What Happened to Loyalists After the War

The end of the Revolutionary War triggered one of the largest forced migrations in early American history. An estimated 60,000 to 80,000 Loyalists—colonists who had remained loyal to the British Crown—left the United States between 1782 and 1785, resettling in British North America (Canada), Britain, the Caribbean, and other parts of the British Empire. Their departure reshaped the demographics of the new nation, transformed the society of British North America, and created a diaspora whose claims for compensation would occupy the British government for decades.

The Loyalist Exodus

The Evacuation of New York

The principal departure point was New York City, which had been under British occupation since September 1776 and served as the main Loyalist refuge throughout the war. The British evacuation of New York, which took place between April and November 1783, involved the departure of approximately 29,000 Loyalists and freed slaves, along with the British garrison. The evacuation was supervised by General Guy Carleton, who worked to ensure that the Treaty of Paris’s provisions were observed, including the controversial question of whether the British should return enslaved people who had fled to British lines.

The last British troops departed New York on November 25, 1783—Evacuation Day, which was commemorated in New York for decades. George Washington and the Continental Army entered the city in a triumphal procession, marking the formal end of the British presence in the former colonies.

The Scale of the Migration

The total number of Loyalist emigrants is difficult to determine precisely. The traditional estimate of 80,000 to 100,000 has been revised downward by modern historians, who place the figure at approximately 60,000 to 80,000. This represented roughly 2 to 3 percent of the total colonial population—a significant but not overwhelming proportion.

The emigrants were not a homogeneous group. They included wealthy merchants and royal officials who had the resources to reestablish themselves in Britain; middle-class artisans, farmers, and professionals who sought new opportunities in British North America; poor refugees who depended on government assistance for survival; and thousands of formerly enslaved people who had gained their freedom by serving the British cause.

Resettlement in British North America

Nova Scotia

The largest single destination for Loyalist refugees was Nova Scotia, which received approximately 30,000 to 35,000 Loyalists between 1782 and 1785. The influx more than doubled the colony’s population and transformed its social and political character. The Loyalists settled primarily in the western and northern parts of the colony, in areas that would later become the province of New Brunswick.

The British government provided land grants to Loyalist refugees, typically 200 acres for the head of a family and 50 acres for each additional family member. Additional grants were made to former military officers and to those who could demonstrate particular merit or need. However, the land was often uncleared wilderness, and many refugees lacked the resources to establish productive farms. The first years of settlement were marked by hardship, disease, and conflict with the existing population.

New Brunswick

The concentration of Loyalist settlers in the western part of Nova Scotia led to demands for a separate colony. In 1784, the British government created the province of New Brunswick, with its capital at Fredericton. New Brunswick became the most thoroughly Loyalist colony in British North America, and its political culture was shaped by the refugees’ experience of persecution and displacement. The province’s motto, Spem Reduxit (“He restored hope”), reflected the Loyalists’ aspiration to rebuild their lives in a new land.

Upper Canada (Ontario)

Approximately 6,000 to 10,000 Loyalists settled in the western part of the province of Quebec, along the northern shore of the St. Lawrence River and the eastern end of Lake Ontario. This region, which would become Upper Canada (later Ontario) in 1791, was sparsely populated before the Loyalist influx and was transformed by the arrival of English-speaking settlers.

The Loyalists who settled in Upper Canada were predominantly farmers from New York and Pennsylvania who sought agricultural land. They brought with them the political culture of the American colonies, including a commitment to representative government and English common law. Their presence created tensions with the French-speaking population of Lower Canada and led to the Constitutional Act of 1791, which divided Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada.

The Black Loyalists

Among the Loyalist refugees were approximately 3,000 to 4,000 formerly enslaved people who had gained their freedom by serving the British cause. These Black Loyalists were evacuated from New York, Charleston, and Savannah and resettled primarily in Nova Scotia, where they established communities at Birchtown (near Shelburne) and other locations.

The Black Loyalists’ experience in Nova Scotia was marked by discrimination and hardship. They received smaller land grants than white Loyalists, and many of the grants were on inferior land. They faced racial prejudice from the white Loyalist population and from the existing Nova Scotia community. In 1792, approximately 1,200 Black Loyalists accepted an offer from the Sierra Leone Company to resettle in Sierra Leone, in West Africa, where they founded Freetown and reinvigorated the struggling Province of Freedom that had been established by London’s Black Poor in 1787.

Resettlement in Britain

The London Loyalists

Approximately 7,000 to 9,000 Loyalists resettled in Britain itself, primarily in London. These emigrants included wealthy merchants, royal officials, Anglican clergy, and professionals who had the resources and connections to reestablish themselves in British society. However, many found the transition difficult: the British economy was in a postwar slump, the cost of living in London was high, and the refugees lacked the social networks that would have facilitated their integration.

