As she began: An illustrated introduction to Loyalist Ontario

As She Began An illustrated introduction to Loyalist Ontario

by Bruce Wilson

Dundurn Press Toronto and Charlottetown

1981

Acknowledgments The preparation of this manuscript and the publication of this book were made possible because of assistance from several sources. The author is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for a Writer's Grant award. The publisher wishes to acknowledge the ongoing generous financial support of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.

We are particularly grateful to the Ontario Heritage Foundation, Ministry of Culture and Recreation for its publishing award, its encouragement for this project, and its technical assistance. J. Kirk Howard, Publisher

Copyright © Bruce Wilson, 1981. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press Limited. Editor: Diane Mew Design and Production: Ron and Ron Design Photography Typesetting: Jaytype Printing and Binding: Editions Marquis, Montmagny, Quebec Dundurn Press Limited P.O. Box 245, Station F Toronto, Canada M4Y 2L5

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Wilson, Bruce G., 1945As she began Bibliography: p. ISBN 0-919670-54-7 1. United Empire Loyalists - History.* History - 1763-1791. I. Title. FC3070.L6WS4 F1058.W54

971.3'01

2. Canada

C82-094264-2

to Rachael, Seth, and Mary sue.

Preface Surprisingly little has been written in our generation about the United Empire Loyalists. One gap which has particularly struck me is the lack of any single narrative account attempting to cover in detail both the wartime experiences and the postwar settlement of those United Empire Loyalists who came to Ontario. This book is a modest attempt to rectify that lack by combining some original research with a synthesis of existing sources. I hope that its many illustrations will help the reader to catch the flavour of the period and that the book will be of interest both to the general reader and to the scholar. I have entailed many debts in the preparation of this work. I should like to thank the Ontario Ministry of Culture and Recreation who commissioned an earlier report on this subject as a background paper. In particular I owe a debt to Mr. Lome Ste. Croix of the Ministry who has been a great aid to me in all stages of the production of the work. I wish to thank the Ontario Heritage Foundation who have given a substantial grant towards the publication of this book and my own institution, the Public Archives of Canada, for a short leave period to research my manuscript. The following institutions and their staffs have been most helpful to me in my research: the Public Archives of Canada; the Archives of Ontario; the Sigmund Samuel Collection of the Royal Ontario Museum; the Baldwin Room of the Metropolitan Toronto Library; the National War Museum; the Niagara Historical Society; the National Gallery of Canada; the State Historical Society of Wisconsin; the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University; the Connecticut Historical Society; the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the St. Catharines Historical Museum; and the William L. Clements Library. I wish to thank Kirk Howard, my publisher, who has put a great deal of effort into this book and Ron Rochon who has been responsible for its design. Diane Mew, my editor, has made a number of suggestions that have greatly improved the work. P. J. Lloyd prepared the maps. I owe a special thanks to my mother-in-law, Edna Mellor, and my wife, Mary sue Wilson, who have typed the manuscript. Finally, my thanks to my wife and children who have patiently endured the cuts into our limited leisure time that this book has made. Bruce Wilson London, England, December 1981.

Contents Introduction

9

1. Who were the Loyalists?

13

2. The Loyalist War out of Canada

25

3. Resettlement in the St. Lawrence-Bay of Quinte Region

49

4. Resettlement in Niagara and the Western Peninsula

79

5. The Colony begins to grow

95

Notes

120

Note on Sources

123

Illustration index and credits

124

Faces of Loyalism: "Reverend John Stuart," (1740-1811), artist unknown An Anglican clergyman, Stuart had been a missionary serving the Mohawks at Fort Hunter, New York. He was greatly respected by both whites and Indians, and was a strong influence in persuading his Indian charges to remain faithful to the crown. When the Mohawks openly espoused the British cause, Stuart was arrested on suspicion of being a Loyalist and finally paroled within the limits of Schenectady. His chapel was turned into a tavern and later a stable. He was subjected to abuse, his possessions stolen and fi-

8

nally his farm confiscated. When he attempted to open a Latin school to support himself, he was forbidden as a "prisoner of war. "At last he applied for an exchange and was allowed to go to Canada in 1781. In Montreal, he was a schoolmaster and a chaplain to the King's Royal Regiment of New York. He settled permanently at Cataraqui (Kingston) in 1785 and later became rector of St. George's, Kingston, and bishop's commissary for Upper Canada.

Introduction Adam Young was one of the first "un-American" Americans. Native-born and of German extraction, there was nothing particularly unusual about the man. He was a small farmer in Try on County, New York, who by thirty years of labour had cleared and cultivated one hundred acres of land. By the time the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, Young, sixty years old and a pillar of his community, was slipping into a comfortable old age. Although members of his own family, even his own brothers and sisters, supported the revolutionary cause, Adam Young steadfastly declared himself for the king. As a committed British partisan, he gave shelter and provisions to those fleeing from the Revolution and recruited local men for the royalist forces. Young was harassed and vilified by his neighbours because of his loyalty. He was hauled before the Tryon County Committee of Safety and when he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the new republic, he was marched out of New York into Connecticut and flung into prison for eleven months. Scarcely had Young returned home when a rebel mob descended upon him, burning his home, laying waste to his fields and carrying off his stock. But the old man could not be broken. Gathering his few remaining possessions and shouldering his rifle, he trudged off to join the forces of the crown. His wife and younger children, destitute and on the verge of starvation, were forced to walk overland to the British stronghold at Fort Niagara. There they remained until the war had run its bloody course. From 1778 to 1782 Young, joined in time by all four of his sons, served his king in a grim war within a war. As a royalist guerilla fighter he participated in a savage civil war which sowed death and destruction in a thousand-mile swath below the Great Lakes. Young and several thousand other Americans who fought for the crown on the northern frontier won their battles, but they were the complete losers when peace came. Their lands were confiscated and harsh new state laws prevented many of them from returning home. The new United States of America set about eradicating every reminder of their existence. Within a generation, it was as though they had never lived. Young did not vanish. Exiled from his native land, he finished out his days in the new colony of Upper Canada. There, on the banks of the Grand River, he once again began the arduous task of hacking a farm out of the wilderness. Reviled as a traitor by one nation, Young was a founding father of another. He and those who had stood beside him would be known in Canadian history as the United Empire Loyalists.1 Who were the United Empire Loyalists and what did they think and do? We who live in Ontario have compelling reason for trying to fathom them. The first settlers of our province were Loyalists. They founded our first towns and built our first churches and schools. They created the first farms out of the Ontario wilderness. They helped shape our institutions, our laws and our ways of looking at ourselves. They are a major part of our past. We must attempt to understand Adam Young and his contemporaries in order to understand our heritage. 9

Later generations of Canadians have often misjudged the Loyalists. The still-prevailing interpretation of them comes from the late nineteenth century, wrought by Canadian nationalists who believed Canada should accept a vigorous role in the affairs of the British Empire. They, not unreasonably, saw the Loyalists as earlier defenders of the unity of the Empire. In tune with the sentiments of their day, however, they also characterized the Loyalists as the epitome of AngloSaxondom. They were convinced that the Loyalists were "the very cream of the population of the Thirteen Colonies," that they were an educated and cultured elite, representing "the learning, the piety, the gentle birth, the wealth and the good citizenship of the British race in America."2 Many Canadians today still hold to a variant of this interpretation of the Loyalists. The Loyalists, they believe, were bluebloods and snobs, toadies to the British authorities and ersatz aristocrats who unimaginatively tried to force inappropriate British ways on a new and vigorous North American society. Many Ontarians believe that the Loyalists are of interest only to a few old-established families who trace their pedigrees back to them, that the Loyalists settled in only a few areas and therefore did not greatly affect the overall growth of the province, and that in the main they are best forgotten. In fact, the Loyalists were a very mixed group, white, black and red, only a minority of whom were Englishmen. If anything, the Loyalists were more ethnically and religiously diverse than their rebel opponents. They tended to come from the middle and lower rather than the higher strata of society. The Loyalists were not puppets of the British imperial power. Although they believed in a continuing link, few of them accepted that British customs and institutions could be transplanted without modification to North America. In Ontario, they contended as vociferously for forms of local government and landholding to suit their situation as their opponents to the south had done before the Revolution. Though they established only a handful of communities directly, they exercised an influence all out of proportion to their numbers. They were the founding group in our province; its political, social, religious and economic systems were put in place to meet the needs and desires of those who wished to continue to live under the crown, the Loyalists. We owe much to the Loyalists. Without them, there probably would not have been a Canada. Ontario and New Brunswick would have been settled by American frontiersmen. Nova Scotia would still be connected with Great Britain because of its strategic importance. The British would have had no reason to hold on to Prince Edward Island and little incentive to risk much for the French settlement along the St. Lawrence. Cleared out of the lands to the south, Britain would have had no claim to retain the vast lands granted the Hudson's Bay Company. Canada as we know it would not exist. If we owe our geography to the Loyalists, we also owe to them our political tradition of "evolution" rather then "revolution," our ideal of steady progression towards constitutional democracy. Likewise, in their diversity and heterogeneity we can find one origin of our "tossed salad" society with its stress on pluralism and tolerance, as opposed to the American "melting pot." It is indeed time that Ontarians acknowledged the debts they owe to their brave and determined forefathers, the Loyalists. 10

Faces of Loyalism: "Alexander McDonell" (1762-1842) by William Berczy

Born in Scotland, McDonell had moved with his family to the Delaware River Valley. In 1779 at the age of 17, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in Butler's Rangers and served the rest of the war with that unit. After the war, McDonell had a long and varied career in Upper Canada as representative in the House of Assembly for Glengarry, Sheriff of the Home District and agent for Lord Selkirk's Baldoon settlement in Upper Canada. During the war of 1812 he was deputy paymaster general and after the war superintendent of the settlement of disbanded soldiers at Perth.

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1 Who Were the Loyalists? The popular American image of the Loyalists, portrayed in novels, television and films, is certainly not an heroic one. The Loyalist is seen as a stiff-necked Tory, rich, greedy and self-interested. Speaking with an affected English accent, he was probably a corrupt officeholder and owner of a great house, indolently whiling away his days driving about in a gilded carriage, a parasite who remained loyal only for personal gain. According to this American stereotype, the Loyalist was an isolated figure, a small sore upon the generally healthy body politic to be expunged by the hardy colonial freedom fighters. Whatever else one says of the Loyalists, they were not few in number. It has been estimated that there were nearly 500,000 colonists who remained loyal to the British crown. That would be about 16 per cent of the total American population, or 20 per cent of white Americans. In 1780 some 8,000 Loyalists were actively serving their king in organized regiments at a time when Washington's army numbered only about 9,000. Between 80,000 and 100,000 Loyalists eventually fled from the United States, about half of them to Canada, making it by far the most important centre of refuge. The Maritimes became home for about 45,000 while some 9,500 went to Quebec. Of these, approximately 7,500 settled in what was then western Quebec, later to become Upper Canada and finally Ontario.1 A rough portrait of the white Ontario Loyalists can be sketched from the claims for war losses that 488 of them submitted to the British government shortly after the Revolution.2 What is striking about this first-hand testimony is that it almost entirely contradicts the American stereotype. These people had enjoyed neither wealth nor privilege. Only five of them had held public office, three in relatively modest positions: that of magistrate, town clerk and employee of the Indian Department. Of the other two, one had been the postmaster of the City of Albany and Albany County, the other the sheriff of Tryon County. There was only one among the claimants who by modern standards would have been considered a professional - a physician. Two were surgeons (one a surgeon-apothecary) and one a school teacher. A small number had been shopowners, tavern-keepers or artisans, and two had been shipowners. But ninety per cent of the Loyalists listed themselves simply as farmers. 3 Although the average land claim was deceptively large - 191 acres, leased or owned - a full 42 per cent indicated that they had had less than ten acres cleared. The great majority of Ontario Loyalists were pioneer farmers, most of whom had resided in New York State, 54 per cent of those coming from the sprawling county of Tryon, then the western frontier of New York settlement.4 Tryon County included the Mohawk Valley, the acknowledged hotbed of loyalism in western New York. Albany County accounted for 25 per cent, while Charlotte County, which then included what is now Vermont, had 14 per cent. Large numbers of these Ontario Loyalists would have spoken with accents, but their accents would not have been either English or affected, as the popular American image would suggest. Fifty-four per cent of the Ontario claimants were foreign-born and many probably 13

Faces of Loyalism: "Robert Kerr" (1764-1824), artist unknown During the Revolution, Kerr was a surgeon's mate at Machiche, the main Loyalist refugee camp in Quebec and after 1780, surgeon to the second battalion of the King's Royal Regiment of New York. After the war, he was appointed surgeon to the Indian Department and settled at Niagara in 1789. He was a judge of the Surrogate Court at Niagara and grand master of the Provincial Grand Lodge. He married Elizabeth, a daughter of Molly Brant and Sir William Johnson.

14

15

George III Indian Chief Medal, ca. 1775-1783 The custom of issuing medals to enlist and maintain the support of the Indian tribes had been a well-established practice in North America since the Spanish and French regimes. During the Revolution, British medals were struck in some profusion. They came in several different sizes, to correspond with the significance of the recipient and some, for the purpose of economy, were hollow. The obverse of the medal is a youthful bust of George III, the reverse the royal arms and supporters. Many similar medals have symbolic scenes or commemorations of victories on their reverse. The lack of any really major victories in the Revolution, despite the many successes of the Loyalist regiments in the Northern Department, probably precluded such depictions on British revolutionary medals.

16

Certificate of Recognition, 1778 During the 1770s, the practice was introduced of granting commissions to the Indian chiefs to whom medals had been granted, recognizing their authority and investing them with their title. The one reproduced above was granted in 1778 to a chief of the Menominees by Frederick Haldimand, the governor of Canada, for his "fidelity, zeal and attachment" to the crown.

