Black Patriots and Loyalists


Book Description

In this thought-provoking history, Gilbert illuminates how the fight for abolition and equality - not just for the independence of the few but for the freedom and self-government of the many - has been central to the American story from its inception."--Pub. desc.




Jamaica Ladies


Book Description

Jamaica Ladies is the first systematic study of the free and freed women of European, Euro-African, and African descent who perpetuated chattel slavery and reaped its profits in the British Empire. Their actions helped transform Jamaica into the wealthiest slaveholding colony in the Anglo-Atlantic world. Starting in the 1670s, a surprisingly large and diverse group of women helped secure English control of Jamaica and, crucially, aided its developing and expanding slave labor regime by acquiring enslaved men, women, and children to protect their own tenuous claims to status and independence. Female colonists employed slaveholding as a means of advancing themselves socially and financially on the island. By owning others, they wielded forms of legal, social, economic, and cultural authority not available to them in Britain. In addition, slaveholding allowed free women of African descent, who were not far removed from slavery themselves, to cultivate, perform, and cement their free status. Alongside their male counterparts, women bought, sold, stole, and punished the people they claimed as property and vociferously defended their rights to do so. As slavery's beneficiaries, these women worked to stabilize and propel this brutal labor regime from its inception.




Scars of Independence


Book Description

Tory hunting -- Britain's dilemma -- Rubicon -- Plundering protectors -- Violated bodies -- Slaughterhouses -- Black holes -- Skiver them! -- Town-destroyer -- Americanizing the war -- Man for man -- Returning losers




Liberty's Exiles


Book Description

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER This groundbreaking book offers the first global history of the loyalist exodus to Canada, the Caribbean, Sierra Leone, India, and beyond. At the end of the American Revolution, sixty thousand Americans loyal to the British cause fled the United States and became refugees throughout the British Empire. Liberty’s Exiles tells their story. This surprising new account of the founding of the United States and the shaping of the post-revolutionary world traces extraordinary journeys like the one of Elizabeth Johnston, a young mother from Georgia, who led her growing family to Britain, Jamaica, and Canada, questing for a home; black loyalists such as David George, who escaped from slavery in Virginia and went on to found Baptist congregations in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone; and Mohawk Indian leader Joseph Brant, who tried to find autonomy for his people in Ontario. Ambitious, original, and personality-filled, this book is at once an intimate narrative history and a provocative analysis that changes how we see the revolution’s “losers” and their legacies.




Military Loyalists of the American Revolution


Book Description

This book focuses not only on those officers residing within the borders of the 13 rebellious American colonies, but also on those of the Canadian command and the officers serving in the Caribbean Basin. Part One lists officers alphabetically, including each officer's dates of birth and death, his home and station in life at the outbreak of war, and his family relationships, along with his years of service, military rank and other relevant notes on his military career. Part Two includes brief descriptions of Loyalist military organizations, arranged into four geographical groupings indicating command authority.




The Loyalists in North Carolina During the Revolution


Book Description

To the genealogist the Appendices in the back of the book will doubtless hold the greatest interest, for herein are found (1) lists of soldiers and civilians who supported the Crown throughout the Revolution; (2) lists of Loyalists who suffered land confiscation; (3) lists of Loyalists who made application to Great Britain for compensation for loss of office or property; and (4) lists of North Carolina Loyalists who received pensions from Great Britain.com/item_detail.cfm?ID=7144">7144.




Partisans and Redcoats


Book Description

From one of the South′s foremost historians, this is the dramatic story of the conflict in South Carolina that was one of the most pivotal contributions to the American Revolution. In 1779, Britain strategised a war to finally subdue the rebellious American colonies with a minimum of additional time, effort, and blood. Setting sail from New York harbour with 8,500 ground troops, a powerful British fleet swung south towards South Carolina. One year later, Charleston fell. And as King George′s forces pushed inland and upward, it appeared the six-year-old colonial rebellion was doomed to defeat. In a stunning work on forgotten history, acclaimed historian Walter Edgar takes the American Revolution far beyond Lexington and Concord to re-create the pivotal months in a nation′s savage struggle for freedom. It is a story of military brilliance and devastating human blunders - and the courage of an impossibly outnumbered force of demoralised patriots who suffered terribly at the hands of a merciless enemy, yet slowly gained confidence through a series of small triumphs that convinced them their war could be won. Alive with incident and colour.




