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118-640: The Maryland Loyalists Battalion , also known as the First Battalion of Maryland Loyalists , was a Loyalist infantry unit which served on the side of the Kingdom of Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War . Raised in 1777 by Loyalist officer James Chalmers , the unit, consisting of one battalion , was organizationally part of the British Provincial Corps and saw action at

236-787: A patriarchal society, was the matrilineal kinship system of Iroquois society and the related power of women. The Canadian historian D. Peter MacLeod wrote about the Canadian Iroquois and the French in the time of the Seven Years' War: Most critically, the importance of clan mothers, who possessed considerable economic and political power within Canadian Iroquois communities, was blithely overlooked by patriarchal European scribes. Those references that do exist, show clan mothers meeting in council with their male counterparts to take decisions regarding war and peace and joining in delegations to confront

354-637: A De Lancey family mansion. At this early stage of the war, the Loyalist soldiers were primarily used for guard duties and keeping order, or distracted with civil warfare. On the northern frontier, Loyalists were often harshly treated, and they reacted in many instances by joining Loyalist military units, fearing that they could never return to their homes unless the British prevailed. A number of influential Loyalists in northern New York quickly set to work building military forces. The King's Royal Regiment of New York

472-451: A Georgia Loyalist named Thomas Brown . Son of a wealthy family, Brown had in the summer of 1775 been confronted by a group of Patriots who demanded that he swear allegiance to the revolutionary cause. Refusing, Brown shot and wounded the Patriot leader. The other Patriots fractured Brown's skull, partially scalped him and tarred his legs and held them over a fire, burning off two of his toes. (He

590-526: A Loyalist military unit called the "Loyal American Association", also in Massachusetts. Loyalists in New Hampshire also were arming. However, Patriots were arming and drilling all over New England, and outright revolution broke out on April 19, 1775, with the battles of Lexington and Concord , near Boston. Loyalists were present at the outskirts: British general Lord Hugh Percy's relief column, coming to

708-679: A Mohawk war party by the shores of what is now called Lake Champlain, and again in June 1610, Champlain fought against the Mohawks. The Iroquois became well known in the southern colonies in the 17th century by this time. After the first English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia (1607), numerous 17th-century accounts describe a powerful people known to the Powhatan Confederacy as the Massawomeck , and to

826-616: A Northern unit called the Volunteers of Ireland , and the infantry and cavalry of the British Legion. Lord Cornwallis did not oppose his Loyalists to the Patriot militia, and send his British regulars against the Continental regulars. Instead, the Loyalists faced the Patriot regulars, and the British attacked the inexperienced Patriot militia, routing them, exposing the Patriot flank, and causing

944-783: A derogatory name adopted from the traditional enemies of the Haudenosaunee. A less common, older autonym for the confederation is Ongweh’onweh , meaning "original people". Haudenosaunee derives from two phonetically similar but etymologically distinct words in the Seneca language : Hodínöhšö:ni:h , meaning "those of the extended house", and Hodínöhsö:ni:h , meaning "house builders". The name "Haudenosaunee" first appears in English in Lewis Henry Morgan 's work (1851), where he writes it as Ho-dé-no-sau-nee . The spelling "Hotinnonsionni"

1062-658: A distinct language, territory, and function in the League. The League is composed of a Grand Council, an assembly of fifty chiefs or sachems , each representing a clan of a nation. When Europeans first arrived in North America, the Haudenosaunee ( Iroquois League to the French, Five Nations to the British) were based in what is now central and west New York State including the Finger Lakes region, occupying large areas north to

1180-510: A few score Indians. But the Augusta garrison was commanded by Thomas "Burntfoot" Brown of Georgia, a resourceful man. Judging Augusta indefensible, Brown drove Clarke's men back by artillery fire, and the Loyalists then forced their way by bayonet right through the Patriot force, to the top of nearby Garden Hill. Brown held out for four days. Eventually the Patriots ran out of ammunition, but they cut off

1298-504: A force of Indians, Loyalist militia, and the Loyalist King's Royal Regiment of New York. The Patriots suffered heavy casualties in the ambush, and Herkimer was severely wounded. The dying Herkimer propped himself against a tree and continued to command his troops in a battle which saw very heavy losses on both sides. At one point, a column of Loyalists turned their green jackets inside out as a ruse, and got very close to Herkimer's men; this

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1416-521: A force of inexperienced Patriot militia. These were badly defeated. The Loyalists and Indians devastated the whole area. Reports indicated that some prisoners and fleeing Patriots were tortured and murdered. One historian has said, "The Tories [Loyalists] usually neither gave nor expected any quarter, and when this vengeful spirit was augmented by the Indian propensity for total war, the results were almost invariably grim." Now Loyalists and Indians swept through

1534-566: A judge of the land office, remained loyal to the British Crown , and would suffer the consequences. Like other loyalists, Calvert would find himself on the losing side of the Revolutionary War, effectively ending his political career. The Annapolis Convention of 1774 to 1776 saw the old Maryland elite overthrown – men like Calvert, Governor Eden and George Steuart all lost their political power, and in many cases their land and wealth. After

1652-443: A major Southern effort. To begin with, Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell , in command of a British regiment, two Hessian regiments, four Loyalist battalions and artillery, was dispatched to Georgia. On December 29, 1778, the Patriots were badly defeated near Savannah, with New York Loyalists proving invaluable in the victory. Savannah was soon in British hands. The British then moved against Augusta, Georgia. They were assisted by

1770-422: A major victory that drove Washington's army from the island and the city of New York. Many Long Island Loyalists, wearing pieces of red cloth on their hats to show their sympathies, landed with Howe, and participated in the fighting. At the end of the revolution, Long Island was the major staging area for many Loyalist emigrant ships departing for Canada. As his men abandoned New York, Washington had wanted to burn