17

did not speak English at all. Over half of them were Scots, a large proportion of them Gaelic-speaking Highland Roman Catholics. There was also a good number of Germans and Irish (most of whom would have been Scots-Irish), while a meagre 8 per cent (some thirty-nine individuals) were English by birth. Most of the foreign-born were quite recent immigrants. Those Scots who indicated the length of their residence had only been in the country an average of four years before the beginning of the Revolution; the English had been there eight years, the Irish, eleven, and the Germans, eighteen. Not included among the Ontario Loyalists who filed claims were considerable numbers of blacks and Indians. The white Loyalists brought a sizable contingent of slaves with them to Ontario, and free blacks and escaped slaves also fought directly in the Loyalist corps. Even more significant numerically were the Indians. The largest group of Ontario Loyalists after the native-born whites were the true natives of America. Over two thousand Indian allies of the crown - Six Nations Iroquois from New York, Delawares and Mingoes of the Ohio Country and a scattering of Creeks, Cherokees and other tribes from the southern colonies - had settled in Ontario by 1785. Small though their initial numbers were, the Loyalist groups which came to Upper Canada were thus remarkably diverse in their origins. Major John Ross, the British commander at Cataraqui (Kingston) who was responsible for assisting the largest number of them to settle, regarded his charges with frank bewilderment. "Strange," he wrote to his superiors, "is the collection of people here."5 Why did such a range of people - Negro, Indian, German, Scots, Scots-Irish and English as well as native-born colonists - support the royal cause? There is no simple answer. The American Revolution was a complex conflict, a civil war fought within a war of colonial liberation by thirteen loosely knit colonies each with its own distinctive pattern of development. Within that tortuous configuration, there was plenty of room for a welter of often contradictory motives for supporting the king or his enemies. The conflict cut through class, occupational, religious and ethnic lines; at least some members of every conceivable grouping would be found on both sides in the war. Ideology was perhaps the most widely shared motivation for loyalty. A personal attachment to the crown and the fear of the impact of the Revolution on American society were major factors in the decisions of many colonists. This is not to say that Loyalists were necessarily rigid reactionaries. Many, if not most, Loyalists agreed with the rebels (or Patriots or Whigs as they were often called) that America had suffered wrongs at the hands of the mother country. Unlike the rebels, they believed that the solution to those ills could be worked out inside the Empire. Many were staunch believers in the continuing value of the British connection. Most had never known any rule but that of the crown and not a few cherished a deep attachment to Great Britain and British culture as well as a sincere admiration for the British form of government. When new and untried leaders, radicals and demagogues as they appeared to the Loyalists, threatened the link to Great Britain by mob violence and extra-legal action, the Loyalists resisted. They sincerely believed that the Revolution would degenerate into anarchy or despotism. The final result, they affirmed, could be that the colonies would end up as a satellite of a foreign power or as mendicants begging for re-entry into the British Empire. 18

A New Method oi'M ACARONY MAKING, as practiced 5v i?// at BOSTON in NORTH AMERICA . • I .-.musKm Hovtn. #'H,« ,« .r*J>,.ub fhurdt Ten*, londati

The Persecution of a Loyalist: a 1774 mezzotint, artist unknown

The victim is /o/w Malcom or Malcomb, commissioner of customs in Boston. In January 1774 he was tarred and feathered, half-hanged and forced to drink enormous quantities of tea. Many other royalists would suffer similar fates in the course of the Revolution. The cockade in the hat of the assailant on the right marks him out as one of the Sons of Liberty. The "45" on the

other hat refers to the "No. 45" issue of John Wilkes' paper, the North Briton which stood at the centre of a British controversy over parliamentary privilege and the freedom of speech. Wilkes and the "No. 45" were embraced by the colonists as symbols of liberty. "Macarony" was the epithet applied to eighteenth-century English dandies.

19

A majority of the Ontario claimants were immigrants, and immigrants were likely candidates for loyalism. Some of those long resident in America had special reasons for loyalty. Of the fifty-eight Ontario claimants who had come to America before 1760, nineteen had come as soldiers with the British army to fight in the Seven Years' War. Generally, however, the more recent an immigrant, the greater the chances of his loyalty; he had not usually done as well as those who had been longer established, lacked their confidence, had stronger ties with the homeland (especially if British) and felt more in need of a friend in the form of the British government. Many who saw themselves as weak or threatened felt the need of an outside arbiter, Great Britain, to protect them from the most powerful elements in colonial society. As one Loyalist succinctly put it, he would rather be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away than by three thousand tyrants not a mile away. Those who agreed with him would include a number of the Palantine Germans who had come in the early eighteenth century to escape religious persecution, and had established group settlements along the Pennsylvania frontier or in the Schoharie tract of Tryon County. They wished to retain their distinctive ways and saw the Revolution as a potential threat. The Gaelic-speaking Roman Catholic Scots likewise wished to remain distinct from the Protestant English-speaking majority in America. Certainly the Indians had no enthusiasm for the aggressive expansionism of the colonists which pushed them from their lands and destroyed their way of life. The native peoples believed the British were more likely to restrain this movement. Blacks too had more to hope for from the wholesale British offer of freedom to slaves deserting the Patriots than they had from their rebel masters. Loyalism then could be the refuge of the helpless against American oppression. Local politics had much to do with the side that a group or an individual might choose in the Revolution. Many who came from New York, and especially those from Tryon County, had a strong personal loyalty to the Johnson family. Sir William Johnson had come to western New York from Ireland in 1738 to manage his uncle's lands. A dynamic leader with magnetic appeal for whites and Indians alike, Johnson quickly rose to become superintendent of the Northern Indian Department and a great landowner. He exercised an impressive influence in his own area; he had been responsible for the creation of Tryon County and its officers were personally loyal to him. Through the large sum expended by the Indian Department and the British army, Johnson also controlled a munificent amount of patronage along the western frontier, and many were beholden to him. Although Sir William died on the eve of the Revolution, his son Sir John and his nephew Guy ably managed the family's interests and took many of their tenants and dependants with them to the British side. A substantial segment of these tenants were Scottish Highland Catholics who had arrived in 1773 and were dependent upon, and owed gratitude to, their landlord. But if some tenants followed their landlords, others were fighting against them. New York had been the scene of bitter struggles over land which erupted into major tenant riots in 1766. Many of the rich landowners sided with the Patriots. Numbers of their tenants, not surprisingly, favoured the Loyalists; they hoped for land reform if the 20

king defeated their landlords. Loyal farmers from Albany County, for example, were often in revolt against the leading landlords, the rebel Livingstons. In other areas of New York, where the landlords were Tory, the tenants tended to be Whig. Land was also an issue in Pennsylvania, especially in the border area with New York where a decade before the Revolution the Susquehanna Company, run by Yankees from Connecticut, had claimed ownership of the land. They had been unsuccessfully opposed by Pennsylvanians in what amounted to a small land war. When the Revolution came, many of the Pennsylvanians joined the Loyalist regiments. Human nature being what it is, not all Americans were avid Tories or Whigs. Many of those favourable to the royal cause preferred to remain passive during the Revolution, living out their daily lives quietly and ignoring the conflagration. In such cases, circumstances rebel persecution, the success of British arms or pressure from their own side - could be a major factor in forcing them to openly choose sides. To strengthen the wavering and ferret out secret Loyalists, all the revolting American colonies passed at least one law requiring inhabitants to take oaths, which usually involved foreswearing their old loyalties and pledging allegiance to the new regime and faith in the Revolution. Those who hesitated or refused could find themselves facing penalties ranging from disfranchisement and exclusion from political office through extra taxation and confiscation of property to imprisonment, banishment, and execution for exiles who returned. In November 1777 the Continental Congress recommended the confiscation of Loyalist estates, a suggestion which in some places had already been acted upon. All the states finally taxed or confiscated Loyalist property. The harshness of the penalties imposed on Tories and the thoroughness of their application varied from state to state and were usually severest where Loyalists were most numerous and therefore most dangerous. The areas from which Ontario Loyalists came were not noted for their leniency. New York was considered one of the most punitive of the states, but Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Rhode Island were all harsh. Those who tended towards the royal cause and therefore faced extreme penalties often found themselves with little alternative other than to join openly the Loyalists. Sympathy for the crown could be a dangerous sentiment in the brave new republic. Those who defied the Revolution could find themselves non-persons without civil rights, turned out of their homes with no more than the clothes on their backs or flung into a prison. The most famous of the Loyalist prisons was Simsbury Mines in Connecticut. The cells there were forty yards below the surface into which "the prisoners are let down by windlass into the dismal cavern, through a hole, which answers the purpose of conveying their food and air, as to light, it scarcely reaches them." Many Loyalists were murdered, lynched or executed for such acts as spying, recruiting, counterfeiting or guiding troops to the attack. Loyalists also suffered in ways that were not the direct result of legislation or government action. Many social pressures were brought to bear on them. The lucky ones might experience nothing more than social ostracism; others suffered under mob attacks, and many had their homes looted or burned. A favourite punishment for loyalism, which at times threatened to reach the proportions of a national sport, 21

The Most Notorious Loyalist Prison: a line engraving, "A Prospective View of Old Newgate Connecticut's State Prison," by Richard Brunton Simsbury, or Granby, copper mines ceased production by 1773 and were converted into Connecticut's gaol. Renamed after the London prison, Newgate, the mines soon gained a fitting reputation. Loyalists and prisoners of war suffered ghastly privations in its subterranean cells. 22

consisted of stripping the victim to the "buff and breaches" and coating him with hot tar and feathers. The damage to the skin could be extensive and the awful goo was virtually irremovable. The tarring ceremony was often followed by a cruel round of "riding the rail," which consisted of jogging the victim along with a sharp-edged rail between his legs. In the face of such vengeance, many who remained loyal sought refuge within the British lines. Certainly the existence of a strong military presence in an area encouraged many Loyalists to declare themselves, just as major British military campaigns prompted many to come forward and actively join the cause. Thus the fact that the British held New York City throughout the war and the fact that a number of major campaigns were fought in New York State encouraged Loyalism there and in adjoining parts of Connecticut and New Jersey. The capture of Philadelphia clearly had a bearing on loyalism in Pennsylvania, in nearby Delaware and in southern New Jersey. Reluctant loyalists who were neither compelled by the vengeance of the Patriots nor encouraged by the successes of the British might still have to face compulsion from the recruiting parties of their own side, whose methods were sometimes far from gentle. Barnabas Kelly, a settler in the Mohawk Valley, reported that he had "heard John Young of Butternut read a proclamation from Butler [John Butler, leader of the Loyalist Butler's Rangers] desiring all the friends of government to join him, and bring their cattle together with their wives and families and they would be kindly received by the said Butler." For those for whom the carrot was not sufficient, there was a stick. Shortly after the reading of the proclamation, the loyal Indian leader Joseph Brant appeared on the scene with a party of warriors. He ordered a number of the settlers to go with him, or if they did not, "to take their own risks." His meaning could not be mistaken and the settlers went.6 Episodes such as this make it clear that desperate conditions in the war led to drastic measures and some consequent blurring of the lines between Tory and Whig. Indeed, especially in the frontier regions, the issues which initially divided Patriot and Loyalist were often lost in the confusion of raids, massacres and lawlessness, blood spilt and vengeance extracted, as the revolutionary conflict became increasingly savage. Given the swirl of disparate motives that could decide loyalty or rebellion, it is not surprising that for many colonists the final decision was a highly individual one. If many small farmers in New York and Pennsylvania fought for the crown, the vast majority of farmers across the colonies did not. If many German-Americans remained loyal, German-Americans were also at the core of the successionist movement in New York. Large numbers of North American Indians actively supported the British but many more remained apathetic. The Revolution split families and divided business partnerships. Old friends became bitter enemies. A contemporary account of the War of 1812 contains this revealing account of an incident in that war involving the Glengarry Fencibles: In this regiment there were a father and three sons, American U.E. Loyalists, all of them crack shots. In a covering party one day the farmer and one of the sons were sentries on the same point. An American rifleman dropped a man to his left, but in so doing exposed 23

himself, and almost as a matter of course, was instantly dropped in his turn by the unerring aim of the father. The enemy were at that moment being driven in, so the old man of course (for it was a ceremony seldom neglected) went up to rifle his victim. On examining his features he discovered that it was his own brother. Under any circumstances this would have horrified most men, but a Yankee has much of the stoic in him, and is seldom deprived of his equanimity. He took possession of his valuables, consisting of an old silver watch and a clasp knife, his rifle and appointments, coolly remarking, that it "served him right for fighting for the rebels, when all the rest of his family fought for King George." It appeared that during the Revolutionary War his father and all his sons had taken arms in the King's cause, save this one, who had joined the Americans. They had never met him from that period till the present moment; but such is the virulence of political rancour, that it can overcome all the ties of nature.7

The American Revolution was truly the first American civil war.