Redcoats on the Cape Fear


Book Description

Nestled on the banks of the Cape Fear River, Wilmington, North Carolina, remains famous as a blockade-running port during the Civil War. Not as renowned is the city's equally vital role during the Revolution. Through the port came news, essential supplies, and critical materials for the Continental Army. Both sides contended for the city and both sides occupied it at different times. Its merchant-based economy created a hotbed of dissension over issues of trade and taxes before the Revolution, and the presence of numerous Loyalists among Whigs vying for independence generated considerable tension among civilians. Based on more than 100 eyewitness accounts and other primary sources, this volume chronicles the fascinating story of Wilmington and the Lower Cape Fear during the Revolution.




Redcoats and Petticoats


Book Description

When the American Revolution arrives in Thomas Strong's sleepy Long Island village, his life is turned upside down. His church becomes a fort for the British, and a company of Redcoats are quartered in his family's home. But worst of all, his father is arrested as a traitor and taken away. It's no wonder that Thomas's mother seems to have been affected in the head. She washes and rewashes handkerchiefs and petticoats so that her clothesline is continually full of laundry. The errands on which she sends Thomas are not only peculiar but dangerous, since they take him right past a Redcoat encampment. At first Thomas doesn't know what to make of his mother's behavior, but as he keeps his eyes and ears open, he begins to suspect that things are not necessarily as they seem. Katherine Kirkpatrick's captivating story is based on the Culper Spy Ring, which operated on Long Island and in Connecticut from 1778 - 1783. Its purpose was to send messages to General George Washington about the activities of the British Army in New York City. Ronald Himler's dramatic watercolor illustrations bring this pivotal period of U.S. history to life for contemporary readers. Katherine Kirkpatrick grew up near Setauket in Stony Brook, New York. She first learned of Anna (Nancy) Strong's role in the Culper Spy Ring from Strong's great-great-granddaughter, Kate Strong, whom she interviewed for a fourth-grade project. Kirkpatrick has published eight books for children and young adults, both fiction and nonfiction. She lives in Seattle, Washington. Visit her at http: //katherinekirkpatrick.com . Ronald Himler has illustrated over a hundred books for children. His paintings also appear in art galleries throughout the Southwest, where he is highly acclaimed for his portraits of the Plains Indians. He lives in Tucson, Arizona. To find out more about his work, visit http: //www.ronhimler.com/.




From Revolution to Reunion


Book Description

This social history of post-Revolutionary South Carolina examines the successful reconciliation of Patriots and Loyalists. The American Revolution was a vicious civil war fought between families and neighbors. Nowhere was this truer than in South Carolina. Yet, after the Revolution, South Carolina’s victorious Patriots offered vanquished Loyalists a prompt and generous legal and social reintegration. From Revolution to Reunion investigates the way in which South Carolinians, Patriot and Loyalist, managed to reconcile their bitter differences and reunite to heal South Carolina and create a stable foundation for the new United States. Rebecca Brannon considers rituals and emotions, as well as historical memory, to produce a complex and nuanced interpretation of the reconciliation process in post-Revolutionary South Carolina, detailing how Loyalists and Patriots worked together to heal their society. She frames the process in a larger historical context by comparing South Carolina’s experience with that of other states. Brannon highlights how Loyalists apologized but also became vital contributors to the new experiment in self-government and liberty. In return, the state government reinstated almost all the Loyalists by 1784. South Carolinians succeeded in creating a generous and lasting reconciliation between former enemies, but in the process they downplayed the dangers of civil war—which may have made it easier for South Carolinians to choose that path a second time.