1888-477: A member of a prominent New York Loyalist family, organized De Lancey's Brigade . The King's American Regiment was formed. The popular French and Indian War hero Robert Rogers organized a Loyalist regiment which was very effective. By the end of 1776, seven hundred of Rogers' Rangers were raiding Patriot outposts in Westchester. Recently unearthed documents indicate that it was Rogers and his Rangers who captured

2006-828: A result of the Beaver Wars, they pushed Siouan -speaking tribes out and reserved the territory as a hunting ground by right of conquest . They finally sold to British colonists their remaining claim to the lands south of the Ohio in 1768 at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix . Historian Pekka Hämäläinen writes of the League, "There had never been anything like the Five Nations League in North America. No other Indigenous nation or confederacy had ever reached so far, conducted such an ambitious foreign policy, or commanded such fear and respect. The Five Nations blended diplomacy, intimidation, and violence as

2124-566: A strategic victory which helped seal off the Patriot garrison of Charleston from help or escape. Charleston's surrender to the British on May 12, 1780 was a disaster to the revolutionary cause. Over twenty-five hundred Continental regulars and huge supplies of Patriot weapons and ammunition were lost. Another leader of Loyalists, the Scotsman Patrick Ferguson , commanded a force called the American Volunteers, who formed part of

2242-476: Is also attested from later in the nineteenth century. An alternative designation, Ganonsyoni , is occasionally encountered as well, from the Mohawk kanǫhsyǫ́·ni "the extended house", or from a cognate expression in a related Iroquoian language; in earlier sources it is variously spelled "Kanosoni", "akwanoschioni", "Aquanuschioni", "Cannassoone", "Canossoone", "Ke-nunctioni", or "Konossioni". More transparently,

2360-403: Is attested in any Indian language as a name for any Iroquoian group, and the ultimate origin and meaning of the name are unknown." Jesuit priest and missionary Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix wrote in 1744: The name Iroquois is purely French, and is formed from the [Iroquoian-language] term Hiro or Hero , which means I have said —with which these Indians close all their addresses, as

2478-466: Is in Samuel de Champlain 's account of his journey to Tadoussac in 1603. Other early French spellings include "Erocoise", "Hiroquois", "Hyroquoise", "Irecoies", "Iriquois", "Iroquaes", "Irroquois", and "Yroquois", pronounced at the time as [irokwe] or [irokwɛ]. Competing theories have been proposed for this term's origin, but none have gained widespread acceptance. By 1978 Ives Goddard wrote: "No such form

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2596-630: Is not an enemy to the King, nor a friend to Congress." In retaliation for all this, George Washington ordered a full-scale attack by regular troops of the Continental Army . Generals John Sullivan and James Clinton and Colonel Daniel Brodhead , at the head of forty-six hundred men, advanced on the Indians, their objective "the total destruction and devastation" of the Iroquois settlements. A substantial blow to

2714-540: The Neutral Nation (1651), Erie Tribe (1657), and Susquehannock (1680). The traditional view is that these wars were a way to control the lucrative fur trade to purchase European goods on which they had become dependent. Starna questions this view. Recent scholarship has elaborated on this view, arguing that the Beaver Wars were an escalation of the Iroquoian tradition of "Mourning Wars". This view suggests that

2832-664: The Ohio Valley . From east to west, the League was composed of the Mohawk , Oneida , Onondaga , Cayuga , and Seneca nations . In about 1722, the Iroquoian -speaking Tuscarora joined the League, having migrated northwards from the Carolinas after a bloody conflict with white settlers. A shared cultural background with the Five Nations of the Iroquois (and a sponsorship from the Oneida) led

2950-691: The Onontio [the Iroquois term for the French governor-general] and the French leadership in Montreal, but only hint at the real influence wielded by these women. Eighteenth-century English historiography focuses on the diplomatic relations with the Iroquois, supplemented by such images as John Verelst 's Four Mohawk Kings , and publications such as the Anglo-Iroquoian treaty proceedings printed by Benjamin Franklin . A persistent 19th and 20th century narrative casts

3068-706: The Petun , Erie, and Susquehannock. Trying to control access to game for the lucrative fur trade, they invaded the Algonquian peoples of the Atlantic coast (the Lenape , or Delaware ), the Anishinaabe of the boreal Canadian Shield region, and not infrequently the English colonies as well. During the Beaver Wars, they were said to have defeated and assimilated the Huron (1649), Petun (1650),

3186-459: The corn/beans/squash agricultural complex enabled them to support a large population. They made war primarily against neighboring Algonquian peoples . Muir uses archaeological data to argue that the Iroquois expansion onto Algonquian lands was checked by the Algonquian adoption of agriculture. This enabled them to support their own populations large enough to resist Iroquois conquest. The People of

3304-447: The siege of Pensacola in 1781. After a brief time as Spanish prisoners of war in Cuba, the battalion was eventually sent back to New York City, the command center for British forces during the war. After the war, the soldiers of the battalion, along with many other American loyalists, were transported by the British government as refugees to Nova Scotia . In the fall of 1783, a ship carrying

3422-587: The 1778 Battle of Monmouth and the 1781 Siege of Pensacola . It was disbanded in 1783 in the wake of the Patriot victory in the war. As with other colonies in British America , Maryland was bitterly divided by the American Revolution . Members of the existing political elite tended to make reluctant revolutionaries; men such as Benedict Swingate Calvert , illegitimate son of the ruling Calvert family and

3540-527: The 19th century. The historiography of the Iroquois peoples is a topic of much debate, especially regarding the American colonial period. French Jesuit accounts of the Iroquois portrayed them as savages lacking government, law, letters, and religion. But the Jesuits made considerable effort to study their languages and cultures, and some came to respect them. A source of confusion for European sources, coming from