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2 The Loyalist War out of Canada Adam Crysler flattened himself in the brush near the road, positioned his rifle, and listened intently. His scouts had informed him that a large rebel party from Schoharie was in hot pursuit of his small band. They had attacked the night before and had been driven off. Now they were renewing their offensive. At moments like these, Crysler's mind turned back over the last few turbulent years. It would be ironic if it all ended for him here. Crysler had been a solid citizen of Schoharie with a fine farm, a grist mill and a sawmill. When the troubles began, he had had no hesitation in publicly declaring his loyalty to the king. For his courage, he had been taken prisoner by the agitators and permitted to go at liberty only under sentence of immediate death for the least assistance to the king's cause. A man not easily frightened, Crysler had proceeded to organize seventy whites and twentyfive Indians at Schoharie and had engineered a devastating ambush against the rebels before fading into the wilderness. In November 1777 he had arrived at Fort Niagara with one hundred Indians. Colonel John Butler made him a lieutenant in his Rangers and Crysler's life from that point had been a blur of marching and hiding, interspersed with brief, violent bursts of action. He had hammered Canatasago in three separate raids, put the torch to the Wyoming and Cherry valleys under Butler, attacked the German Flats with Captain Caldwell, raided the Susequehanna and himself led several successful raids on Schoharie. It was brutal and bloody work; he was constantly numbed and exhausted. Yet Crysler and his compatriots were winning. The rebels now hardly dared to stick their noses beyond their own thresholds. One day soon, Crysler knew, these rebel lands would again be ruled by their rightful sovereign. He pressed himself even flatter on the grass and waited.' The Americans do not see the Revolution as a fratricidal conflict. The preferred popular image is one of an entire people rising up united against the British oppressors. The course of the actual warfare is seen as a confrontation between vigorous frontier pragmatism and stilted European tactics - canny American marksmen with their squirrel guns, hiding among the trees and picking off British regulars as the redcoats marched stiffly past in their serried ranks, their drums beating and their flags flying. Native participation in the war is portrayed in the American myth as the actions of blood-thirsty savages who, egged on by brutal British Indian agents, carried out an uncontrolled campaign of plunder and indiscriminate slaughter. Aside from the inaccuracies in the depiction of the British regulars, it is far from true that the redcoats fought alone. Over 19,000 Loyalists served in provincial corps during the Revolution, and they were accompanied by several thousand Indians. Some of the largest and most consistently active Loyalist regiments, the Royal Highland Emigrants, the King's Royal Regiment of New York and Butler's Rangers, as well as the rangers of the Northern Indian Department and several smaller corps, all operated from British bases in Canada or near to the present border. Substantial segments of these corps settled in Ontario after the war. These units had an impressive battle record; 25

The Warriors: Uniform Buttons

The buttons illustrated here are, with one exception, reproductions. The exception is the button at the far right in the top row. Silver plated, it is an officer's button with a crown and stand of arms, reading simply "Rangers." It was found near Fort Anne, Vermont, and may well be a King's Ranger button from the revolutionary period. The buttons from top to bottom and left to right are: a Royal Provincial button, generally worn by the provincial corps, especially the smaller ones; a Butler's Rangers button; a King's Rangers button; a button of the 8th (or King's) Regiment of Foot, a regiment of the regular army which served extensively at the upper posts; a button of the 84th Regiment of Foot (or Royal Highland Emigrants), a unit raised in North America, but placed on the regular establishment; and lastly, a variant of the 84th button.

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they served, for the most part, not as auxiliaries of the regular army but as guerillas, loosely organized in small bands, highly mobile and adept at living off the land. Moving swiftly through hostile territory, they swept down in devastating raids upon the northern and western colonial frontiers. They, not the rebels who lived in terror of them, were the most successful frontiersmen of the Revolutionary War. The Loyalist guerilla parties were fluid groupings usually composed of elements from several provincial corps, together with substantial numbers of their native allies. The Indians were a key element in the military successes of the Loyalists, providing much of the driving fury that fuelled the frontier campaign. The loyal Indians were not, however, the sadistic animals lusting after slaughter their American opponents accused them of being. Indeed, the various tribes were initially reluctant to involve themselves in the conflict and were inclined to remain neutral. The actions of the Indian Department in defusing what had threatened to be a major Indian war in 1774 had appeared to the Indians to be treachery and had cooled their ardour for the British cause. The tribes, moreover, were perplexed by the Revolution. The quarrel seemed to them to be an unnatural one, a controversy between brothers. As the Oneidas, one of the Iroquois tribes, informed Governor Trumbull of Connecticut, "We are unwilling to join on either side of such a contest, for we love you both - old England and new. Should the great King of England apply to us for aid - we shall deny him - and should the colonies apply - we shall refuse."2 Like it or not, it was a certainty that the Indians would become involved in the controversy between the colonies and England. They were simply too valuable as allies to be ignored. Despite early attempts to encourage Indian neutrality, both sides quickly turned to seeking Indian aid. In this contest, the royalists were almost entirely successful. With the exception of some Oneidas and Tuscaroras of the Six Nations, a handful of Indians from Canada and Nova Scotia, and a few Delawares on the Pennsylvania frontier, all the Indians who took up arms during the Revolution remained loyal. However, not all Indians nominally on the royalist side committed themselves enthusiastically to the contest. Those of Nova Scotia, the Canadian Indians of Quebec and the Indians of the Illinois Country took no more than a sporadic interest in the war. Those who offered consistent support were the Six Nation Iroquois of Upper New York State and the Ohio Indians - that is, the Delaware, Shawnee and Mingo. What divided the participants from the non-participants was self-interest. The New York Iroquois and the Ohio Indians by the time of the Revolution found their tribal lands threatened by the pressure of white settlement. The other Indian groupings were not as immediately menaced. The Ohio Indians and the Iroquois felt they had little choice but to fight for their homelands and they believed the British were more likely allies of their cause than the Americans. The Indians who allied themselves with the British were waging their own war within the larger Revolutionary conflict. Like the loyal whites, they fought for definite purposes of their own, not for any blood lust. Even before the Indian braves had been drawn into the war, the white Loyalists were beginning to organize. In April 1775, LieutenantColonel Allen Maclean of Torloisk, the Isle of Mull, who had exten27

The Warriors: "A Captain of the Royal Highland Emigrants," artist unknown The Royal Highland Emigrants were raised to a large extent from disbanded soldiers who had served in North America in the Seven Years' War, particularly with the Black Watch and Fraser's Highlanders. Their magnificent uniform was patterned on that of the Black Watch, except for the sporran which would normally have been

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of badger pelt but in this case was racoon, probably because of the greater availability of that pelt in the new world. The uniform was meant to be a lure to Highlanders to enlist, as the public wearing of the kilt had been generally proscribed since the defeat of the Highlanders at Culloden Moor in 1746.

sive previous military service in North America, was authorized by George III to raise a regiment among "our subjects who have, at different times, emigrated from the North West parts of North Britain and have transported themselves to New York." 3 Maclean concentrated on recruiting former Highland soldiers who had fought during the Seven Years' War and had afterwards settled in Quebec, Nova Scotia and the Mohawk Valley. Maclean and his Royal Highland Emigrants, along with small numbers of Indians, played an important role during the rebel invasion of Canada in 1775-76. Small groups of Canadian Indians and Indian Department personnel were involved in the attempt to stop the advance of Richard Montgomery's rebel army up the Lake Champlain-Richileu River route in the fall of 1776. Two hundred and fifty Royal Highland Emigrants were at Montreal when it was captured by Montgomery in November. The Emigrants fell back to Quebec City where they, along with the 7th Regiment and the French Canadian militia, threw back the onslaught of the combined forces of Montgomery and Benedict Arnold in their New Year's Eve assault on the fortress. After the relief of Quebec in the following spring and the mopping-up operations which cleared the Americans from the province, a portion of the Royal Highland Emigrants assumed garrison duty at posts in Quebec and along the Great Lakes. In 1778 the corps appeared as the 84th Regiment of Foot on the regular army establishment. After the war, a sizable contingent from it settled in Ontario. By mid-1775 events were leading towards the formation of a more prominent Loyalist regiment. The Johnsons were gathering their forces in the Mohawk Valley. In June, under increasing pressure from rebel sympathizers, Guy Johnson, the superintendent of the Northern Indian Department, along with his chief aides, removed to Montreal. Sir John Johnson, Sir William's son, stayed behind; by late 1775 he and his neighbours had secretly agreed to form a battalion in the king's favour and had actually "named all the Officers." They were held back, however, by the American General Philip Schuyler who maintained firm control of the Mohawk Valley with a large force of outside militia. Sir John Johnson was a comparative stranger to many of those from the New York frontier who would serve with him. Then thirty-four years of age, he had been educated at a distance and afterwards had made a prolonged visit to England, where he had been knighted by the king in recognition of his father's services. He had then resided for several years in Albany and New York, both before and after his marriage to an heiress and lady of fashion. Reserved and distant in manner, Johnson never gained the popularity and local influence of his father. Nonetheless, because of his position and parentage, he was the acknowledged leader of western New York Loyalists. By early 1776, the Patriots were tightening their grip on the New York frontier. In May an American regiment was ordered to march upon Johnson Hall and take Sir John and his principal adherents dead or alive. Johnson, having had prior warning of the attack, escaped to Canada. With him went a large number of Tories and a few Mohawk Indians as scouts. This group, numbering 170, arrived safely in Montreal after a long and arduous journey through the woods, "being nine days without anything to subsist upon but wild onion roots and the 29

The Warriors: "Sir John Johnson" (1742-1830), artist unknown The son of Sir William Johnson, Sir John was superintendent of the Northern Indian Department from 1783. He had served in both the Seven Years' War and against Pontiac's Rebellion. Sir John commanded the King's Royal Regiment of New York, known as the Royal Yorkers, the largest Loyalist unit to be raised in Canada during the course of the Revolution. In 1784 he was entrusted by the government with the general supervision of Loyalist settlement in central Canada areas. Because of his family connections, Johnson was one of the most prominent Loyalists to settle in that region.

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The Warriors: "Joseph Brant" (ca. 1743-1807), by William Berczy Joseph Brant was the Indian leader who most fully accepted the war aims of the crown as defined by British military leaders. He was in turn the chief spokesman of the Indian interest to their white allies. Indian-raised and white-educated, he was a man of many parts. From the age of twelve, he had participated in the Seven Years' War and later in an expedition against the Western Indians. He acted as a translator and interpreter for the Indian Department and in course of his varied career translated the Gospel

of St. Mark, a primer, the liturgy of the Church of England and other religions works into Mohawk. He served fully throughout the course of the Revolutionary War. At its end, he settled at Burlington Bay near the Grand River, where he continued as the Iroquois' chief spokesman in the adjustment to the new conditions, and their major leader in wider Indian affairs. His sister, Molly Brant, was the Indian wife of Sir William Johnson and in her own right exercised a formidable influence in the council of the Iroquois.

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leaves of Beech Trees." When Johnson returned again to New York, it would be at the head of a provincial regiment which he called the King's Royal Regiment of New York (Royal Yorkers for short) and which the Americans nicknamed Johnson's Greens. Johnson was given a commission to form such a regiment in June. It grew slowly at first, amounting to only 300 men by the end of its first year. Ultimately it would total more than 1,290 men, making it the largest single Loyalist corps to operate in the northern theatre of the war. A Loyalist war leader whose status would become every bit as great as that of Sir John Johnson was Thayendanegea, or Joseph Brant. A Mohawk Iroquois who had been educated by whites, Brant was a devout Anglican and a Freemason. He spoke at least three and possibly all of the Six Nation languages, and had frequently been useful as an interpreter in the Indian Department. His attachment to the Johnsons and his devotion to what he felt was the best interest of the Indian peoples made him a valuable ally for the British. Joseph in his turn was dependent upon his relations with the British. He was not a traditional chief or sachem of the Iroquois. He exercised his influence as a war chief, an office open to any brave who by the force of reputation and personality could draw together a war party and lead it. Even though he showed great capacities in that role, Brant was not ranked by the Iroquois as their most distinguished war chief. His prominence came as spokesman of the Indian interest to their British allies. Joseph's education and his reliability endeared him to the whites, and they respected and admired him for his degree of acculteration. His complete dependability attracted British officials to him and raised him high in their esteem. Brant would be the linchpin in British-Indian relations both during the war years and for three decades afterwards. In November 1775 Brant, together with Guy Johnson and other members of the Indian Department, had travelled to England. He returned in July 1776 fully convinced that the only salvation for his people lay in complete and active support of the royalist cause. During the winter and spring of 1775-76, while the Iroquois clung to their wavering neutrality, Brant made a wide-ranging tour through their territory, encouraging active involvement, gathering about him a party of about one hundred warriors and raising enthusiasm for the British cause. At the same time John Butler, the Indian agent at Fort Niagara, was also working to break the Indians' neutrality. Butler, who, like Johnson and Brant, would be a major figure in the early settlement of Ontario, was the son of a British soldier. As chief translator of the Indian Department, he had risen to be right-hand man of Sir William Johnson. Butler has been described as "a fat man, below middle stature, yet active .... Care sat upon his brow. Speaking quickly, he repeated his words when excited. Decision, firmness, courage were undoubted characteristics of the man."4 Butler was a highly ambitious and driving individual who by early 1776 was turning all his considerable energies to encouraging Iroquois resistance of the Revolution. By a combination of feasting, drinking, gifts, reminders of ancient alliances and eloquent speeches, Butler single-handedly convinced three hundred Senecas to participate in the major campaign of 1777, thus decisively breaking the Indian neutrality by engaging an important segment of the Six Nations in the war.

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The Warriors: "John Butler" (17287-1796), by Henry Oakley Butler was the most successful and the most feared of the Loyalist military leaders. The son of an officer in the British army, Butler was closely associated with the British Indian Department from early manhood. He served extensively in the Seven Years' War, being second-incommand of the Indians when Sir William Johnson took Fort Niagara in 1759 and holding the same post in Amherst's force advancing on Montreal. He was instrumental in winning the Iroquois to active participation in the Revolution

on the British side; from 1777 he directed his own corps, Butler's Rangers, in a devastating series of raids against the American frontier settlements. It has often been contended that Butler and his men were motivated by hatred and a desire for revenge. Their operations, however, had the important objectives of denying supplies to the Continental army and drawing off as many rebel troops as possible from operations further east. In these objectives Butler was enormously successful.

