The use of the term Loyalist can over simplify the complex and changing relationships between Americans who supported the American Rebellion and those who favored remaining in the British Empire. During the eight-year conflict, people regularly switched loyalties, exhibiting various degrees of commitment to a side in the conflict. In addition, Native Americans and African Americans pursued their objectives and allied themselves with the Rebels or British depending upon their perceived self-interest. In many cases, their actions could be interpreted as Loyalism, but in others, pursuing their independence.
Primary Sources
Boucher, Jonathan, ed. Reminiscences of an American Loyalist. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925.
Davies, Gwendolyn. The Diary of Sarah Frost, 1783: The Sounds and Silences of a Woman’s Exile, Conference Paper.
Sarah Frost, the wife of an American Loyalist follows him into exile in Canada. The diary covers the couple’s transit from New York City to Hallifax in a fourteen ship transport fleet. Davis discusses the background, diary entries and limitations on its interpretation in a conference paper.
Secondary Sources
Allen, Thomas B. Tories: Fighting for the King in America’s First Civil War. New York: Harper-Collins, 2010.
Callahan, North. Royal Raiders: The Tories of the American Revolution. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1963.
Compeau, Timothy. Dishonored Americans: The Political Death of Loyalists in Revolutionary America. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2023.
Cruikshank, E. A, and Gavin K Watt. The King’s Royal Regiment of New York. Toronto: G.K. Watt, 1984.
Gara, Donald J. The Queen’s American Rangers, 2015.
Jasanoff, Maya. Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World. 1st ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.
Kierner, Cynthia A. The Tory’s Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America. The Revolutionary Age. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2023.
Minty, Christopher F. Unfriendly to Liberty: Loyalist Networks and the Coming of the American Revolution in New York City. Ithaca [New York]: Cornell University Press, 2023.
Moore, Peter. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Britain and the American Dream. First American. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023.
Moy, Daniel R. Antiquity and Loyalist Dissent in Revolutionary America, 1765-1776. London and New York: Anthem Press, 2023.
Piecuch, Jim. South Carolina Provincials: Loyalists in British Service during the American Revolution. Yardley, Pennsylvania: Westholme Publishing, LLC, 2023.
Ranlet, Philip. The New York Loyalists. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Pr, 1986.
“The Queen’s American Rangers – Journal of the American Revolution.” Accessed July 30, 2016. https://allthingsliberty.com/2015/09/the-queens-american-rangers/.
Williams, Marie Danielle Annette. Loyalists in the Adirondacks: The Fight for Britain in the Revolutionary War. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2023.
Web Sites
University of New Brunswick Libraries, Microforms Unit
Researching the American Revolution 