3658-472: The Algonquian names for their Iroquois competitors. The Iroquois Confederacy is believed to have been founded by the Great Peacemaker at an unknown date estimated between 1450 and 1660, bringing together five distinct nations in the southern Great Lakes area into "The Great League of Peace". Other research, however, suggests the founding occurred in 1142. Each nation within this Iroquoian confederacy had

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3776-607: The Allegheny mountains into present-day Virginia and Kentucky and into the Ohio Valley . The St. Lawrence Iroquoians , Wendat (Huron), Erie , and Susquehannock , all independent peoples known to the European colonists, also spoke Iroquoian languages . They are considered Iroquoian in a larger cultural sense, all being descended from the Proto-Iroquoian people and language. Historically, however, they were competitors and enemies of

3894-775: The Atlantic Ocean; from the St. Lawrence River to the Chesapeake Bay . Michael O. Varhola has argued their success in conquering and subduing surrounding nations had paradoxically weakened a Native response to European growth, thereby becoming victims of their own success. The Five Nations of the League established a trading relationship with the Dutch at Fort Orange (modern Albany, New York), trading furs for European goods, an economic relationship that profoundly changed their way of life and led to much over-hunting of beavers. Between 1665 and 1670,

4012-624: The British Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger , commanding a force of eighteen hundred, to capture the Patriot Fort Schuyler ( Fort Stanwix ) at the head of the Mohawk Valley . The British besieged the fort. On August 6, 1777, a Patriot force of eight hundred men, commanded by Colonel Nicholas Herkimer, set out to relieve the Patriot garrison at the fort. Herkimer's strung-out Patriot column was ambushed near Oriskany by

4130-518: The British successfully defend Quebec after the American invasion of Canada in the last days of 1775. In 1776, Jonathan Eddy , a Nova Scotian who favoured the Patriot cause, got the blessing of George Washington to try to capture Nova Scotia for the Revolution. In November, 1776, Eddy, commanding a Patriot force of Indians, exiled Acadians and Maine Patriot militia, appeared at the gates of Fort Cumberland, Nova Scotia, and demanded its surrender. His plan

4248-662: The Confederacy dispute this historical interpretation, regarding the League of the Great Peace as the foundation of their heritage. The Iroquois may be the Kwedech described in the oral legends of the Mi'kmaq nation of Eastern Canada. These legends relate that the Mi'kmaq in the late pre-contact period had gradually driven their enemies – the Kwedech – westward across New Brunswick , and finally out of

4366-529: The French as the Antouhonoron . They were said to come from the north, beyond the Susquehannock territory. Historians have often identified the Massawomeck / Antouhonoron as the Haudenosaunee. In 1649, an Iroquois war party, consisting mostly of Senecas and Mohawks, destroyed the Huron village of Wendake . In turn, this ultimately resulted in the breakup of the Huron nation. With no northern enemy remaining,

4484-463: The Grand Council, which still exists. The Iroquois Confederacy was the decentralized political and diplomatic entity that emerged in response to European colonization, which was dissolved after the British defeat in the American Revolutionary War . Today's Iroquois/Six Nations people do not make any such distinction, use the terms interchangeably, but prefer the name Haudenosaunee Confederacy. After

4602-459: The Great Lakes. Many archaeologists and anthropologists believe that the League was formed about 1450, though arguments have been made for an earlier date. One theory argues that the League formed shortly after a solar eclipse on August 31, 1142, an event thought to be expressed in oral tradition about the League's origins. Some sources link an early origin of the Iroquois confederacy to

4720-782: The Haudenosaunee League. Those on the borders of Haudenosaunee territory in the Great Lakes region competed and warred with the nations of the League. French, Dutch, and English colonists, both in New France (Canada) and what became the Thirteen Colonies , recognized a need to gain favor with the Iroquois people, who occupied a significant portion of lands west of the colonial settlements. Their first relations were for fur trading , which became highly lucrative for both sides. The colonists also sought to establish friendly relations to secure their settlement borders. For nearly 200 years,

4838-566: The Haudenosaunee confederacy is often referred to as the Six Nations (or, for the period before the entry of the Tuscarora in 1722, the Five Nations). The word is Rotinonshón:ni in the Mohawk language . The origins of the name Iroquois are somewhat obscure, although the term has historically been more common among English texts than Haudenosaunee. Its first written appearance as "Irocois"

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4956-690: The Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora people from the southeast were accepted into the confederacy, from which point it was known as the "Six Nations". The Confederacy likely came about between the years 1450 CE and 1660 CE as a result of the Great Law of Peace , said to have been composed by the Deganawidah the Great Peacemaker, Hiawatha , and Jigonsaseh the Mother of Nations. For nearly 200 years,

5074-399: The Iroquois Confederacy nations. In 2010, more than 45,000 enrolled Six Nations people lived in Canada, and over 81,000 in the United States. Haudenosaunee ("People of the Longhouse") is the autonym by which the Six Nations refer to themselves. While its exact etymology is debated, the term Iroquois is of colonial origin. Some scholars of Native American history consider "Iroquois"

5192-453: The Iroquois League. The explorer Robert La Salle in the 17th century identified the Mosopelea as among the Ohio Valley peoples defeated by the Iroquois in the early 1670s. The Erie and peoples of the upper Allegheny valley declined earlier during the Beaver Wars . By 1676 the power of the Susquehannock was broken from the effects of three years of epidemic disease, war with the Iroquois, and frontier battles, as settlers took advantage of

5310-473: The Iroquois as "an expansive military and political power ... [who] subjugated their enemies by violent force and for almost two centuries acted as the fulcrum in the balance of power in colonial North America". Historian Scott Stevens noted that the Iroquois themselves began to influence the writing of their history in the 19th century, including Joseph Brant (Mohawk), and David Cusick (Tuscarora, c. 1780–1840). John Arthur Gibson (Seneca, 1850–1912)