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The entry of the Iroquois into the conflict seemed to come at a propitious moment. In the early years of the Revolutionary War, from 1775 to 1777, the British had attempted to strike first at rebellion in the north of the American colonies where resistance had been strongest. The rebels had had some early successes in forcing the British out of Boston and taking Fort Ticonderoga, the key to the passage of Lakes George and Champlain to Canada. When the Americans attacked Quebec City in December 1776, however, as we have seen, they were utterly defeated. The British pressed forward in the following year to take New York City and then pushed down towards Philadelphia, which they occupied in 1777. The other major campaign the British undertook in 1777 was what they hoped would be a decisive blow against the rebel strongholds in the northern colonies. General John Burgoyne with a sizable army was to drive from Canada down Lake Champlain and the Hudson River to Albany, thus forcing a wedge between the solidly disaffected New England colonies and their more moderate sisters. An auxiliary force under Colonel Barry St. Leger and Sir John Johnson was to subdue the Mohawk Valley and then join Burgoyne on the Hudson for the main thrust. This second army, totalling 1,400 men, consisted mainly of Loyalists. It brought together for the first time the partisans who had been gathered by Johnson, Butler and Brant. On August 3, St. Leger's forces laid seige to Fort Stanwix, a rebel-held post near the head of the Mohawk Valley. When the American General Nicholas Herkimer attempted to relieve the garrison, he marched straight into an ambush carefully laid at Oriskany Creek by Butler and Brant. In savage hand-to-hand fighting during a torrential rainfall, both sides lost heavily. The rebels, although in possession of the field, were too weak to pursue the invaders. Despite their costly success at Oriskany, the Loyalist forces, equipped with insufficient artillery, were unable to crack the well-fortified Fort Stanwix. Disheartened by their own heavy losses, the besiegers had little stomach for holding on. False rumours of the approach of a massive American army led to the precipitous retreat of St. Leger's little force. In revenge for Oriskany, Mohawk villages at Fort Stanwix and Fort Hunter were sacked by the Americans. Numbers of Mohawks fled behind the British lines. Meanwhile, Burgoyne had advanced from Canada with an army of 7,000 regulars and German mercenaries accompanied by 680 Canadians and Loyalists and 500 Canadian Indians. Burgoyne's Loyalist contingent consisted of a number of fledgling corps formed in 1777 the Queen's Loyal Rangers under John Peters, the Loyal Volunteers commanded by Francis Pfister and the King's Loyal Americans under Ebenezer Jessup. In addition there were small groups under Captain Daniel McAlpin, Dr. Samuel Adams and Lieutenant Samuel McKay as well as a corps of bateaux men raised for the duration of the campaign. None of these units would survive in the form in which they existed in 1777 or grow to significant proportions. Many of the Loyalists with the Burgoyne expedition were used in the hazardous tasks of maintaining supply lines, foraging, road and bridge repairs, and scouting. Some, notably the Queen's Loyal Rangers, saw heavy fighting. The losses of the Loyalists were heavy and the rank and file of several units dwindled drastically. Burgoyne used the 34

The Warriors: "Colonel Guy Johnson" (ca. 1740-1788) by Benjamin West Guy Johnson remained a rather peripheral figure in the Revolutionary War. A distant relation of Sir William Johnson, he married Sir William's youngest daughter and was active in the Indian Department from 1759. He assumed the duties of superintendent in 1774 and the following year was one of the leaders of several hundred loyal residents who left the Mohawk Valley. Guy spent most of the war in London and New York, returning only in late 1779 to di-

rect Indian affairs from Fort Niagara. He was replaced by his brother-in-law, Sir John Johnson, in 1783, because of his suspected involvement in a major provisioning scandal. In this magnificent portrait, Johnson is depicted in a combination of Indian and white garb which, although on a more modest scale, was typical of officers of the Indian Department. It has been stated that the Indian behind him is Joseph Brant.

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Indian warriors with his army to good effect, threatening to turn his braves loose on the frontier settlements. Panic-stricken, many colonists hastened to the British camp. Then a seemingly isolated incident nullified Burgoyne's tactics. A small party of Indians escorting Jane McCrae, fiancee of a Tory officer, senselessly killed the girl. Horrified, Burgoyne demanded of his braves in the strongest terms that they abstain from indiscriminate warfare. This largely unjustified censure lost him the support of the bulk of the warriors, who deserted early in August. Most of Butler's Senecas had returned home after the retreat from Fort Stanwix, but Brant's party and others briefly joined Burgoyne. Finding he could do little to assist and being disgusted with what he considered the mismanagement of affairs, Brant returned to the Six Nations country. Others followed his lead. For Burgoyne, things went from bad to worse. He did not receive the local support in New York that he had counted on. Dangerously handicapped by a slowness of movement and over-extended lines of supply and communications, Burgoyne's army was finally surrounded and forced to surrender near Saratoga on October 17. When the defeat of Burgoyne's army was certain, some Loyalists began to fear for their safety, for they did not think they would be protected under the articles of capitulation in the same manner as the British regulars. With Burgoyne's permission, large numbers of them slipped away and escaped to Canada. Along with those later paroled, they may have numbered as many as 560. The surrender at Saratoga was a debacle of the first order for the royal cause. An entire army, which the British could ill afford, had been completely lost. No major offensive using regular troops would again be mounted from Canada in the course of the war. Without such heavy involvement from the regular army, the whole nature of the conflict on the Great Lakes frontier was dramatically altered. Despite their losses, the British still had the upper hand in the lakes region. Their hold on the forts along the northern edge of the colonies was never significantly challenged after 1776. These posts - Montreal, Oswegatchie (now Ogdensburg), Carleton Island (off Kingston), Oswego, Niagara, Detroit and Michilimackinac - provided excellent bases for the staging of raids into New York and Pennsylvania as well as into the Illinois and Ohio Country. Control of the Great Lakes allowed the royalist forces to provision their interior garrisons and the cause of the crown continued to attract an increasing number of frontier settlers and Indians who could be effectively used in an all-out guerilla war. South of the lakes, the rebel settlements were poorly protected. Few Continental troops were stationed there, while the local militias were incapable of undertaking decisive offensive operations and were hardly able to provide an adequate defence. Penetrating at will, small Loyalist bands by-passed the garrisoned forts and aimed crippling blows against the isolated settlements. Before the American militia could respond, they were gone. For five years the Loyalist corps pressed this grim frontier war. They could not hope to conquer and hold the rebel territories, but they could devastate them settlement by settlement. So the Tory raiders swept down from Canada, gathering supporters and protecting the women and children they had left behind, destroying foodstuffs - Tryon County was the bread basket of Washington's army - and forcing American commanders to weaken 36

their position by drawing off troops for the defence of the back country. Foreshadowing this change in strategy, in September 1777 John Butler was commissioned to raise a corps of rangers. Butler's Rangers, the last of the major Loyalist regiments operating out of Canada to be formed, was to consist of eight companies, two to be of "people speaking the Indian language and acquainted with their customs and manner of making war" and the six remaining "to be composed of people speaking the Indian language and well acquainted with the woods, in consideration of the fatigue they were liable to undergo." At its height the corps contained about six hundred men. Butler's Rangers were similar in organization and function to the rangers attached directly to the Indian Department; both were composed of colonials and in the field the two were often indistinguishable. Butler had ample opportunity to try the mettle of his new unit in 1778. The storm broke over New York and Pennsylvania in late May. On the 30th, Brant, with a force of three hundred rangers and Indians laid waste to Cobleskill. He and his supporters then roamed unimpeded through Tryon and Ulster Counties, protecting Loyalists from attack and striking terror into the Whig populace. In June Butler with 110 provincials and 460 Indians swept down the Susquehanna River bound for the Wyoming Valley. There they quickly forced the surrender of the small garrisons at Wintermoot's and Jenkin's Fort. Forty Fort, however, rejected Butler's demands. The defenders were lured out and ambushed, with an incredible loss of three hundred American lives. Butler destroyed all eight forts in the region without further resistance and gutted some thousand farms. The New York and Pennsylvania frontiers were in panic and the rebel leaders feared that the whole region would soon be deserted, unless they took decisive action. Butler and Brant kept up the pressure by pin-prick raids. In a frantic effort to destroy the Indian bases, the American army carried out a sweeping raid along the upper Susquehanna in October. They burned the Indian village of Oquaga and ravaged and killed the wife of a young Oneida chief. The warriors, enraged by this action, took their revenge on November 11 when 800 Indians and Tories led by Butler's son, Walter, attacked 350 Continentals and 150 militiamen at Cherry Valley, a major supply depot. Until Cherry Valley, the IndianTory incursions had been fairly humane, as such guerilla wars go. With some scattered exceptions, non-combatants had not been previously attacked. The Cherry Valley raid, however, was Walter Butler's first independent command; he was more noted for his arrogance than his leadership abilities and his braves had little respect for him. The warriors were greatly upset by the recent American brutality and stung by the incessant American propaganda alleging the barbarity of Indian warfare. During the attack, Indians massacred thirty-two men, women and children. Brant, who was present, tried to halt the slaughter. Butler managed to rescue some of the survivors in the retreat and sent away most of the Indians in disgrace. The damage, however, was done. Cherry Valley became a byword for Loyalist atrocity and both the rebels and the opponents of the Revolutionary War in Great Britain exploited the unfortunate incident to full advantage. In fairness, it must be remembered that the Revolutionary War as fought between colonists was a vicious affair with atrocities on both 37

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sides. Whites and Indians, moreover, had very different conceptions of acceptable wartime practices. Scalping and torture of the prisoners to the Indians was part of a religious rite and a necessary adjunct of war. Indian warriors, on the other hand, did not commit rape - which is more than could often be said for their supposedly civilized white counterparts. Much more was heard of loyal Indian savagery than American outrages, in part because the rebels, having lost the struggle for Indian support, tried to capitalize on their weakness by a propaganda campaign focusing on allegations of native cruelty. It is noteworthy that the most obscene crime of the war, little noted at the time and all but forgotten since, was perpetrated not by natives on whites, but by American militia on Christian Indians. The outrage occurred in 1781 when a mounted party of American militia encountered a band of Delawares of the Moravian faith at their village, Gradenhuetten, on the Muskingum River. The Praying Delawares, as they were called, had remained neutral throughout the war and had in fact inclined towards the rebel cause. Their greetings to the Americans were friendly. The militia, however, firm in their resolve that the only good Indian was a dead Indian, confronted the Delawares with trumped-up charges. When the Moravians realized the intent of their supposed friends, they pleaded for their lives, professing their innocence. Seeing the hopelessness of the situation, they sang and prayed together before their death. They were gathered together, tied to stakes, or merely tomahawked without further ado. Ninety-six men, women and children were slaughtered by the Americans in this fashion. In the bloody cycle of revenge that so often characterized the war, enraged Delawares two months later captured the commander of the American militia, scalped him alive, heaped burning coals on his head, and then slowly roasted him. Cherry Valley was the last major encounter of the 1778 campaign. After the Indians had wintered in their territories and the rangers at Fort Niagara, the Loyalist forces in 1779 repeated their successes of 1778 in a series of similar raids. In late 1779, in an attempt to crush the Loyalists' Indian allies, Major-General John Sullivan led an army of over five thousand with fire and sword through the Iroquois' territory. A small force of Indians and rangers under Butler could not offer any effective resistance, and the Continentals were able to destroy more than forty Indian towns and 160,000 bushels of corn. So complete was the destruction that few Indians returned to their lands. The Americans, however, did not succeed in breaking the Indians' will to resist; the warriors had suffered few casualties and had simply fallen back before the onslaught. More than five thousand Iroquois flocked from their territories to Fort Niagara where the Indian Department fed and clothed them. To their dismay, the American colonists would again face the Indian menace in 1780, the only significant change being that the warriors' desire for revenge would be stronger than ever. The Loyalist challenge to the rebels on the New York and Pennsylvanian frontiers was powerful indeed. There was, however, little to back it up elsewhere in the north after Burgoyne's defeat in 1777. Philadelphia, won only the year before, was evacuated in 1778 to concentrate the British forces in New York. The major British thrust was now in the south and no decisive victories or defeats occurred in the north in 1779 or 1780. The northern Loyalists were fighting hard and well, 39

but in the absence of major campaigns, they were fighting virtually in a vacuum. The ultimate effectiveness of their raids was severely limited. Along the northern frontier in 1780, nevertheless, the raiders struck even more forcefully than before. In May the Royal Yorkers, led by Sir John Johnson and accompanied by two hundred Indians, penetrated to the neighbourhood of Johnstown, laying bare a thirteenmile strip on the north side of the Mohawk River. In June Little Falls was hit. The pressure was well-nigh unbearable. Symptomatic of the declining fortunes of the Patriots was the fact that those of the Iroquois who had chosen the rebel side increasingly began to waver. Many Onodagas and Tuscaroras were moving to support the British. The Oneidas were becoming increasingly isolated. In July, Brant's party burned the remaining Oneida and Tuscarora settlements. A number were induced to go off to Niagara; the rest fled to the safety of the American Fort Stanwix. Any Indian support of the rebel cause virtually ceased. The rest of the year saw some of the most bloody and desperate fighting of the war. Loyalist forces destroyed over one thousand homes, one hundred barns and 600,000 bushels of grain. They achieved their objective; with the exception of a few scattered settlements, the Mohawk Valley was a smouldering ruins. The year 1781 offered no respite to the disorganized American forces. The Loyalists pressed their advantage home. During that year, sixty-four war parties were out on the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania and in the Ohio region. Many visited settlements that had been previously levelled to destroy all that had been rebuilt. Others hit new targets. The Loyalists could penetrate at will almost to Albany and Schenectady, and even into New Jersey. The Americans could no longer maintain their outposts. Fort Stanwix, which four short years before had withstood St. Leger's army, was abandoned and burned, as was the major post at Cherry Valley. In October the Tories struck in force; Barry St. Leger led a diversionary attack along Lake Champlain, while Major John Ross, an officer of the regular army, directed a mixed force of Loyalists and British troops from Oswego against the Mohawk Valley. After burning Warrensbush on the south side of the river, his followers fought their way back through Whig militia and Continentals at West Canada Creek and escaped. While these complex and devastating campaigns of 1777 to 1781 were being waged on the New York and Pennsylvania frontiers, a more far-ranging and discontinuous but equally savage war was raging farther west in the Ohio and Illinois Country. In this region, below Lakes Michigan, Huron and Erie, with the Illinois River for the western boundary and the Ohio and its tributaries to the south, white Loyalists and Indian allies of the crown also played a decisive role. Because of the problems of distance, the Revolutionary War here would be even more a matter of sporadic raids on isolated settlements. Indian warriors would play a more prominent role, while the whites loyal to the crown would be involved mainly in recruiting and directing the native war parties. The most notable white Loyalists were Mathew Elliott, Simon Girty and Alexander McKee, all former Indian traders in the region who joined the Indian Department. In 1779 fifty men of Butler's Rangers under William Caldwell were moved into the region. 40

The Posts: "Fort Niagara from Navy Hall," by Elizabeth Simcoe The French first threw up a stockade on the site of Fort Niagara in the 1670s to protect their fur trade route to the west. The impressive stone fortress was erected in 1726 and was always known to the Indians as "The French Castle." The British took Fort Niagara in 1759. During the Revolution it was the staging post for a series of raids by Indians and Loyalists on the New York and Pennsylvanian frontiers. At the height of the conflict, 1,400 whites drew rations at the fort while as many as 5,000 Iroquois camped near it. The rebels were never sufficiently strong to attack the fort and indeed, when Mrs. Simcoe produced this sketch of it in the 1790s, it was still in British hands, not being turned over to the A mericans until 1796.

