley Loyalists show that many relationships endured despite the conflict, and that instead these social webs remained central to how they found their way in the postwar British Empire. They settled near one another in exile, assisted each other when applying for postwar compensation, shared similar political philosophies in provincial politics, maintained contact with family in New York, and even intermarried. Individual relationships and community were central to how the Hudson Valley Loyalists rebuilt their lives after a violent civil war. In exile, they created a social web consisting of Loyalists, their children, American citizens, and Late Loyalists, that bound them for several generations.