5428-408: The Iroquois established seven villages on the northern shores of Lake Ontario in present-day Ontario , collectively known as the "Iroquois du Nord" villages . The villages were all abandoned by 1701. Over the years 1670–1710, the Five Nations achieved political dominance of much of Virginia west of the Fall Line and extending to the Ohio River valley in present-day West Virginia and Kentucky. As

5546-529: The Iroquois had "such absolute Notions of Liberty that they allow no Kind of Superiority of one over another, and banish all Servitude from their Territories". As raids between the member tribes ended and they directed warfare against competitors, the Iroquois increased in numbers while their rivals declined. The political cohesion of the Iroquois rapidly became one of the strongest forces in 17th- and 18th-century northeastern North America. The League's Council of Fifty ruled on disputes and sought consensus. However,

5664-416: The Iroquois had lost control of considerable territory. Knowledge of Iroquois history stem from Haudenosaunee oral tradition , archaeological evidence, accounts from Jesuit missionaries, and subsequent European historians. Historian Scott Stevens credits the early modern European value of written sources over oral tradition as contributing to a racialized, prejudiced perspective about the Iroquois through

5782-442: The Iroquois launched large-scale attacks against neighboring tribes to avenge or replace the many dead from battles and smallpox epidemics. In 1628, the Mohawk defeated the Mahican to gain a monopoly in the fur trade with the Dutch at Fort Orange (present-day Albany), New Netherland . The Mohawk would not allow northern native peoples to trade with the Dutch. By 1640, there were almost no beavers left on their lands, reducing

5900-402: The Iroquois resisted attacking their own peoples. The Iroquois remained a large politically united Native American polity until the American Revolution , when the League was divided by their conflicting views on how to respond to requests for aid from the British Crown. After their defeat, the British ceded Iroquois territory without consultation, and many Iroquois had to abandon their lands in

6018-403: The Iroquois to middlemen in the fur trade between Indian peoples to the west and north, and Europeans eager for the valuable thick beaver pelts. In 1645, a tentative peace was forged between the Iroquois and the Huron, Algonquin, and French. In 1646, Jesuit missionaries at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons went as envoys to the Mohawk lands to protect the precarious peace. Mohawk attitudes toward

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6136-404: The Iroquois turned their forces on the Neutral Nations on the north shore of Lakes Erie and Ontario, the Susquehannocks, their southern neighbor. Then they destroyed other Iroquoian-language tribes, including the Erie , to the west, in 1654, over competition for the fur trade. Then they destroyed the Mohicans . After their victories, they reigned supreme in an area from the Mississippi River to

6254-485: The Iroquois were a powerful factor in North American colonial policy. Alliance with the Iroquois offered political and strategic advantages to the European powers, but the Iroquois preserved considerable independence. Some of their people settled in mission villages along the St. Lawrence River , becoming more closely tied to the French. While they participated in French-led raids on Dutch and English colonial settlements, where some Mohawk and other Iroquois settled, in general

6372-425: The Latins did of old with their dixi —and of Koué , which is a cry sometimes of sadness, when it is prolonged, and sometimes of joy, when it is pronounced shorter. In 1883, Horatio Hale wrote that Charlevoix's etymology was dubious, and that "no other nation or tribe of which we have any knowledge has ever borne a name composed in this whimsical fashion". Hale suggested instead that the term came from Huron , and

6490-457: The League, giving rise to the many historic references to "Five Nations of the Iroquois". With the addition of the southern Tuscarora in the 18th century, these original five tribes still compose the Haudenosaunee in the early 21st century: the Mohawk , Onondaga , Oneida , Cayuga , and Seneca . According to legend, an evil Onondaga chieftain named Tadodaho was the last converted to the ways of peace by The Great Peacemaker and Hiawatha. He

6608-430: The Legion charged. Tarleton's horse was shot from under him; he mounted another. Buford and eighty or ninety men escaped. Over three hundred Patriots were killed or wounded, an almost incredible percentage of those engaged. The story soon spread that the Loyalists had bayoneted many of the wounded and those trying to surrender. Patriots began to speak bitterly of "Buford's Quarter," or "Tarleton's Quarter," meaning none. In

6726-428: The Lower St. Lawrence River region. The Mi'kmaq named the last-conquered land Gespedeg or "last land", from which the French derived Gaspé . The "Kwedech" are generally considered to have been Iroquois, specifically the Mohawk ; their expulsion from Gaspé by the Mi'kmaq has been estimated as occurring c. 1535–1600. Around 1535, Jacques Cartier reported Iroquoian-speaking groups on the Gaspé peninsula and along

6844-528: The Loyalist Edward Winslow met secretly with the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson , who approved Winslow's raising a "Tory Volunteer Company", whose purpose was to protect Loyalist families from roving mobs. Before fighting began, Colonel Thomas Gilbert of Massachusetts had already raised the first Loyalist military unit. This was a force of three hundred men, armed by the British. Gilbert stored muskets, powder and bullets in his home. Shortly thereafter, Brigadier General Timothy Ruggles formed

6962-405: The Loyalists' water supply. Brown, in agony after yet another leg wound, ordered his men's urine be kept and cooled, and took the first drink himself. Eventually Brown's garrison was relieved by Loyalists, and the Patriots retreated. Despite Washington's retaliation, the Loyalist and Indian raids on the frontier intensified. The first order of business for the British was to destroy the Oneidas ,

7080-412: The Loyalists, who were completely defeated. This success did much to hearten backwoods Patriots in the aftermath of so many British successes. The Patriot sharpshooters fared less well in September, 1780, in an attempt to retake Augusta from the British. The Patriot Colonel Elijah Clarke led nearly seven hundred mountain riflemen against a Loyalist garrison of only one hundred and fifty, accompanied by