The Black Loyalists who settled in London—approximately 500 to 1,000 people—faced particular difficulties. They congregated in the impoverished neighborhoods of St. Giles and Wapping, where they struggled to find employment and housing. Many depended on the charitable support of the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor, established in 1786. The committee’s efforts ultimately led to the Sierra Leone resettlement scheme of 1787.

Social Integration

The Loyalist refugees in Britain occupied an awkward social position. They were British subjects who had suffered for their loyalty, but they were also colonials whose manners, accents, and expectations marked them as outsiders. Some found positions in the civil service, the military, or the church. Others struggled to find employment commensurate with their education and experience. The British public, preoccupied with domestic economic problems and the aftermath of the war, showed limited sympathy for the refugees.

Resettlement in the Caribbean

The Bahamas and the West Indies

Approximately 3,000 to 5,000 Loyalists, many of them from the southern colonies, resettled in the Bahamas and other British Caribbean possessions. The Loyalists who went to the Bahamas, primarily from South Carolina and Georgia, established cotton plantations on the islands of Abaco and Cat Island. However, the Bahamian soil proved unsuitable for large-scale cotton cultivation, and many of these plantations failed within a decade.

Loyalists who resettled in Jamaica, Antigua, and other West Indian islands had somewhat better prospects, as the plantation economies of these islands offered opportunities for those with capital and experience in tropical agriculture. However, the Caribbean environment was harsh, and mortality rates among the new arrivals were high.

The Loyalist Claims Commission

Compensation for Losses

The British government established the Loyalist Claims Commission in 1783 to evaluate and compensate Loyalists for property losses suffered during the war. The commission received approximately 5,000 claims totaling more than £10 million—an enormous sum that exceeded the British government’s willingness or ability to pay.

The commission’s proceedings, which continued until 1790, were rigorous and often adversarial. Claimants were required to provide documentary evidence of their losses, including deeds, inventories, and witness testimony. The commissioners scrutinized claims for exaggeration and fraud, and many claims were reduced or rejected. The commission ultimately awarded approximately £3 million in compensation—roughly 30 percent of the total claimed.

The Claims as Historical Sources

The Loyalist claims records, preserved in the British National Archives, constitute one of the most valuable sources for understanding the social and economic history of the Revolutionary period. The claims provide detailed inventories of property, descriptions of occupations, and narratives of wartime experience that illuminate the lives of ordinary colonists whose stories would otherwise be lost to history.

The claims also reveal the diversity of the Loyalist population. Claims were filed by wealthy merchants seeking compensation for lost commercial property and by small farmers seeking compensation for lost livestock and crops. Claims were filed by Anglican clergy for lost salaries and by artisans for lost tools and workshops. The claims records demonstrate that Loyalism was not confined to a narrow elite but encompassed a broad cross-section of colonial society.

Those Who Stayed

Loyalists Who Remained

Not all Loyalists left the United States. A substantial number—perhaps the majority—remained in their communities and gradually reintegrated into American society. The Treaty of Paris had stipulated that there would be no future confiscations or prosecutions of Loyalists, and while this provision was not always observed, most states eventually relaxed their anti-Loyalist laws.

Some former Loyalists prospered in the postwar United States. The skills, connections, and capital that had made them valuable to the British administration also made them valuable to the new republic. Former Loyalists who were willing to accept the new political order and to demonstrate their commitment to the United States were generally able to rebuild their lives and their fortunes.

The Social Memory of Loyalism

The experience of Loyalism was largely erased from American collective memory in the decades after the war. The nationalist narrative of the Revolution, which depicted the conflict as a unified uprising against British tyranny, left little room for the story of those who had opposed independence. Loyalists were remembered, when they were remembered at all, as traitors or fools—people who had chosen the wrong side in a conflict whose outcome was foreordained.

This historical amnesia has been corrected in recent decades by historians who have recovered the Loyalist experience and demonstrated its significance for understanding the Revolution. The Loyalists during the Revolution were not simply opponents of liberty but people with their own legitimate political convictions, economic interests, and social attachments. Their story complicates the narrative of the Revolution and reminds us that independence was not universally desired and that the creation of the United States involved the exclusion and displacement of those who dissented from the revolutionary consensus.

Lasting Impact

The Loyalist exodus had lasting consequences for both the United States and British North America. In the United States, the departure of a conservative, pro-British element removed a counterweight to revolutionary radicalism and facilitated the democratization of American politics. In British North America, the influx of Loyalist refugees transformed the demographics and political culture of the colonies, laying the foundations for the English-speaking Canada that would emerge in the nineteenth century.

The Loyalist diaspora also maintained connections across the Atlantic world. Loyalist families in Canada, Britain, and the Caribbean corresponded with relatives who had remained in the United States, traded with American merchants, and maintained a sense of identity as people who had been displaced by a political conflict they had not chosen. This transnational dimension of the Loyalist experience, long neglected by historians, illustrates the ways in which the Revolution’s consequences extended far beyond the borders of the new nation and shaped the broader Atlantic world for generations.

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