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A further company of rangers was sent in 1780 to act as scouts. The major base of the Loyalists was at Detroit, supplemented by Michilimackinac, the fur trading post at the tip of the Michigan Peninsula. Many of the local residents of these posts, fur traders and French Canadians, participated in various raids and campaigns. The war in what was then the far west began slowly. The western Indians, like their cousins in the east, at first wished to remain neutral. The western tribes, however, were under constant pressure from expanding American settlement and would soon join the British. By 1777 there was general warfare. Encouraged and provisioned by Henry Hamilton, the military governor of Detroit, the Indians swept out of the Ohio Country in the late spring to attack the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania. They took a heavy toll. Most rebel settlers spent the year pinned down in tiny stockaded settlements, often on the verge of starvation. In early 1778 the Indian onslaught continued, now co-ordinated by Simon Girty and Alexander McKee, as well as French partisans from Detroit and Michilimackinac. The first major American initiative came that summer when George Rogers Clark, at the head of a tiny expedition, occupied Kaskaskia on the Illinois River. In an impulsive move, Governor Hamilton marched the six hundred miles from Detroit to Vincennes, which he garrisoned with a force of Illinois Indians, supplemented with regulars and French Canadians. But his Indian support dissipated; two weeks later Clark easily forced the surrender of the regulars and Canadians and sent Hamilton to Williamsburg, Virginia, in chains. The loss, which stripped Detroit of much needed men and supplies, was a major British setback. Unfortunately for the Americans, Clark had neither the men nor the supplies to exploit the British weakness. Indeed, in late 1779, the American authorities withdrew the garrisons from several posts along the upper Ohio. Not only did the Americans abandon key fortifications, but they lost control of the river. In October Simon and George Girty with Mathew Elliott led 130 Indians in an ambush of a flotilla bringing munitions from New Orleans to Fort Pitt. Only one boat escaped and forty Patriots were killed. In 1780 the British experienced their own problems. A large force of Loyalist traders and Indians from Michilimackinac was sent to seize St. Louis in order to cut the American supply line to New Orleans, but its Indian support quickly melted away. A second force was formed which, after some false starts, was persuaded to attack RuddelPs Station and Martin's Station. Three hundred prisoners were taken and the damage to infant Kentucky was great. The surrender of RuddelPs and Martin's Stations dampened the morale of Kentuckians to the point that many were reported ready to evacuate the region. To prevent that, Clark marshalled his forces, amounting to one thousand poorly equipped and provisioned men. When he tried to cross the Ohio into Kentucky, the Girty brothers, with only seventy warriors, pushed him back. Successful British raids into the Ohio and Illinois Country continued in 1781. In 1782 Alexander McKee, William Caldwell and Simon Girty led a large party of rangers and Indians across the Ohio on a raiding expedition. On August 20 at Blue Licks, they ambushed a pursuit party of 180 militia under John Todd, Stephen Trigg and Daniel Boone. They 43

The Warriors: "Ralfe Clench" (1762-1828), artist unknown As a volunteer and a junior officer, Clench saw exceptionally varied service especially in the far west. As a cadet in the 53rd Regiment, he took part in Burgoyne's campaign of 1777. Escaping the debacle, he served as a volunteer in Captain Henry Bird's company of the 8th Regiment, probably participating in Bird's raids on the upper Ohio in 1779. He next joined Butler's Rangers, receiving a commission as second lieutenant in 1780. As a member of Captain William 44

Caldwell's company operating out of Detroit, he saw action in the overwhelming Loyalist and Indian victory at Sandusky. After the war, he settled at Niagara, holding a number of important appointed and elected offices. Clench was a fascinating combination of sophisticate and frontiersman, equally at home playing the organ or translating from the Iroquois language. He saw service again at Queenston Heights in 1812 and spent much of that conflict as a prisoner of war.

killed 140 of them in the last major encounter of the war in the west. It was a harsh blow to the sparsely settled area and was to be long remembered in Kentucky. For the remainder of the war, the British in the far west stayed on the defensive, awaiting word of a definitive peace. The Americans were less inclined to declare a truce, especially after the disaster of Blue Licks. In November Clark led another expedition into Indian country, which was largely a failure. In the last years of the war, Clark was forced increasingly on the defensive, while the loyal white and Indian forces had inflicted heavy losses. Orders from London, not Clark's army, brought Indian attacks to a halt late in 1782. In addition to active campaigning, the Loyalist regiments served other functions in the Revolutionary War. In 1778, two companies of the Royal Yorkers were detailed to aid in the construction of a supply base at Carleton Island (at the lower end of Lake Ontario, off presentday Kingston). Other members of the regiment assumed garrison and construction duties at Sorel. In the following years, details were also assigned for varying periods to St. Johns, Isle aux Noix, Coteau de Lac, Montreal and other smaller posts. By 1781 most of the Royal Yorkers' second battalion was stationed at Carleton Island, with further sections of the regiment involved in the renovation and restoration of the post at Oswego. The various fledgling corps which had served with Burgoyne saw service after 1777 building various fortifications under the direction of the army engineers, scouting, spying, foraging and doing garrison duty. They were not actively encouraged to expand after Saratoga as their growth might hinder recruiting for the Royal Yorkers, Royal Highland Emigrants and Butler's Rangers. Only in 1780 were they finally allowed to recruit. None of the small corps, however, grew substantially and in November 1781 they were reorganized. The King's Loyal Americans with the Queen's Loyal Rangers were formed into a regiment known as the Loyal Rangers or Jessups' Rangers, to be commanded by Edward Jessup. By the end of 1782 it reached a full battalion strength of ten companies. Many of the officers and men of the older corps, notably Samuel Adams' and Robert Leake's, were at the same time absorbed into the second battalion of the King's Royal Regiment. The Loyal Rangers were assigned to garrison block houses at Yamaska, Riviere du Chien and Isle aux Noix. One entirely new corps, the King's Rangers, did operate out of Canada after 1778. Authorized originally on the authority of the British headquarters in New York and commanded first by Robert Rogers and later by his brother James, it was heavily involved in scouting, spying and recruiting behind enemy lines. The King's Rangers, which never grew to more than three companies of about two hundred men, was stationed at St. Johns. Many Loyalists who were never officially attached to any corps also did construction duty or performed clerical functions for support services like the Commissariat Department. Some served with the Provincial Marine on the Great Lakes. Scouting was also a major activity for the regiments and often closely linked to garrison duty. In 1778, for instance, one hundred men of the Royal Yorkers were stationed in the vicinity of Lake Champlain to guard against invasion. Scouting shaded into spying, with small parties or individuals slipping into American territory and 45

The Posts: Fort Detroit, ca. 1796, artist unknown This view shows the western half of the Detroit waterfront. The whole town, with a population in the vicinity of 500, was palisaded, with blockhouses and cannon along its extent. The major fortification, Fort Lernoult, built in 177879 to protect against the threat of the Americans under George Rogers Clark, sits behind the town and is not here visible. The church spire is ofSte. Anne's and the two-story building in front of it, the Indian council house. Detroit was first founded at Fort Pontchartain in 1701. It surrendered to the British in 1760 and during the Revolutionary War was the centre for raids into Kentucky, Ohio and western Virginia.

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The Posts: Fort St. Johns, 1779, by James Hunter This fort was on the Richelieu River near Lake Champlain. Like virtually all the major British posts, it had formerly been French and had been built in 1748 as Fort St. Jean. In 1775 British troops, including the Royal Highland Emigrants, attempted to hold the fort against Montgomery's onslaught in his drive to Montreal. In the later stages of the Revolution the fort served as a vital observation post on the edges of the rebelling colonies. Numerous scouts, spying missions and foraging expeditions were launched from it. James Hunter, the artist of this view, probably worked as an engineer at St. Johns in 1779, and is here sketching buildings he helped construct. The ship immediately to the right of the blockhouse in the foreground and the ship at the far right of the view, the Royal George and the Inflexible, were both prominent in Burgoyne's expedition of 1777.

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rebel-held towns to gather information. Recruiting was undertaken in a similar fashion. Some counter-intelligence and even attempts at kidnapping were carried out. In 1781 secret service operations from Canada were formalized under the control of Justus Sherwood, himself a Loyalist. The British forces also maintained networks of crypto-Loyalists, some of whom stayed in rebel territory at the behest of the Loyalist military leaders to act as spies, and to provide meeting places, supplies and hideouts. Indeed, something of an underground railroad functioned for fleeing Loyalists, with its main terminal at Fort Niagara. Of course, anyone, provincial soldier or private citizen, caught spying, recruiting or directly aiding the royalists in American territory could fully expect to be shot or hanged. Despite the steadfast service of the northern Loyalists and their almost unbroken string of victories, the war had not gone well for the British. The entry of the French on the side of the rebellious colonies in 1778 had been a heavy blow, draining off precious British resources to hold areas, especially the West Indies, where the French might strike. Inadequate results in the north had caused the British to look for a quick and easy victory in the south. In fact, such success was achieved in Georgia and South and North Carolina that by 1780 these states were again British territory. The major British force then moved north into Virginia, but the Americans recaptured the areas further south. The British overran Virginia with little resistance before retiring to Yorktown to rest. There they were confronted by a joint American and French military and naval force which compelled the surrender of the entire British army. The end of the war and peace negotiations followed shortly after. Many factors had led to the final British defeat: the misconception by the home government of the seriousness of the resistance and its consequent failure to dispatch sufficient forces or to organize support as fully as might have been possible; the problems for the army of fighting a protracted struggle over an immense territory where limited manpower meant that even victories could be defeats if they entailed heavy losses of men; problems of impossibly extended supply lines stretching back to Great Britain, and the inevitable instances of corruption; and finally the unpopularity of the war at home and in all of Europe, which by the close of the conflict left Britain threatened on all sides and without a friend on the continent. Such reasons for defeat were cold comfort to the Loyalists who had fought so hard and so successfully on the northern frontier. By 1782 activity in the far west had virtually ceased. Similarly, military activity on the New York and Pennsylvania frontiers during the first months of 1782 had slewed down, and when Joseph Brant prepared to attack, he was recalled. In April the British government instructed the governor of Canada to halt all offensive action in view of the peace negotiations then being conducted in Europe. A new and harsh era was dawning for the Loyalists.

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3 Resettlement in the St. Lawrence-Bay of Quinte Region Elizabeth Bowman stirred her large, cast-iron stew pot, looked into the fire, and sighed. It hardly seemed possible. The war was over. Her family had lost everything and for what? She remembered vividly the autumn night when rebels had sacked her home on the Susquehanna River and carried off her husband and oldest boy. So great had been her terror that her youngest had been born prematurely within the half hour. She and her seven remaining children had been left with literally nothing; if it had not been for friendly Indians, they would have starved that winter. In the spring, she had led her brood to the Mohawk River where they had attempted, with several other husband-less Loyalist families, to grow corn and potatoes. The British commandant of Fort Niagara had had them brought off in the fall, five women and thirty-one children with only one pair of shoes among them. The authorities had set her down here with a thousand others women, children and old men - at Machiche, a primitive, pathetic refugee camp where she had had to rely on government charity just to survive, not knowing whether her husband was even alive. Her oldest boy at home, a mere thirteen, had joined Butler's Rangers. His brother, nine, had gone off as afifer, leaving her with five daughters, three of them still under six. A t times Elizabeth had thought she would go out of her mind from the worry. Now it was over and all the efforts and sacrifices of patriotic colonials had come to nothing. Incredibly, the British were going to give the frontiers, still smouldering from Loyalist raids, back to the defeated rebel usurpers! She could never go home again. She had lost everything. God in Heaven, what would happen to her poor family now? Lacking any other alternative, she stirred the pot once more.l For the Loyalists, the years 1782 and 1783 were ones of dark despair. From 1776 to 1781 they had watched in disbelief while the impossible happened: a motley collection of rebels had beaten what was considered the mightiest army in the world. For the royalists based in Canada, the British defeat was doubly bitter because it was none of their making. On the New York and Pennsylvania frontiers they had so decisively smashed the rebels that by the end of the war the Americans were virtually incapable of responding. The once fertile valleys of the Mohawk and Susquehanna had been so reduced that Washington's army had had to look elsewhere for supplies. In the far west, the Loyalists and redcoats had held the American forces at bay while delivering crippling blows to the Ohio and Illinois Country. If the Revolution had consisted only of the war on the frontier, the royalists would have won. Despite such victories, the larger war was lost. Fighting virtually ceased after the British surrender at Yorktown in October 1781. The Loyalists' world was crumbling. Peace brought them no satisfaction; the war-weary British ceded to the Americans both the areas the rebels had successfully held and those areas where they had been very much on the defensive. In the Treaty of Paris of 1783, two feeble clauses were included relating to 49

The Loyalist Nightmare Many Loyalists must have shared the anxieties depicted by this British cartoon criticizing the peace terms. Americans were of ten portrayed as Indians in works of this kind.