7198-440: The Mohawk Valley and elsewhere and relocate to the northern lands retained by the British. The Crown gave them land in compensation for the five million acres they had lost in the south, but it was not equivalent to earlier territory. Modern scholars of the Iroquois distinguish between the League and the Confederacy. According to this interpretation, the Iroquois League refers to the ceremonial and cultural institution embodied in

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7316-423: The Mohawk Valley in "endless raids". In November, 1778, a mixed force of Loyalists and Indians attacked settlements in Cherry Valley, New York. The Loyalist commander this time was Walter Butler , son of John. Again, there was enormous devastation, and many civilians were killed. A contemporary account depicts Joseph Brant stopping some of Butler's men from killing a woman and child with the words "... that child

7434-527: The Mohawk Valley. Brant then led his men down the Ohio, where he ambushed a detachment of troops under the command of George Rogers Clark . Iroquois The Iroquois ( / ˈ ɪr ə k w ɔɪ , - k w ɑː / IRR -ə-kwoy, -⁠kwah ), also known as the Five Nations , and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the endonym Haudenosaunee ( / ˌ h oʊ d ɪ n oʊ ˈ ʃ oʊ n i / HOH -din-oh- SHOH -nee ; lit.   ' people who are building

7552-417: The Mother Country, were loyal to the King or concerned that an independent new nation would not be able to defend themselves. Some escaped slaves became Loyalists. They fought for the British not out of loyalty to the Crown, but from a desire for freedom, which the British promised them in return for their military service. (Other African-Americans fought on the Patriot side, for the same motive). The story of

7670-480: The North East, many tenant farmers in New York and people of Dutch origin in New York and New Jersey, many of the German population of Pennsylvania, some Quakers, most of the Highland Scots in the South, and many Iroquois Indians. Many people with close business connections to Britain who lived in coastal towns remained loyal. Loyalists were most often people who were conservative by nature or in politics, valued order, were fearful of 'mob' rule, felt sentimental ties to

7788-555: The Revolution, and of the fighting they did for the British Crown. The number of Americans who adhered to the British side after fighting commenced is still debated. An American historian has estimated that about 450,000 Americans remained loyal to Britain during the Revolution. This would be about sixteen percent of the total population or about 20 percent of Americans of European origin. The Loyalists were as socially diverse as their Patriot opponents but some groups produced more Loyalists. Thus they included many Anglicans (Episcopalians) in

7906-458: The Six Nations/Haudenosaunee Confederacy were a powerful factor in North American colonial policy, with some scholars arguing for the concept of the Middle Ground, in that European powers were used by the Iroquois just as much as Europeans used them. At its peak around 1700, Iroquois power extended from what is today New York State, north into present-day Ontario and Quebec along the lower Great Lakes – upper St. Lawrence , and south on both sides of

8024-456: The South was strengthened when British and Loyalist forces repelled a French and Patriot siege of Savannah in the fall of 1779, with great loss of life to the besiegers. The British besieged Charleston in an arduous campaign. A crucial contribution was made by Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton , the English commander of a Loyalist unit called the British Legion . In a night attack on April 14, 1780, Tarleton took Monck's Corner, South Carolina,

8142-399: The St. Lawrence River, east to Montreal and the Hudson River , and south into what is today northwestern Pennsylvania. At its peak around 1700, Iroquois power extended from what is today New York State, north into present-day Ontario and Quebec along the lower Great Lakes – upper St. Lawrence , and south on both sides of the Allegheny Mountains into present-day Virginia and Kentucky and into

8260-412: The St. Lawrence River. Archeologists and anthropologists have defined the St. Lawrence Iroquoians as a distinct and separate group (and possibly several discrete groups), living in the villages of Hochelaga and others nearby (near present-day Montreal), which had been visited by Cartier. By 1608, when Samuel de Champlain visited the area, that part of the St. Lawrence River valley had no settlements, but

8378-509: The Tuscarora to becoming accepted as the sixth nation in the confederacy in 1722; the Iroquois become known afterwards as the Six Nations. Other independent Iroquoian-speaking peoples, such as the Erie , Susquehannock , Huron (Wendat) and Wyandot , lived at various times along the St. Lawrence River , and around the Great Lakes . In the American Southeast, the Cherokee were an Iroquoian-language people who had migrated to that area centuries before European contact. None of these were part of

8496-480: The adoption of corn as a staple crop. Archaeologist Dean Snow argues that the archaeological evidence does not support a date earlier than 1450. He has said that recent claims for a much earlier date "may be for contemporary political purposes". Other scholars note that anthropological researchers consulted only male informants, thus losing the half of the historical story told in the distinct oral traditions of women. For this reason, origin tales tend to emphasize

8614-432: The ambush at Oriskany, authorized John Butler to raise eight more companies of Loyalist Rangers, "to serve with the Indians, as occasion shall require". This unit was Butler's Rangers . Butler's headquarters were established at Fort Niagara. This gave the Loyalists access to the river valleys of northern New York. The British now decided that raids upon frontier settlements were the correct path to follow. An early raid

8732-616: The army which took Charleston. Now the civil war in the South widened. Banastre Tarleton's British Legion, sometimes called the Loyal Legion, was a force consisting mostly at first of Pennsylvanians. It was quickly augmented by volunteers from the South. At one point the Legion grew to nearly two thousand men. On May 29, 1780 Tarleton and his men defeated a Patriot force under Abraham Buford at Waxhaws, South Carolina. After Buford refused to surrender,

8850-401: The battle, the Loyalists retreated and left the Patriots in possession of the field. A prominent historian called this "... the most desperate engagement of the war in terms of the proportion of casualties to men involved on each side". The same historian has written, "The battle of Ramsour's Mill... was the archetypal battle of the 'new man,' the American, whether Tory or patriot; it was

