Loyalist Trails UELAC Newsletter, 2017 Archive

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“Loyalist Trails” 2017-20: May 14, 2017

In this issue:
- 2017 UELAC Conference: Discover Your Roots
- Lorenzo Sabine: The American Historian Who Venerated the Loyalists, by Stephen Davidson
- Study Early America? You Should Look at the Loyalist Claims: Steph Walters
- Book: Fire and Desolation, by Gavin K. Watt
- Book: Paper and Spit: Family Found: How DNA and Genealogy Revealed My first Parents' Identity, by Don Anderson
- RevWarTalk: 09/17/1775 Siege of Fort St. Jean in Quebec Begins
- Atlantic Loyalist Connections: Hannah Ingraham, A Child's Perspective
- Junto: Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, Jamestown Women
- JAR: How many troops did Cornwallis actually bring to the Battle of Guilford?
- Ben Franklin's World: The Nat Turner Revolt, with Patrick Breen
- Three Copies: Loyalists and their Sons and Daughters In the Long Point Settlement
- Where in the World?
- Region and Branch Bits
- From the Twittersphere and Beyond
- Additions to the Loyalist Directory
- Queries
+ Who is This Man? An Old Portrait is a Puzzle

Articles

2017 UELAC Conference: Discover Your Roots

June 22 - 25, 2017; London, Ontario

Hosted by: London & Western Ontario Branch and Grand River Branch

Registration and details.

Lorenzo Sabine: The American Historian Who Venerated the Loyalists

One of the first resources that genealogists and historians consult as they investigate the loyalist era is The American Loyalists, a book that was initially published in 1847. Also known as Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, this book contains data on over 4,000 Americans who maintained their allegiance to the British Empire. Given the fact that The American Loyalists was first on sale a mere 60 years after the War of Independence concluded, it resonates with the voices of a much maligned generation that had only just gone to its grave. Most amazing of all, this chronicle of the loyalist experience was written by an American, a man named Lorenzo Sabine.

Sabine took a great risk when his biographical dictionary was published in 1847. Loyalists were still regarded as traitors -- the villains of the American Revolution. (Consider how our own generation still regards the Nazis seven decades after the end of World War Two.) What would possess a good Yankee to spend years researching those who had turned their backs on an independent, republican American? Why would he risk being seen as an advocate and sympathizer for the "losers" of the American Revolution?

In his introduction to The American Loyalists, Sabine provides us with his rationale. He spent years of painstaking research, correspondence and fact-gathering, believing that he had "done something for the cause of human brotherhood, by lessening the rancor even the hate which long existed between the children of the winners an the children of the expatriated losers, in the civil war which dismembered the British Empire."

A noble goal, indeed, but geography also played an important part in Sabine's fascination with American loyalists. "As my home, for twenty-eight years, was on the eastern frontier of the Union, where the graves and the children of the Loyalists were around me in every direction; as I enjoyed free and continual intercourse with persons of Loyalist descent; as I have had the use of family papers, and of rare documents; as I have made journeys to confer with the living, and pilgrimages to graveyards, in order to complete the records of the dead", Sabine noted. He hoped that his research would "add something to the stock of knowledge ... {for} this interesting branch of our Revolutionary Annals".

Moving to Eastport, Maine as a teenager was a pivotal event in Sabine's life. Before that time --as he confessed to a fellow historian-- he was "revolution mad". Until his family moved east in 1814, it never crossed his mind that "there was more than one side to the Revolution." To Sabine, "Every 'Tory' was as bad as bad could be, every 'son of Liberty' as good as possible."

Entering the working world as a clerk, Sabine went on to found his own trading firm, became the editor of the Eastport Sentinel, helped to found two institutions of higher learning, served in the Maine House of Representatives, and was Eastport's deputy customs collector. At some point in all of this sea-faring and journalistic work, Sabine came to a more sympathetic understanding of the loyalists. Despite some negative reaction to his first loyalist essays in the North American Review, Sabine continued to solicit stories of loyal Americans from their descendants, history books, primary documents, and biographies.