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the restoration of Loyalist property and the end of persecution, but they were honoured largely in the breach. If the white Loyalists were frustrated and angered by the terms of the peace, the Indian warriors had every right to be enraged. The natives had fought the Revolution as allies of the crown, not its subjects. They had never, during the war or previously, acknowledged direct British sovereignty over their territories and certainly did not recognize any right of their white allies to cede their territories to their enemies. That, however, is precisely what the British did. Indeed, officials in Canada tried unsuccessfully to keep word of the preliminary peace negotiations from the natives. When the Indians learned the truth, their scorn knew no bounds. The Iroquois chiefs told Allen Maclean, the commandant at Niagara, that "They never could believe that our King could pretend to cede to America what was not his own to give, or that the Americans would accept from Him, what he had no right to grant .... That if it was really true that the English had basely betrayed them by pretending to give their country to the Americans without their consent of consulting them, it was an act of cruelty and injustice that Christians only were capable of doing, that the Indians were incapable of acting so to friends or Allies, but they did believe we had sold and betrayed them. "2 Despite their sullen anger and pessimism, the displaced white colonials and the Indians had to take thought for their futures. What was to become of them? Many whites felt any further resistance to be futile and tried quietly to return home. Some successfully integrated themselves into the new republic, but many others found they faced renewed virulence from their recent enemies. At the end of 1783 one New Yorker returning to visit his parents was captured, had his head and eyebrows shaved, was tarred and feathered, and was forced to wear a hog yoke and a cowbell around his neck and a cap of feathers on his head. He was finally sent on his way back to the British lines, adorned with a placard depicting Benedict Arnold, the Devil's imps and a Tory driving off a cow. Other Loyalists who had left their families in the United States had neighbours who were less imaginative, but equally vicious. On their return they often found themselves with no more time than necessary to gather their relations and belongings into the family wagon before the Patriot mobs closed in. Numbers of the Loyalists who fought the Revolution were either more realistic or made of sterner stuff than those who attempted to return. Allen Maclean reported in May 1783 that those who had served with him "would rather go to Japan than go among the Americans where they could never live in peace."3 Some place would have to be found for the many Loyalists who could not go home again. To eighteenth-century eyes, the logistics of organizing and administering such a resettlement were overwhelming. The sheer number of Loyalists to be dealt with was daunting. There were four provincial corps serving in Canada in 1783, and one battalion, the Royal Highland Emigrants, composed of colonials, had been put on the British regular establishment as the 84th Regiment. By the end of 1783, some consolidation of these companies at key points was already taking place. The bulk of Butler's Rangers, eight out of ten companies, were gathered at Niagara with two companies at Detroit. One battalion (ten companies) of the King's Royal Regiment of New York was stationed at Montreal, while the second battalion was at Cataraqui. The 84th 51

Regiment had companies at Michilimackinac, Carleton Island and Cataraqui, while the three companies of James Rogers' King's Rangers were at St. Johns. The ten companies of Jessup's Loyal Rangers were scattered between Riviere du Chene, the blockhouses on the Yamaska River, and the Loyal Blockhouse on an island in Lake Champlain. Although most of the western Indians had remained within their own territories, there were five thousand Iroquois encamped at Buffalo Creek (Lewiston) near Fort Niagara to be provided for, as well as several hundred German and other disbanded regulars who wished to settle in Canada. In addition, there were the large number of displaced persons from the old colonies, many of them wives and children of those in the Loyalist regiments. As early as the autumn of 1778, a refugee camp had been established at Machiche, near Three Rivers. By November twelve houses had been built to accommodate 240 women and children; a year later the camp had twenty-two houses with four more under construction. In these and similar primitive camps, most refugees waited out the war. The numbers grew rapidly towards the end. In March 1783 it was reported there were 1,716 non-military Loyalists scattered in such locations as Montreal, Sorel, Chambly, Machiche, St. Johns, Isle aux Noix, Lachine, Coteau du Lac, Yamaska, Terrebonne, St. Vincent, Riviere du Chene and Isle Jesu. In addition there were twenty-five families at Niagara, consisting of 102 people who had been allowed to establish temporary farms opposite Fort Niagara, and 368 additional women and children associated with Butler's Rangers at Niagara and Detroit. These refugees who did not serve directly with the provincial corps were usually known as "Unincorporated Loyalists." As 1783 wore on, the number of refugees fleeing into Quebec increased. A few came from Florida up the Mississippi to Detroit; many trekked overland via the shores of Lake Champlain, across the Iroquois land to the upper St. Lawrence, or crossed Lake Ontario from Oswego to the northern Canadian shore; while others made their way west along the southern shore of Lake Ontario and crossed into Canada over the Niagara River. In August transports arrived at Quebec bearing a further 1,300 refugees from New York City. The city had been consistently held by the British from the autumn of 1776 until the autumn of 1783 and many from New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had fled there. Despite its relative safety, New York was not a comfortable place during the war. It suffered from two major fires during the period, as well as from overcrowding, shortages of food, fuel and water, and horrendous problems of administration. Many of the Loyalists in New York City had organized themselves into volunteer companies to act as local patrols, while others had joined provincial corps to serve directly in the war. At the end of the conflict when the necessity to evacuate New York became pressing, those Loyalists were organized into associations, depending on their destination, and chose captains to lead them. The vast majority of the New York Loyalists elected to go to the Maritimes. A much smaller number under Captain Michael Grass and Major Peter Van Alstyne decided to come to Quebec. About 450 of these were disbanded regulars and their families. From the available returns, it appears that many of the others had served 52

Loyalist Camps: Sorel and Three Rivers, by James Peachey These two towns were undoubtedly all too familiar sights to most of the Loyalists who spent any portion of the war in central Canada. Sorel, heavily fortified because of the risk of American attacks up the Lake Champlain-Richelieu River route, was headquarters and wintering quarters for the King's Royal Regiment of New York and smaller provincial corps such as the Loyal Amer-

icans. Later it would also be the central collecting point for all Loyalists organizing to go into the upper country in the spring of 1784. The main refugee camp for non-military personnel during the war was on the opposite side of the river from Sorel and about twenty-three miles to the west at Machiche. Three Rivers was another fifteen miles downstream from Machiche.

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only in the New York volunteer militia, if at all. To distinguish these refugees from the other Loyalists, they were referred to as the "Associated Loyalists." The official responsible for the welfare of thousands of displaced colonials was the governor and commander-in-chief of Quebec, Frederick Haldimand. A French Swiss by birth, he had served with several other powers before receiving a commission in the British army. Haldimand was strictly honest and personally impartial, virtues to be treasured in an age that was not particularly noted for them. Under his guidance, the administration of Canada and the organization of supply to its garrisons during the Revolution had been models of fiscal rectitude, a sharp contrast to the venality which often marred British administration further south. Simple and benevolent by nature, Haldimand firmly believed that the British government owed a debt of honour to those colonials who had remained loyal. "I feel much for the distress of these unfortunate people," he wrote. "Next to the obedience and submission I owe to the pleasure of my royal master, the hopes of my being by my own command in the country instrumental in alleviating their distress are the greatest consolation which I promise myself in my present situation."4 The governor devoted all his energies to the formidable task of assuring that the Loyalists were properly equipped and efficiently settled, with equal treatment for all and favouritism to none. No one who had responsibility for the Loyalists in the crucial first years after the war served them better than Frederick Haldimand. Haldimand unfortunately had the defects to go with his merits. He could be rigid and obstinate, incapable of functioning outside the code instilled in him by years of military discipline. He initially, for example, had some very decided views as to where the Loyalists were to be allowed to settle. In his opinion, the obvious place for the Iroquois was in what became Upper Canada. And there was virtually no room for the white Loyalists in the province of Quebec; in the lower part of the province the unsettled lands would soon be taken up by the expanding French Canadian population, and in the upper areas the Indian territory ought not to be encroached upon. The most suitable places for Loyalists seemed to him to be Cape Breton Island, the Gaspe peninsula and the shores of the Bay of Chaleur. Those Loyalists already within the province he proposed to settle at Detroit, not then knowing that post was to be given up to the Americans. The Loyalists, however, had ideas of their own and some of them wished to settle in the district now known as the Eastern Townships. This Haldimand adamantly opposed on the grounds that Loyalists if settled so close to the border would not live peaceably with Americans. His real concern, although he did not enunciate it, was probably the impact which the politics and ideas of these refugees would have on future generations of French Canadians. While Haldimand did not absolutely refuse Loyalists permission to settle in the Eastern Townships or on any of the seigneuries in Quebec, he did cut off provisions and supplies to any who did so, thus increasing tension in what was already a tense situation. On the other hand, Haldimand did soften his stance on the settlement of Upper Canada, progressing from virtually total opposition, to the notion of small quasi-military settlements opposite Detroit and Niagara and at Cataraqui for supervision of the Indians, 54

The Administrator: "Sir Frederick Haldimand" (1718-1791), by Lemeul Francis Abbott A Swiss professional soldier, Haldimand had been in the British service in North America since 1755. He had seen extensive service in the Seven Years' War and had held several administrative positions in Quebec after that war, including governor. He served in Florida from 1767 to 1773, and in 1777 was appointed governor of Quebec. A meticulous and humane, if rather cold man, Haldimand more than any other individual was responsible for organizing and guiding Loyalist settlement in the area which would become Ontario.

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and finally to allowing general white settlement. His ultimate willingness was occasioned by the desire of many of the Loyalist officers already in Canada to settle there. Haldimand, true in this instance to the debt he felt was owed the Loyalists, thought "humanity and justice" required they have a choice and he took great pains to justify to the authorities at home the Loyalists' preference for an interior settlement. Other Loyalist demands in the winter of 1783-84, however, would try Haldimand's patience to its limits. Those officials in Quebec responsible for the Loyalists favoured "devil" theories to explain their unrest. It was indeed true, as those officials asserted, that some ambitious seigneurs were employing all the means available to persuade Loyalists to settle on their lands and to this end they were using certain disgruntled Loyalist officers as their agents. General unease during that wretched winter, however, was to be expected. The Loyalists were idle, confined in often inadequate shelter, and without even decent clothing. They were not unnaturally dispirited, morally and physically drained after six futile years of war, and feverishly anxious about the still vague proposals for their resettlement. Wild rumours drifted about the camps to the effect that the local Indians at Cataraqui had protested against white settlement and had already scalped several Loyalists; that the Iroquois were to be given all the best land; that the settlements would be military in nature and the settlers liable to service at any time; and that the Loyalists would have no securrity for their land and no provisions. Faced with such tales of the unfamiliar lands to the west, it is not surprising that many Loyalists preferred to settle in known territory within the province of Quebec. Those stationed along the Richelieu River were particularly susceptible to the tenant-hungry blandishments of local seigneurs, much to Haldimand's disgust. Others, with the government's blessing, decided they would settle on the Bay of Chaleur rather than face the wilderness. Those who did plan to go to the upper country made constant demands for firm assurance of aid and supplies. The Associated Loyalists from New York proved a particularly troublesome lot for the authorities. They had arrived already plagued with smallpox and measles and were sent on to hospital facilities at Sorel. Their expectations were high and they immediately set up a clamour for clothing and other necessities. Following on this, they importuned officials for an impossible array of supplies, food and stock to take with them. Finally, when everyone's patience was wearing thin, they fell to quarrelling among themselves over precedence in the new settlements. The unedifying squabbles cracked even Haldimand's usually proper demeanor and he angrily informed the malcontents: These sentiments are as expressive of Ignorance as presumption, it is well known that that part ICataraquil and the neighbouring Country was intended and in forwardness for the Reception of Loyalists who had served during the War in this province and who are naturally entitled to any preference (were such to be given) to persons who came into the province with Mr. Grass, many of whom are in fact only Mechanics, only removed from one situation to practice their Trades in another.5

Despite occasional excesses, the Loyalists' demands were nevertheless understandable and not without merit. As one irate petitioner 56

put it, the Loyalists deserved every consideration because they had employed "all endeavours to keep up the British Constitution, have sacrificed all our Property and ventured our lives and our poor familys are now beggars for our loyalty, but still will would [sic] take up arms again in the same cause if the King would allow us Arms ...."6 Those Loyalists still in arms at Cataraqui, Niagara and Detroit were more docile than the rest, in part no doubt because they were familiar with the sites at which they were to be settled. Military discipline as well may have muted complaints. Still, the Loyalist soldiers were anxious to be disbanded and many were concerned about families they had left in the United States. Well before the Loyalists' discontents became vocal, Haldimand had taken the first steps towards preparing Ontario for their settlement. As early as May 1783, he had sent a party to examine the ruins of the old French post of Fort Frontenac at the mouth of the Cataraqui River to see if it could be sufficiently restored to act as the focal point for settlement in the area. Shortly thereafter, he had initiated discussions with the local Indians, the Mississauga, to sound out their feelings towards the influx of settlers. Haldimand clearly recognized the significance of prior French and Indian occupation to the new settlements, and indeed any clear understanding of the coming of the Loyalists to Ontario requires some knowledge of its earlier inhabitants. Although the Loyalists might have thought of Ontario as a wilderness, it had in fact been occupied for a very long period before their arrival. As early as 10,000 years ago, the region had been inhabited by scattered hunting peoples. About 4000 B.C. southern Ontario had received its first substantial population of hunters and fishermen. These people went through a complex series of changes and groupings until, about 1400 A.D., the Neutrals of southwestern Ontario and the Huron-Petun of southeastern Ontario emerged. The Huron-Petun initially inhabited two areas, one group in what is now Simcoe County and another in the valleys of rivers which empty into Lake Ontario on the north shore. Further east an independent culture known as St. Lawrence Iroquois had established itself in southern Quebec, and into Ontario at least as far as Brockville. To the north of these groupings were the tribes known collectively as Algonkian. There the population was sparser and more fragmented, and known by a plethora of local names. The eastern wing of the Algonkians stretched along Georgian Bay down the Ottawa River Valley and inhabited the land in between down to the southern Iroquois settlements. This Indian population as it existed in the mid-sixteenth century with its high concentration in southern Ontario would have posed a substantial barrier to any white settlement. Further dramatic changes occurred, however, before the arrival of the Loyalists. Between 1535 when Jacques Cartier visited the village of Hochelaga on the present site of Montreal and 1603 when Samuel Champlain returned to the same site, the St. Lawrence Iroquois had completely vanished. On^ noted archaeologist, Bruce Trigger, has speculated that the disappearance of the St. Lawrence Iroquois may have been related to trade wars over European goods. Such goods had trickled into the St. Lawrence Iroquois territory from French trade further east. The St. Lawrence Iroquois and, by the end of the century, the Algonkians further 57

Before the Loyalists: "The French Thorns" Local tradition has it that these thorn trees on the common near Fort George were planted by French officers stationed at Fort Niagara who had brought the slips from France. They continue to blossom today.