8968-428: The black Loyalists is outlined, with references, later in this article. The longer the Revolutionary War went on, the more fluid and dynamic the "Patriot" and "Loyalist" categories became; and the larger the population became that did not fit neatly into either camp. It is estimated that between 20 and 45% of the population were somewhere in the middle as "Trimmers' or neutrals who bent with the wind. As early as 1774,

9086-465: The bridge, then annihilated them with devastating musket and cannon fire. The Loyalists were routed. In New York City and western Long Island, with 50,000 Loyalist refugees, the British set up new militia units with 16,000 men. They did not fight the Patriot forces. The city was sometimes called "Torytown". In August, 1776, the British commander, William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe , landed a huge force of British and Hessian troops on Long Island, and won

9204-404: The circumstances dictated, creating a measured instability that only they could navigate. Their guiding principle was to avoid becoming attached to any single colony, which would restrict their options and risk exposure to external manipulation." Beginning in 1609, the League engaged in the decades-long Beaver Wars against the French, their Huron allies, and other neighboring tribes, including

9322-460: The city continued to join the British side. After the Battle of Bunker Hill , Loyalist auxiliary units helped to maintain order inside the city. But that was all they were permitted to do, prior to the British evacuation of the city. The first organized Loyalist unit permitted to fight in a serious battle of the Revolution was Allan Maclean's 84th Regiment of Foot (Royal Highland Emigrants) , who helped

9440-558: The city to prevent the British using it, but Congress forbade it. In the aftermath of the British victory, many Loyalists came forth to be organized into uniformed Loyalist regiments. The British called these "provincial" regiments. Loyalist militia patrolled the streets of New York. Loyalist spies were extensively used to get information about Washington's dispositions. By the end of 1776, about eighteen hundred Loyalist soldiers had been recruited, most from Long Island, Staten Island, and Westchester County. Brigadier General Oliver De Lancey ,

9558-518: The civil war in the South, both sides resorted to the burning of farms and homes, torture, and summary execution on a huge scale. In the Battle of Ramsour's Mill, North Carolina, on June 20, 1780, the combatants on both sides were untrained militia, few if any in uniform. The battle was fought between neighbors, close relations and personal friends. More than half the Patriots in the battle were killed or wounded, and Loyalist casualties were very high. After

9676-438: The collapse and total rout of the whole Patriot army. The huge British success at Camden diverted attention from a Patriot victory at Musgrove's Mill, South Carolina, fought about the same time. This little-known battle was important. In it, an outnumbered force of Patriots confronted a force of Loyalist regulars and militia. The battle was fierce and protracted, but the frontier Patriot sharpshooters inflicted heavy casualties on

9794-548: The confederacy did not speak for all five tribes, which continued to act independently and form their own war bands. Around 1678, the council began to exert more power in negotiations with the colonial governments of Pennsylvania and New York, and the Iroquois became very adroit at diplomacy, playing off the French against the British as individual tribes had earlier played the Swedes, Dutch, and English. Iroquoian-language peoples were involved in warfare and trading with nearby members of

9912-489: The day, and sustained heavy casualties. But the British were planning a new strategy. The already-enlisted Loyalist soldiers from the North, and the not-yet-mobilized Loyalists of the South were about to go into battle on a larger scale. The British were being told that large numbers of Loyalists eagerly awaited their arrival in the South. It was decided to tap this supposed loyal sentiment. Slowly, British sentiment shifted toward

10030-416: The ensuing battle, many of the Loyalist, French Canadian and Indian positions were quickly overrun, and the defenders fled or were captured. The Loyalist Queen's Loyal Rangers were shattered as a fighting force, with more than two hundred of their men killed, wounded or captured. The Germans eventually surrendered, (and a relief force was driven off) in what was a major Patriot victory. Burgoyne's invasion

10148-694: The exiled battalion was shipwrecked off the Nova Scotia coast. The survivors made up the first British American citizens of the new Canadian province of New Brunswick . William Augustus Bowles was an ensign in the Maryland Loyalists Battalion. In the 1790s, he became a leader of the Creek Indians . Philip Barton Key was a captain in the Maryland Loyalists Battalion. After the war, Key studied law in England and returned to Maryland in 1785. He

10266-736: The famous Patriot Nathan Hale . There was a clash between Continental troops and Rogers' men at Mamaroneck in October, 1776. Rogers was retired soon after, but his unit, now called the Queen's Rangers , went on under the command of John Graves Simcoe , to fight throughout the Revolution. As Howe's army burst out of New York, new Loyalist regiments sprang into being. One was the New Jersey Volunteers (Skinner's Greens) who wore green coats, as did so many other Loyalist soldiers that they were often called "greencoats". The Prince of Wales' American Regiment

10384-612: The fate of the eight hundred North and South Carolina Loyalists who gathered at the Broad River under Captain Boyd. These Loyalists marched toward the Savannah, inflicting a great deal of devastation. On February 14, 1779, at Kettle Creek, Georgia, a Patriot force caught up with them, and in the ensuing battle, the Loyalists were defeated. Five of their leaders were hanged for treason. But the recruitment of Loyalists proceeded. The British position in

10502-623: The indigenous nations sometimes tried to remain neutral in the various colonial frontier wars, some also allied with Europeans, as in the French and Indian War , the North American front of the Seven Years' War. The Six Nations were split in their alliances between the French and British in that war. In Reflections in Bullough's Pond , historian Diana Muir argues that the pre-contact Iroquois were an imperialist, expansionist culture whose cultivation of

