United Empire Loyalist

Reception of the American Loyalists by Great Britain in the Year 1783. The engraving depicts Loyalists seeking aid from Britannia following their expulsion from the United States.

United Empire Loyalists (or Loyalists) is an honorific given in by Lord Dorchester, the governor of Quebec and Governor-general of British North America, to American Loyalistswho resettled in British North America ^[1] during or after the American Revolution. The Loyalists were also referred to informally as the "King's Loyal Americans". At the time, the demonym Canadian or Canadien was used to refer to the indigenous First Nations groups and the French settlers inhabiting Province of Quebec.^[2]

They settled primarily in Nova Scotia, and the Province of Quebec (including the Eastern Townships, and Montreal). The influx of loyalist settlers resulted in the creation of several new colonies. In 1784, New Brunswick was partitioned from the Colony of Nova Scotia after significant loyalist resettlement around the Bay of Fundy.^[3]^[4] The influx of loyalist refugees also resulted in the Province of Quebec's division into Lower Canada (present-day Quebec), and Upper Canada (present-day Ontario) in 1791. The Crown gave them land grants of 200 acres (81 ha) per person to encourage their resettlement, as it especially wanted to develop the frontier of Upper Canada. This resettlement added many English speakers to the Canadian population. It was the beginning of new waves of immigration that established a predominantly English-speakingpopulation in the future Canada both west and east of the modern Quebec border.

HistoryEdit

American RevolutionEdit

Depiction of Loyalistrefugees on their way to the Canadas during the American Revolution.

Following the end of the American Revolutionary War and the signing of the Treaty of Parisin 1783, both Loyalist soldiers and civilians were evacuated from New York City, most heading for Canada. Many Loyalists had already migrated to Canada, especially from New York and northern New England, where violence against them had increased during the war.

The Crown-allotted land in Canada was sometimes allotted according to which Loyalist regiment a man had fought in. This Loyalist resettlement was critical to the development of present-day Ontario, and some 10,000 refugees went to Quebec (including the Eastern Townships and modern-day Ontario). But Nova Scotia (including modern-day New Brunswick) received three times that number: about 35,000-40,000 Loyalist refugees.^[5]These included some 3,000 Black Loyalists, slaves who had gained freedom from the British for working with them during the war. At the same time, some white Loyalists in Nova Scotia had brought their slaves with them, and held them until slavery was abolished in 1834. Prince Edward Island received 2,000 refugees.

An unknown but substantial number of individuals did not stay; they eventually returned to the United States. As some families split in their loyalties during the war years, many Loyalists in Canada continued to maintain close ties with relatives in the United States. They conducted commerce across the border with little regard to British trade laws.^[6] In the 1790s, the offer of land and low taxes, which were one-quarter those in the Republic, for allegiance by Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe resulted in the arrival of 30,000 Americans often referred to as Late Loyalists. By the outbreak of the War of 1812, of the 110,000 inhabitants of Upper Canada, 20,000 were the initial Loyalists, 60,000 were later American immigrants and their descendants, and 30,000 were immigrants from the UK, their descendants or some Quebecois. The later arrival of many of the inhabitants of Upper Canada suggests that land was the main reason for immigration.

ResettlementEdit

The arrival of the Loyalists after the Revolutionary War led to the division of Canada into the provinces of Upper Canada (what is now southern Ontario) and Lower Canada (today's southern Quebec). They arrived and were largely settled in groups by ethnicity and religion. Many soldiers settled with others of the regiments they had served with.^[7] The settlers came from every social class and 13 Colonies unlike the depiction of them in the Sandham painting which suggests the arrivals were upper-class immigrants dressed in their best and about to go the Ball.

The Coming of the Loyalists, painting by Henry Sandhamshowing a romanticised view of the Loyalists' arrival in New Brunswick.

Loyalists soon petitioned the government to be allowed to use the British legal system, which they were accustomed to in the American colonies, rather than the French system. Great Britain had maintained the French legal system and allowed freedom of religion after taking over the former French colony with the defeat of France in the Seven Years War. With the creation of Upper and Lower Canada, most Loyalists in the west could live under British laws and institutions. The predominately ethnic French population of Lower Canada, who were still French-speaking, could maintain their familiar French civil law and the Catholic religion.^[7]

Realizing the importance of some type of recognition, on 9 November 1789, Lord Dorchester, the governor of Quebec and Governor General of British North America, declared "that it was his Wish to put the mark of Honour upon the Families who had adhered to the Unity of the Empire". As a result of Dorchester's statement, the printed militia rolls carried the notation:

"Those Loyalists who have adhered to the Unity of the Empire, and joined the Royal Standard before the Treaty of Separation in the year 1783, and all their Children and their Descendants by either sex, are to be distinguished by the following Capitals, affixed to their names: U.E. Alluding to their great principle The Unity of the Empire."

Because most of the nations of the Iroquois had allied with the British, which had ceded their lands to the United States, thousands of Iroquois and other pro-British Native Americans were expelled from New York and other states. They were also resettled in Canada. Many of the Iroquois, led by Joseph Brant Thayendenegea, settled at Six Nations of the Grand River, the largest First Nations Reserve in Canada. A smaller group of Iroquois led by Captain John Deserontyon Odeserundiye, settled on the shores of the Bay of Quinte in modern-day southeastern Ontario.

A Black Loyalist wood cutter at Shelburne, Nova Scotia in 1788.

The government settled some 3,500 Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but they faced discrimination and inadequate support.^[9] Delays in making land grants aggravated racist tensions in Shelburne. Mobs of white Loyalists attacked Black Loyalists in the Shelburne Riots in July 1784, Canada's first recorded race riot.^[10] The government was slow to survey the land of Black Loyalists (which meant they could not settle); it also was discriminatory in granting them smaller, poorer and more remote lands than those of white settlers. This increased their difficulties in getting established.^[11] The majority of Black Loyalists in Canada were refugees from the South; they suffered from the harsh winters and discrimination.