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north along the Ottawa River, were involved in the trade of European goods into southern Ontario, a region that Europeans had never visited. The Iroquois of New York State, without direct access to such goods, and fearing the edge that iron axes and metal arrowheads would give their neighbours further north, attacked and dispersed the St. Lawrence Iroquois. As the New York Iroquois increasingly penetrated the upper St. Lawrence and the Ottawa valleys in order to pillage European goods from the Algonkians, they initiated further changes in the settlement pattern of southern Ontario. The Hurons living near the Lake Ontario shore moved northwards to join their brothers in northern Simcoe County, an area to be known as Huronia. There the Hurons could take advantage of the canoe route that ran across Lake Nipissing and down the eastern shore of Georgian Bay, their sole remaining contact with the Algonkians along the Ottawa River and their trade goods. Thus by the time of the first white penetration into Ontario, the shores of the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario, areas of future white settlement, were virtually abandoned. As the fur trade moved further west, the Hurons at Huronia became middlemen in the trade beyond them. Their numbers grew to a height of 18,000 in 1639. The prominence of the Hurons involved them in further trade rivalry with the Six Nation Iroquois who were much better organized and militarily stronger than they. Finally in 1649 the Iroquois smashed Huronia, scattering the remnants of that great nation to the northwestern United States and to Quebec. Later in the year, the Iroquois annihilated the neighbouring Petuns on Nottawasaga Bay, destroyed the Algonkians living on Lake Nipissing (the Nipissings) and scattered the Algonkian Ottawas. In 1650 and 1651, the victorious Iroquois completed their sweep by breaking up and completely dispersing the Neutrals in southwestern Ontario. All of southern Ontario after the Iroquois rampage was a virtual no man's land. No tribes moved into this vacuum after 1650 except the Mississauga, Algonkian Indians who came mostly from the south shore of Lake Huron and the lands bordering on Manitoulin Island. Drawn by trade, they migrated in a southeasterwardly direction, first arriving in southern Ontario about 1700 and firmly established there by the 1720s. Although they were a relatively strong and independent nation early in the century, they were progressively weakened by internal rivalries and their growing dependence on white trade goods. By the 1780s their total numbers were no more than a mere 1,800 and they presented no real barrier to white settlement. First white contact in Ontario came in 1610 when Etienne Brule wintered among the Huron and it was consolidated by Samuel de Champlain's extensive visit to the Huron Country in 1615-16. By 1616 Champlain had travelled up the Ottawa River route, down the Georgian Bay-Lake Simcoe route to Lake Ontario and explored a portion of the Lake Huron shore and the south shore of Lake Ontario. Although the French developed a major trade with the interior, the Huron and the Algonkians barred their direct access, preferring to act themselves in the profitable role of middlemen. It was 1634 before the French first saw Lake Michigan and 1669 before the first white passage of the Detroit River was recorded. Radisson and Groseilliers explored the Lake Superior shore in 1659-60. Evangelization was almost contemporary with exploration. The first Recollet missionary had 59

gone to the Hurons in 1615, but efforts were sporadic until the Jesuits began their extensive missionary endeavours in Huronia in 1632. Ste. Marie was founded there in 1642, a large establishment which had as many as seventy Frenchmen resident at its height. The mission was destroyed by the Iroquois attacks in 1649. After that date, efforts at conversion turned largely to the Iroquois of New York State. Up to 1653, the French had never ventured beyond the lower St. Lawrence Valley in search of furs; the delivery of pelts to the trading posts on the St. Lawrence had been exclusively the domain of the Indians. But the destruction of Huronia forced the French to undertake the task and move out beyond the St. Lawrence basin. For a further thirteen years, the French were pinned down by continuing Iroquois attacks. Then in 1668, a mission was established on the Bay of Quinte. This was followed in 1672 by the establishment of Fort Frontenac at the mouth of the Cataraqui River (present-day Kingston). By 1686, it had a garrison of one hundred and fifty men. In 1678 the tiny Fort de Conti was constructed at the foot of Lake Erie. Other posts were established just outside the boundaries of Ontario. A stockade was thrown up at the mouth of the Niagara River on what is now American soil in the 1670s, to be succeeded in 1687 by a fort with a garrison of one hundred men and a stone castle named Fort Niagara in 1726. Michilimackinac on Lake Michigan became a major post about 1676. In 1686 Fort St. Joseph was established at the northern end of the St. Clair River (now Port Huron, Michigan) and in 1701 Fort Pontchartain was built on the present site of Detroit. Detroit's early growth was slow. In 1742 a Jesuit mission was established on Bois Blanc Island, now in Ontario. White settlement began on what was to become the Canadian side of the river in 1749, at the same time that Detroit began to expand. This, the oldest continuous white settlement in the province of Ontario, began with ten settlers. It had grown to about six hundred by 1780. Stores were established by the French in the 1720s at Toronto and Kente. In response to a rival English post built at Oswego in 1722, French garrisons were established at Oswegatchie (Ogdensburg) in 1749 and at Fort Rouille (Toronto) in 1750. The fort at Oswegatchie was supplemented in 1758 with a fortification at Pointe au Baril (Johnstown) seven miles upstream on what would become the Canadian side. In addition to all these establishments, there were the Frenchmen who involved themselves directly in the trade with the Indians, the coureurs de bois. They themselves had come into being after the fall of Huronia. There were three to four hundred involved in the trade in 1672, double that number seven years later. They and their goods were constantly moving through Ontario along the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes corridor and the Ottawa River-Lake Nipissing-Georgian Bay route. Despite the impressive lists of posts and men they had deployed in southern Ontario and on its fringes, it cannot be said that the French settled permanently in Ontario. As W. J. Eccles has put it, speaking of settlement activity beyond present-day Quebec in general, the French "could not be said to have occupied the west, anymore than the seamen of New England occupied the Atlantic Ocean in their voyages to Europe, Africa and the West Indies. In fact, the coureurs de bois more closely resembled the New England seamen than any other single 60

Before the Loyalists: Plan of Fort Michilimackinac, ca. 1717 Mlchilimackinac was originally established by Father Marquette as a mission station in 1668 at Point St. Ignace at the mouth of St. Mary's River at the entrance to Lake Michigan on the north side of the straits. The first fort and settlement was established by La Salle in 1679 on the south shore of the strait. In 1712, Governor General Vaudreuil sent De Louvigny to re-estab-

lish the fort, which he did, building it on the south side of the strait. It was this site which the British occupied during the Revolutionary War. Michilimackinac means Great Turtle from the shape of the nearby island. It was the place of deposit and departure for the fur trade between eastern Canada (the lower country) and the far west (the upper country).

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group. Like seamen, the coureurs de bois left Montreal with cargoes of goods in their frail craft, voyaged great distances to exchange their goods, then returned with a cargo for their employers."7 If the coureurs de bois resembled seamen, then the various Ontario posts were their ports of call. Indeed, as the fur trade moved further and further west, these posts became simply staging points on the route. At the end of the Seven Years' War after the fall of Quebec, all the posts in or near Ontario passed to the British. With the exception of the major posts at Niagara, Detroit and Michilimackinac, most were virtually abandoned. The long Indian and French occupation, however, had a significance for later settlement in Ontario that is seldom recognized. The Indian contribution was largely a negative one. The lack of a dense Indian population in Ontario meant that white occupation in the 1780s could proceed without significant opposition. There would be no Indian wars in Ontario, only treaties, quickly and easily negotiated. On the other hand, prior native cultivation of what would be areas of heavy Loyalist occupation would greatly expedite settlement. In sections of the Niagara peninsula previously occupied by the Neutrals and along the St. Lawrence in areas of former Iroquois settlement, clearing would proceed with remarkable rapidity. The former French posts, moreover, notably those at Kingston, Niagara and Detroit, were the nucleii around which the new settlements would grow and the military centres from which they could be established and at first administered. Whatever the benefits of the former French and Indian presence in Ontario, they did not solve the immediate problems of Loyalist resettlement. The Associated Loyalists in one of their innumerable petitions had demanded that in the new settlements each family be supplied with materials to construct a house, a wide array of farm implements, arms and ammunition, one year's clothing, two years' provisions and two horses, two cows and six sheep. They might as well have asked for the moon. Haldimand could only wearily reply that he did not have access to any such range of supplies nor, moreover, did he have any authority to purchase them. Haldimand received only the most general instructions from Great Britain concerning the Loyalists and those instructions were slow in coming. Even the shelter and provisions he provided to the Loyalists in Quebec he supplied on his own authority. It is to his great credit that Haldimand, who preferred to live by the rules, was willing to stretch and even exceed his instructions in order to help the Loyalists. A major effort was involved in just locating and preparing the specific lands on which the Loyalists were to settle. On Haldimand's first calculations, which were rather modest, twenty-one townships each containing 21,040 acres had to be laid out. Therefore, early in 1783, although as usual without any instructions on the matter, Haldimand took the first steps towards settlement. In late May, he ordered Major Samuel Holland, the surveyor general of the province, to carry out a preliminary survey from the last seigneuries on the St. Lawrence above Montreal, along the north shore of Lake Ontario to Niagara. He was to pay particular attention to the state of the former Fort Frontenac at Cataraqui and to report whether it could be restored sufficiently to use it as a military centre-cum-staging area for the new settlements. At the end of June, Holland reported that he had exam62

Mapping the Land for the Loyalists: The First Preliminary Survey, 1783 One of the most pressing problems in the settlement of the Loyalists in what was to become Ontario was the complete absence of detailed maps of the new country. In order to partially rectify that situation Haldimand on May 26, 1783, sent instructions to the Surveyor General, Major Samuel Holland, to proceed to Cataraqui (Kingston) and carefully examine the ground there. He was also to send a survey party to examine the shore of Lake Ontario as far as Niagara. In June, a party of Captain Rene-Hippolyte Pepin, dit Laforce, Lieutenant Louis Kotte and James Peachey had set out on the task. The accompanying map, probably the first British survey to be made in what is now the Province of Ontario, was the result. The surveys of the Niagara Riverfront, the township surveys and the lists of settlers are all later additions to the original base map. Two of the watercolours of one of the surveyors, James Peachey, have already appeared in this book. He was the first artist of the Ontario Loyalist settlements whose work has survived. Nothing is known of Peachey's early life or

training. In 1773 or 1774, he began work in the Boston office of Samuel Holland, the surveyor general of the Province of Quebec and of the Northern District of North America. He may later have worked on J. F. W. DesBarres' Atlantic Neptune in London. He returned to North America in 1780 where he enjoyed the attention and patronage of Governor Haldimand. By May 1783 Peachey was employed as a deputy surveyor under Holland. After the survey of the north shore of Lake Ontario, Peachey wintered in the vicinity of Cataraqui, and in 1784 worked on the surveys of Adolphustown and Fredricksburgh. In November he accompanied Haldimand to England. Although Peachey was again in Canada from 1788 to 1795, none of his works can be definitely dated to this third visit to North America. Peachey often copied the works of his associates, but all his views drew upon his own firsthand knowledge of the region and his acute powers of observation. Our visual conception of Loyalist Ontario owes much to its first major artist.

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ined the lands along the St. Lawrence to Cataraqui and found them well suited for settlement. The post, he opined, could easily be re-established. He had dispatched a small survey party to at least pass along the north shore of Lake Ontario to Niagara. From Holland's actions it is quite obvious that the attention of the British officials concerned with settlement was focusing from the first on that area of eastern Ontario bordering on the St. Lawrence and the Bay of Quinte. Although there would be settlements at Detroit and Niagara, these settlements would be small at first and those who would initially settle there were already on the ground. Settlements to the east posed much greater difficulties; they would have to accommodate the bulk of the Loyalists and those people would have to be transported to the land. It is therefore useful to look first at the St. Lawrence-Bay of Quinte settlements before turning to those higher up. As recommended, the restoration of Fort Frontenac began immediately. By October 22, Major Ross, using work parties from the post of Carleton Island, had built barracks for three hundred men on the site of the old French fort and had repaired the north curtain wall and the ravelin. He had also built officers' quarters, a hospital, storehouses, a bakehouse and a kiln. Over the winter of 1783-84 progress was made with facilities for civilian occupation: a sawmill, a grist mill, four houses, and a wharf and storehouse which would be shared by private business and the army, were constructed. A considerable quantity of lumber was cut and squared for building. The prominent role played by the British army in the preparations for the Loyalists was to be expected. The military constituted the only official British presence in the upper posts beyond the settled parts of the province of Quebec. Haldimand would rely heavily upon the officers of the army, not only for initial preparations but for direct aid in settling, provisioning and regulating the Loyalists when they arrived. It would be the Provincial Marine, a branch of army, which provided the shipping to move the settlers into the upper country, the army's artificers and blacksmiths who manufactured a goodly portion of the implements they would take with them, and the army commissariat which fed them until they could harvest their own crops. In addition to the repairs to the fort at Cataraqui, it was necessary to carry out more detailed surveys of the adjacent areas. For help in this, Haldimand turned to the Loyalists themselves. He first approached the most prominent of the Loyalists, Sir John Johnson, to select a survey party from the Loyalist regiments. Johnson complied readily enough but, always the gentleman, he himself did not go, preferring the comforts of Montreal. More enthusiastic support came from Captain Justus Sherwood, who assumed personal command of the Loyalist survey contingent. Sherwood, a native of Connecticut, had served first in John Peters' corps and then Jessup's Loyal Rangers. He had been in charge of the secret service in the later years of the war. He had already shown much initiative and zeal and was to be prominent in the later stages of settlement. Sherwood's commanding officer, Major Edward Jessup, also came into prominence in this period. Jessup had been a significant lumber dealer and land speculator in New York. With his brother, Ebenezer, he had led one hundred men into the British lines in 1777. He 64

Mapping the Land for the Loyalists: The Survey Party at Cataraqui (Kingston), 1783 The whites in the foreground are wearing the uniform of the Provincial Marine, the army's lake service. Their bateau, of the same type as would later bring the Loyalists up the St. Lawrence, sits on the shore behind them. They chat animatedly with a group of Indians who might be local Mississauga, but are more likely a party of Mohawks who accompanied the survey party to scout this region for areas suitable for Iroquois settlement. In the background are the tents of Samuel Holland's survey party and behind them, the ruins of the French Fort Frontenac. One of the major purposes in sending the crew had been to examine the ruins of the fort with an eye to its re-establishment. The survey reported favourably, noting that the vault and a portion of the walls and barracks still stood. James Peachey, the artist of this view, was a member of the party.