10620-566: The longhouse ' ) are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of Native Americans and First Nations peoples in northeast North America. They were known by the French during the colonial years as the Iroquois League , and later as the Iroquois Confederacy , while the English simply called them the "Five Nations". The peoples of the Iroquois included (from east to west) the Mohawk , Oneida , Onondaga , Cayuga , and Seneca . After 1722,

10738-499: The migration of a majority to Canada, the Iroquois remaining in New York were required to live mostly on reservations. In 1784, a total of 6,000 Iroquois faced 240,000 New Yorkers, with land-hungry New Englanders poised to migrate west. "Oneidas alone, who were only 600 strong, owned six million acres, or about 2.4 million hectares. Iroquoia was a land rush waiting to happen." By the War of 1812 ,

10856-660: The one tribe in New York which supported the Patriot cause. Supported by British regulars and Loyalists, the Mohawks , Senecas and Cayugas destroyed the Oneida settlements, driving the Oneidas away and destroying their usefulness as an early warning line to alert defenders that the Indian and Loyalist raiders were coming. Now Joseph Brant's Loyalist Indians devastated the frontier. In May, 1780, Sir John Johnson, commanding four hundred Loyalists and two hundred Indians, attacked many settlements in

10974-480: The peace soured while the Jesuits were traveling, and their warriors attacked the party en route. The missionaries were taken to Ossernenon village, Kanienkeh (Mohawk Nation) (near present-day Auriesville , New York), where the moderate Turtle and Wolf clans recommended setting them free, but angry members of the Bear clan killed Jean de Lalande and Isaac Jogues on October 18, 1646. The Catholic Church has commemorated

11092-581: The pro-British Indians was achieved. Throughout Lord Howe's campaigning in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, many uniformed Loyalist troops had continued to be used for guard duties, keeping order and foraging. Many saw action too. John Graves Simcoe and his Queen's Rangers executed a very successful raid on Patriot forces in the Battle of Crooked Billet, in May, 1778. At Brandywine , the Queen's American Rangers fought throughout

11210-532: The rebel flag" The British Southern strategy called for the large-scale enlistment of Southern Loyalists. The British hoped that, with the aid of the Northern Loyalist regiments now arriving in the South, the Southern Loyalists could maintain control over their neighborhoods, slowly enlarging the scope of British domination. This policy was energetically pursued. An early setback for the policy lay in

11328-616: The region. These tribes migrated to regions around the Mississippi River and the Piedmont regions of the east coast. Other Iroquoian-language peoples, including the populous Wyandot (Huron) , with related social organization and cultures, became extinct as tribes as a result of disease and war. They did not join the League when invited and were much reduced after the Beaver Wars and high mortality from Eurasian infectious diseases. While

11446-421: The rescue of the redcoats retreating from Concord and Lexington, was accompanied by armed Loyalists in civilian clothes, members of a unit called Friends of the King. One of their number, Edward Winslow, had his horse shot out from under him, and was personally cited by Percy for bravery. Another, Samuel Murray, was captured but later released. After the British were besieged inside Boston, Loyalist recruits inside

11564-449: The royal cause. But they early on suffered a devastating defeat. In early 1776, under the command of Brigadier General Donald Macdonald, a substantial force of North Carolina Loyalists, possibly as many as five thousand, began a march to the seacoast to join a British assault on Charleston. However, on February 27, 1776, they encountered a Patriot force at Moore's Creek Bridge. The Patriots waited until an advance guard of Loyalists had crossed

11682-492: The second element kwédač , he suggests a relation to kouetakiou , kȣetat-chiȣin , and goéṭètjg – names used by neighboring Algonquian tribes to refer to the Iroquois, Huron, and Laurentian peoples. The Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America attests the origin of Iroquois to Iroqu , Algonquian for "rattlesnake". The French encountered the Algonquian-speaking tribes first, and would have learned

11800-597: The signers of the Declaration of Independence , and after imprisonment and cruel treatment , he broke down, and signed an oath of allegiance to George III . A British commander called the unceasing Loyalist raids "desolation warfare". Another scion of the Loyalist De Lancey family , James De Lancey , raised De Lancey's Cowboys, which raided Patriot houses and farms. The Patriots paid the De Lanceys back by burning down

11918-577: The supreme military expression of individualism... here every man was a general in the sense that he fought, to a very large degree, in response to his own best judgment of what should be done." British fortunes reached their high point in August, 1780, when Lord Charles Cornwallis 's force of British regulars and Loyalists inflicted a seemingly-decisive defeat on Patriot forces at the Battle of Camden. A substantial number of Cornwallis's three thousand men were Loyalists—North Carolina Loyalist regulars and militia,

12036-618: The two men Deganawidah and Hiawatha , while the woman Jigonsaseh , who plays a prominent role in the female tradition, remains largely unknown. The founders of League are traditionally held to be Dekanawida the Great Peacemaker, Hiawatha, and Jigonhsasee the Mother of Nations, whose home acted as a sort of United Nations. They brought the Peacemaker's Great Law of Peace to the squabbling Iroquoian nations who were fighting, raiding, and feuding with each other and with other tribes, both Algonkian and Iroquoian . Five nations originally joined in

12154-567: The war, Loyalists would have to pay triple taxes and were forced to sign the loyalty oath . Many had their lands and property confiscated. The unit was composed primarily of colonists from the Eastern Shore of Maryland ; it was commissioned in British-held Philadelphia in mid-October 1777 as "The First Battalion of Maryland Loyalists." The unit's commander, Lt. Col. James Chalmers of Newtown, Maryland (present-day Chestertown ),

12272-641: The weakened tribe. According to one theory of early Iroquois history, after becoming united in the League, the Iroquois invaded the Ohio River Valley in the territories that would become the eastern Ohio Country down as far as present-day Kentucky to seek additional hunting grounds. They displaced about 1,200 Siouan -speaking tribepeople of the Ohio River valley, such as the Quapaw (Akansea), Ofo ( Mosopelea ), and Tutelo and other closely related tribes out of

