Passage II

SOCIAL SCIENCE: This passage is adapted from the article "Loyal to a Fault" by Maya Jasanoff(@2007 by The New York Times Company).

Every Independence Day, Americans celebrate the founding of the United States. Yet for several months after July 4, 1776, the self-proclaimed United States of America looked set to go down in history as a nation that never was. That August, in the biggest battle of the Revolution, the British trounced the Continental Army on Long Island, nearly forcing an American surrender.

As Washington's beleaguered soldiers retreated through New Jersey, thousands of Americans loyal to King George III surged into New York City——where they would remain under British protection for the rest of the war. These loyalists had no desire "to dissolve the political bands" with Britain, as the Declaration of Independence demanded. Instead, as they explained in a petition to British authorities, they "steadily and uniformly opposed" this "most unnatural, unprovoked Rebellion, that ever disgraced the annals of Time." While the rebels sought to sever the connection between Britain and the colonies, the loyalists "most ardently wish [ed] for a restoration of that union between them." Where the rebels challenged the king, the loyalists staunchly upheld royal authority: they had "borne true Allegiance to His Majesty， and the most warm and affectionate attachment to his Person and Government.”

During three days in November 1776, this petition sat in Scott's Tavern, on Wall Street, to be signed by anyone who wished. A frank declaration of dependence, it completely lacks the revolutionary genius and rhetorical grace of the hallowed July 4 document. Yet in all, more than 700 people put their names to the parchment——12 times the number who signed the Declaration of Independence. Among the signatories were pillars of New York society: wealthy merchants who commanded vast tracts of land and capital, members of some of New York's most prominent families, and clergymen who published articulate rebuttals to rebel pamphlets like Thomas Paine's Common Sense. But most of the names belonged to the ordinary people who made New York run.

Loyalists are the American Revolution's guilty secret: rarely spoken of, hauntingly present. At least one in five Americans is believed to have remained loyal to Britain during the war. They expressed their opinions passively and actively: refusing to forswear allegiance to the king, signing petitions or joining loyalist military regiments——as nearly 20,000 men did——to defend their vision of British America. In retaliation they faced harassment from their peers. Some would suffer for their loyalty in open battle; others faced sanctions from state legislatures, which could strip them of their land and possessions, imprison them or formally banish them.

The Tories, as the patriots pejoratively called them, are still often caricatured as elitist and out of touch, even treacherous. Yet it bears stressing that our "self-evident" founding principles were not seen that way by one-fifth of the population. Many of the United States' first and most passionate critics were Americans themselves.

After the Revolutionary War ended, thousands of loyalists blended into the nation, and their descendants participated in shaping American society. But many——as many as I in 30 Americans——did not. Feeling insecure and unwelcome in the United States, and attracted by British promises of land and compensation, some 80,000 loyalists left their homes to build new lives elsewhere in the still-vigorous British Empire. About half fled north to Canada, among them more than 3, 000 black loyalists——former slaves who had been granted freedom in exchange for fighting for the British——and several hundred Mohawk Indians, longstanding British allies. Many loyalists entered Jamaican society as doctors, printers, merchants, and planters——or tried their luck at cotton planting on the out-islands of the Bahamas.

Still, even as the loyalists put down roots in the British Empire, it seemed that they had not left every trace of America behind. For what should they promptly express abroad but an uncannily American desire for greater political representation——much to the chagrin of British officials. Fired up by an "American spirit of innovation," as one disgruntled British governor put it, loyalists clamored for participation every where from the Canadian Maritimes to the Bahamas. In some settings, they achieved it. Thanks in part to the loyalists political legacy, Canada gained limited self-government earlier than any other British colony, providing a template for later home rule and go decolonization.