After outlining the breadth of his research in the introduction to The American Loyalists, Sabine wrote, "Of several of the Loyalists who were high in office, of others who were men of talents and acquirements, and of still others who were of less consideration, I have been able, after long and extensive researches, to learn scarcely more than their names, or the single fact, that, for their political opinions or offences, they were proscribed and banished. But I have deemed it best to exclude no one, whether of exalted or humble station, of whose attachment to the cause of the mother country I have found satisfactory, or even reasonable, evidence."

Given that many histories of the mid-19th century focused on the accomplishments of the upper classes, Sabine's willingness to gather details pertaining to the most humble of loyalists is commendable. His attention to the wider scope of the loyalist population overturned a number of common myths that were accepted as given truths in Sabine's era.

The historian Eileen Cheng summarizes Sabine's discoveries in The Plain and Noble Garb of Truth. His exhaustive analysis challenged the belief that the American Revolution had represented a unanimous movement for independence. Sabine asserted that the loyalists were "powerful in all the thirteen colonies" and "in some of them they were nearly, if not quite, equal in number to its friends." He came to see that the conflict was, in fact, a bloody civil war, and he did not withold any gory details of the horrific violence that ensued. "Whatever the guilt of the Tories, the Whigs disgraced their cause and the American name." Sabine deplored the tendency to glorify the patriots at the expense of the loyalists. "All who called themselves Whigs were not necessarily and on that account disinterested and virtuous, and the proper objects of unlimited praise", while "the Tories were not, to a man, selfish and vicious, and deserving of unmeasured and indiscriminate reproach".

Remember, this is an American historian writing these words just sixty years after the War of Independence. It is amazing that Sabine did not suffer the same tarring and feathering that was meted out to so many of the loyalists in his biographical dictionary. Fortunately for him, he published his book at a time when Americans were beginning to appreciate the fact that a country could operate with a party system in which people could hold opposing views and still have patriot intentions. If one understood that conflicts between political parties were disagreements over the best way of protecting a country's interests, then healthy competition between differing parties was vital to the preservation of liberty.

Sabine maintained that both the patriots and the loyalists loved their homeland, but the loyalists disagreed with how to achieve the best for America. In its day, this was quite a revolutionary thought. However, the historian did not hold both sides in equal regard; in the end, he felt that the patriot cause was the correct one. "While intending to be just, I have felt that I might also be generous. The winners in the Revolutionary strife are now twenty millions of people; and strong, rich, and prosperous, can afford to speak of the losers in terms of moderation."

A bit condescending? Yes, but nevertheless, Sabine was brave enough to criticize the actions of the patriots. Learn more about his defense of the loyalists in next week's Loyalist Trails.

To secure permission to reprint this article, email Stephen Davidson.

Study Early America? You Should Look at the Loyalist Claims: Steph Walters

(May 8, 2017) I find it interesting that when I bring up the Loyalist Claims in my Early Americanist circles that the majority of people scratch their heads when I ask if they've checked for evidence in this vast document collection. Why would someone who studies anything outside of loyalism care to look through the thousands of documents dedicated to a mass reimbursement program? Well, I've got about 2000 words to go, so let me convince you. In 1783, the Loyalist Claims Commission was created by parliament with the purpose of compensating those who'd lost their livelihoods and/or been exiled for supporting the Crown during the Revolutionary War. Loyalists either submitted a claim with supporting documents or they were interviewed in person to prove their losses and loyalty for themselves and as witnesses for other loyalists who were in similar circumstances. While the commission was only supposed to last a few years, it lasted nearly a decade as loyalists from across the empire poured in asking for compensation. Some people even submitted claims as late as the 1800s. Loyalists were asked to submit an affidavit of their loyalty and attach any type of evidence that proved their loyalty and their property losses. Many of these claims included witness testimonies from other loyalists who knew each other before the war or served in military regiments together. These testimonies were used in instances where evidence was destroyed or left behind. So neighbors and friends could personally vouch for loyalty and property losses. The original commission included at least one loyalist representative from every ex-colony and weighed whether the loyalist's claim and losses were worth a monetary compensation. Loyalists could be completely denied for their losses due to insufficient evidence, or if proven a true loyalist paid one lump sum, or receive an allowance per annum. Full compensation requests were rarely granted. Instead, limited or partial compensation was the norm. If the loyalist was denied or believed they did not receive sufficient compensation they could submit additional claims.

Loyalist Trails UELAC Newsletter, 2017 Archive

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