12390-659: Was admitted to the bar and entered private practice in Leonardtown , Maryland from 1787 to 1790. He practiced in Annapolis , Maryland from 1790 to 1794, and from 1799 to 1800. Key was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates from 1794 to 1799 and Mayor of Annapolis from 1797 to 1798. Loyalists fighting in the American Revolution This article is an overview of some of the prominent Loyalist military units of

12508-472: Was advocated by Gordon M. Day in 1968, elaborating upon Charles Arnaud from 1880. Arnaud had claimed that the word came from Montagnais irnokué , meaning "terrible man", via the reduced form irokue . Day proposed a hypothetical Montagnais phrase irno kwédač , meaning "a man, an Iroquois", as the origin of this term. For the first element irno , Day cites cognates from other attested Montagnais dialects: irinou , iriniȣ , and ilnu ; and for

12626-486: Was also raised. The British continued to recruit in southern New York, so much so that "Tory" New York eventually contributed more soldiers to the British side than to the Patriots. These men became part of an ongoing civil war in New Jersey and New York. Loyalists now sought revenge for injuries inflicted upon them while Patriots had been in the ascendant. Cruelty on both sides was commonplace. Many died. Kidnappings were also common. Loyalists seized Richard Stockton , one of

12744-512: Was an active Loyalist writer. The Maryland Loyalists saw limited action in 1778 at the Battle of Monmouth before being shipped off to Pensacola , West Florida , to fight the Spanish in the fall. A number of soldiers of the battalion died of smallpox upon arrival. Weakened by the epidemic and limited manpower, the Maryland Loyalists garrison was subsequently defeated by the Spanish in

12862-502: Was an important figure of his generation in recounting versions of Iroquois history in epics on the Peacemaker . Notable women historians among the Iroquois emerged in the following decades, including Laura "Minnie" Kellogg (Oneida, 1880–1949) and Alice Lee Jemison (Seneca, 1901–1964). The Iroquois League was established prior to European contact , with the banding together of five of the many Iroquoian peoples who had emerged south of

12980-516: Was cognate with the Mohawk ierokwa "they who smoke", or Cayuga iakwai "a bear". In 1888, J. N. B. Hewitt expressed doubts that either of those words exist in the respective languages. He preferred the etymology from Montagnais irin "true, real" and ako "snake", plus the French -ois suffix. Later he revised this to Algonquin Iriⁿakhoiw as the origin. A more modern etymology

13098-453: Was controlled by the Mohawk as a hunting ground. The fate of the Iroquoian people that Cartier encountered remains a mystery, and all that can be stated for certain is when Champlain arrived, they were gone. On the Gaspé peninsula, Champlain encountered Algonquian-speaking groups. The precise identity of any of these groups is still debated. On July 29, 1609, Champlain assisted his allies in defeating

13216-417: Was followed by hand-to-hand fighting. The Indians finally fled, and the Loyalists retreated. Lieutenant Colonel Friedrich Baum's detachment of Hessian mercenaries, accompanied by Loyalists, Indians and French Canadians, was sent by Burgoyne in the direction of Bennington, Vermont. Their mission was to seize supplies. On August 16, 1777, the British column was met by a large Patriot force under John Stark. In

13334-724: Was known thereafter to the Patriots as "Burntfoot Brown". Two weeks after these injuries, Brown was in South Carolina, recruiting hundreds of men to the King's cause. He became a scourge to the Patriots. Brown's East Florida Rangers, some of the New York Volunteers, and the Carolina Royalists marched in Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell's British column when it marched on and took Augusta. Campbell said jubilantly that he had taken "a stripe and star from

13452-521: Was made in May, 1778, on Cobleskill, New York, where three hundred Loyalists and Indians, led by the Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant, defeated a small Patriot force of militia and Continental regulars, then burned homes, crops and barns. In late June, 1778, a mixed force of Indians and John Butler's Loyalist Rangers attacked the settlement in Wyoming Valley, in Pennsylvania. The raiders were resisted by

13570-455: Was now in serious trouble. His supplies were low, Loyalists were not rallying to the colors in the numbers expected, and a huge force of Patriots was gathering against him. At Saratoga, Loyalists, Indians and French Canadians acted as scouts and sharpshooters for the British, but the fighting ended with a decisive defeat for the royal cause—the surrender of Burgoyne and his army on October 17, 1777. The British general Guy Carleton , impressed by

13688-504: Was offered the position as the titular chair of the League's Council, representing the unity of all nations of the League. This is said to have occurred at Onondaga Lake near present-day Syracuse, New York . The title Tadodaho is still used for the League's chair, the fiftieth chief who sits with the Onondaga in council. The Iroquois subsequently created a highly egalitarian society. One British colonial administrator declared in 1749 that

13806-643: Was raised by the wealthy Loyalist Sir John Johnson . Large numbers of Iroquois Indians were recruited to the British side by the Mohawk leader Joseph Brant (Thayendenegea). In the spring of 1777, the British General John Burgoyne was ordered to invade northern New York by way of Lake Champlain. Burgoyne started south from Canada at the end of June, 1777, with a force of nearly eight thousand British regulars, German mercenaries, Loyalists, Indians and French Canadians. (There were few English-speaking Canadians at this time). Burgoyne's plan called for

13924-667: Was then to march on Halifax. The fort was manned by the Loyalist Royal Fencible Americans . They repelled two assaults by Eddy's men, and were later joined by elements of the Royal Highland Emigrants, after which Eddy's invasion failed. Highland Scots who had emigrated to America overwhelmingly favored the king over the Revolutionary cause. In the South, most of the Highland Scots organized quickly in

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