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rose to command the Loyal Rangers. Haldimand further recognized his ability by giving him responsibility for general superintendence of the Loyalists camped along or near the Richelieu River. He, too, was consulted on those to be appointed to a survey party, as well as upon many other details during the next year. General authority for the survey was given to John Collins, a deputy surveyor general of Quebec. He was instructed that townships were to be laid out six miles square with lots of 120 acres arranged seven concessions in depth. Haldimand's foresight and his desire for strict impartiality was evident in his further instruction to Collins that lumber cut and houses built by the survey parties were not to be considered personal property. Any persons wishing to winter in the upper country were to have lots of four acres on a thirty-year lease, so located that they could be used as a common when the leases expired. So far as Haldimand could help it, no one was to have unfair advantages in the opening of new settlements. Collins arrived at Cataraqui on October 1, 1783, and settled in to work near Fort Frontenac. By November, he had completed the outlines of the first township on the west side of the Cataraqui River (later called Kingston Township) and a town site (Kingston). Bad weather prevented him from beginning work on a second township. Sherwood and the other Loyalists in the meantime had began an extensive series of explorations to examine in detail the potential of the area for settlement. Sherwood worked from the eastern end of Lake St. Francis along the St. Lawrence to the Bay of Quinte and around the bay beginning on September 19 and ending October 20. Auxiliary parties worked through the back country behind Cataraqui. Lieutenant Gershom French of the Loyal Rangers explored up the Ottawa River across country to the Gananoque River and down it to the St. Lawrence. He began on September 29 with seven Loyalists, two Canadians and an Indian guide in two canoes. They finished October 13. A party sent from Cataraqui to assist French travelled about sixty miles due north. Two further independent parties of Loyalists re-examined the Ottawa as far as the Chaudiere Falls and a portion of the St. Lawrence. While the surveys were proceeding, the British rather belatedly initiated negotiations to purchase the land from the Mississauga Indians. The Mississaugas earlier in the summer had expressed displeasure that Fort Frontenac had been reoccupied without their consent. They said they had no objections to whites settling in the area, but feared that if the Iroquois were allowed to come their hunting grounds would be swallowed up. The Mississaugas' openness to white occupation probably stemmed from the fact that they had no conception of the wave of Loyalist settlement that was about to engulf them. Whatever their objections, the Mississaugas were too few and weak to enforce their wishes. At Carleton Island in October the British easily convinced them to sell the lands along Lake Ontario from the Toniata River (a tributary of the St. Lawrence below Gananoque) to the Bay of Quinte and the lands from the St. Lawrence to the Ottawa River, as far back as a man could walk in a day. The Indians were rewarded with the usual white generosity: those who had no fuses for their rifles were to be given them along with some ball and powder for the winter hunt, and some clothing including "as much coarse red cloth as will make about a dozen coats and as many laced hats."8 66

The British Army and the Loyalists: Production of Tools The British army was involved in every aspect of the preparations to settle the Loyalists encamped in Quebec, even to the production of tools for them. The document illustrated here is a return of felling axes, frows and drawing knives made for the Loyalists by the smiths of the Engineering Department. Frows were wedgeshaped tools used for cutting shingles and staves. 67

The reports reaching Haldimand about the newly purchased lands were highly favourable. With the exception of the land from Cataraqui up to the shore opposite Oswegatchie, the land along the Gananoque River and some portions of the Ottawa, the surveyors were unanimously agreed that the quality of the land was superb. Sherwood described the land below Oswegatchie as "a tract of the best land I ever saw," and concluded: "I think the Loyalists may be the happiest people in America by settling this country from Long Sou to Bay Quinty."9 Haldimand in turn conveyed this enthusiasm to the British government. "I am happy to find," he wrote, "that there are in the Gift of the Crown, Lands of so good a soil and in a favourable Climate, sufficient not only to settle the Provincial Corps when disbanded, but all such Royalists as may come from the Southward with a view to find an Asylum from the Tyranny and Oppression of their Countrymen. I foresee great advantages from the settlement."10 However rosy his view of the future, Haldimand must have had some grave doubts about the present. Actual settlement was planned for the spring of 1784 and, despite all the explorations, as of the winter of 1783, only three townships were laid out and even they did not have their lots and concessions blocked in. Time was ticking away. Not only the preparation of land for the Loyalists but the supply of equipment and provisions for their new settlements proved a thorny problem to the officials in Quebec. Even basics, such as the provision of seed grain for the projected settlements, was a major undertaking. Haldimand had initially requested Captain Sherwood to look into the matter in March 1784. Because of a poor crop in Quebec, seed wheat was not available there and Sherwood was instructed to negotiate a purchase of 1,000 bushels in Vermont. The amount was later increased to 5,000 bushels. He was also to purchase 100 to 150 bushels of Indian corn and what he could find of turnips, carrots, cabbage, onion and other seeds. He was in addition to inquire after milch cows and oxen, but not to make any purchases. Haldimand had no authority to provide stock for the Loyalists - indeed he had no official directions to provide seed either, but he felt its acquisition to be absolutely essential. Officials quickly discovered that it was the wrong time of year to purchase seed and that supplies were more likely to be found in the Mohawk Valley than in Vermont. The proceedings dragged on into July, well after the Loyalists were actually on the land, and Haldimand in desperation was employing a number of agents, warning them not to drive prices up by competing with each other. They were not to divulge that their purchases were for the British government as this might lead the Americans to refuse to sell. In the end it was too late for the Loyalists to plant much of anything by the time seed supplies arrived. Turnip was one of the possibilities, but the demand was so great that at Cataraqui Sir John Johnson distributed it at the rate of four drinking glasses to each company of the second battalion of his Royal Yorkers. Because of the lack of funds no major amounts of livestock were provided for the Loyalists although some, especially those along the Richelieu River, managed to bring their own with them into the new settlements. Clothing was another problem. A modest supply was available through the army commissariat, but distribution to the most deserving 68

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proved a headache and supply was postponed until the Loyalists reached their final destination. Preliminary shelter for the Loyalists in Upper Canada caused some anxiety until it was decided to issue them with army tents, to be returned after houses had been built. Arms and ammunition were provided in the proportion of one firelock, five pounds of powder and four of ball to every five men. The provision of farming implements was one of the few areas in which the government could accomplish anything directly. By May, the smiths in the Engineering Department at the various ports had manufactured 4,775 axes, 514 frows (for riving shingles) and 165 drawing knives. Here as well, however, supplies fell far short of demand and Haldimand indicated that he could promise no more than one hoe and one axe to each man. At the same time as problems of supply were becoming acute, the surveys were entering a crisis phase. Nothing had been accomplished since November of 1783. Discussions were under way in February of the following year concerning their renewal but it was March before they were started again. Then a party of about thirty began a crash program to lay out the eight projected townships along the St. Lawrence. Detailed work for further townships near Cataraqui, begun the previous autumn, was abandoned. The survey faced many difficulties, including contentions with a small band of Iroquois at St. Regis over ownership of the land, constant discontent among the crews over their wages, and victualling and work stoppages. By June, when the Loyalists had already arrived, the outlines of the townships had been sketched in, but few lots were laid out. Valuable time was lost while the second concessions were run and a town plot of New Oswegatchie (now Johnstown) was surveyed. Conditions were even worse at Cataraqui. When the Loyalists actually arrived there, only the first and second townships were anywhere near ready for settlement. At that, the lots in the first concession of the first township were the only ones already laid out. In July, when the Loyalists had been on the site for roughly a month, the third township was begun. By August, as the summer dragged on and any possibility of planting crops was rapidly disappearing, surveyors began to lay out the fourth and fifth townships and finally to run the second and third concessions in the rest. Whatever the problems of moving the Loyalists into the upper country, the government of Quebec was determined it could not support them for another winter in the lower areas of the province and the preparations to transport them up the St. Lawrence went on apace. In December 1783 the Loyalist regiments in the district of Montreal were officially disbanded, although they were allowed to keep their quarters and provisions. The first battalion of the Royal Yorkers and the Royal Highland Emigrants at Cataraqui were not disbanded until the end of the following June so that they could move directly on to their new lands. For those still in Quebec, it was proposed to close all the existing camps and gather the refugees at quarters in Sorel. From there, when navigation opened, they would be moved to Montreal for the final leg of their journey by bateaux up the St. Lawrence. To ensure that all Loyalists complied, victualling everywhere but at Sorel was cut off as of May 10. Loyalists began to trickle into Sorel by April. The river was open to Montreal by April 26, but delays continued. The 70

The Loyalists Arrive at Cornwall, 1784 This is an unique depiction of the Loyalist base camp at Johnstown (later renamed Cornwall) taken on the spot by James Peachey. The date given, June 6, seems a bit early as the first Loyalist bateaux only departed Lachine about June 3, but the view is undoubtedly taken shortly after first arrival. The new settlers have set up the tents issued them by the army all around the shores of the cove. The large tent with several smaller tents beside it right on the shore line on the far side of the cove is probably a headquarters of some sort, perhaps the encampment of the surveyors who were still busy blocking out lots. Some rough log cabins and lean-tos had been thrown up and are visible on the left of the scene. Several bateaux of the sort used to transport the Loyalists sit on the shore in front of the huts. There were constant complaints from officials in Quebec concerning the Loyalists' tardiness in returning the bateaux. The settlers undoubtedly found them very useful for trips

along the shore and, more importantly, as the view depicts, for fishing. Surprisingly, fencing appears to have been thrown up along the inner edge of the cove. The little tent city in the foreground is a hive of activity. Loyalists are fishing, chopping up a large tree for firewood, sharpening an axe on a grindstone, washing clothing, carrying water, building a fire and cooking a meal, which includes three pieces of meat, possibly small birds, on a spit. Cattle graze, while some new arrivals stroll or chat. In showing all the equipment in industrious use, Peachey may have had in mind the gratification of his patron Haldimand, who had spent so many painstaking months in assembling these supplies. The Loyalists themselves, however, here depicted well clothed and cheerfully occupied, must have harboured some darker fears. It was already June and the chill of November was not far behind.

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Loyalists expressed increasing concern that they would not be on the lands in time to plant their crops. Still, it was May 20 before supplies started to move up to the sites of the new settlements and about May 24 that the first Loyalists were forwarded to Montreal. There, in an overwhelming press of people, pandemonium reigned supreme. Captain Jacob Maurer, who was given the difficult task of arranging transportation, reported, "The confusion here is unaccountable, every person pretends to a Superior Command ...."" Attempts were made to issue clothing but the difficulties of regulating the distribution were so great that it was abandoned until the Loyalists reached their settlements. Tools were handed out in a haphazard fashion, depending on the authorities' perceptions of a family's needs. Arms and ammunition were alloted. In the hurry to send the Loyalists off, it was decided to issue them only one month's provisions and send further foodstuffs after them. The bateaux to take them up river were in short supply, a situation made more acute by the failure of those who had reached their destinations to return them quickly. The bateaux crews and their pilots were often rowdy and undisciplined. Many a wretched Loyalist must have wondered if he would ever be free of Montreal. Still, they made it. The first boats left about June 3 and the last of the Loyalists had departed by June 24. With them went barrels containing the available seed and tightly packed boxes of extra tools. One of the last bateaux to depart must have been a magnificent sight: it contained two full-grown bulls, the government's present to the two hundred cows the Loyalists had managed to acquire. Only the old and infirm remained behind - to be transported when an initial start had been made - and, of course, the families of gentlemen and officers. As one official put it, the wives and children of the "common people" would be "useful in many respects from the moment a Tree is cut down - the Families of Officers and others of the most decent Order must, of course, have some preparation made for them previous to their going upon their Ground ,..."12 The official who had done the most for the Loyalists was not there to watch them depart. Haldimand, still as strongly committed as ever to assuring their welfare, expressed a sincere disappointment that the burden of official business prevented him from travelling at least to Sorel to see them off, if not proceeding with them to Cataraqui. Slowly the boats moved off from Lachine, carrying their human cargoes into the unknown. The batteaux [ said the offspring of one of those who made the journey] by which the refugees emigrated ... were calculated to carry four or five families, with about two tons weight. Twelve boats constituted a brigade, and each brigade had a conductor, with five men in each boat, one of which steered. The duty of the conductor was to give directions for the safe management of the boats, to keep them together, and when they came to a rapid they left a portion of the boats with one man in charge. The boats ascending were doubly manned, and drawn by a rope fastened at the bow of the boat, thus the men walked along the side of the river - sometimes in the water, or on the edge of the bank as circumstances occurred.13

The journey upstream usually required ten to twelve days. It was hard labour, but for many it was a welcome relief from the chaos at Mon72

treal, to be savoured before the renewed frustration they would face in the new settlements. When they arrived, the Loyalists were first accommodated in base camps. One was located at New Oswegatchie (Johnstown) for those who were to settle in the townships along the St. Lawrence (designated the Royal Townships), with a second apparently at New Johnstown (Cornwall). A third was located at what is now Mississauga Point, Kingston, for those who were to settle in the upper townships (the Cataraqui Townships). Other groups of Loyalists appear to have pitched camp immediately near to the land they were to occupy. In their various tent cities the new settlers underwent their final processing, taking oaths of allegiance, signing declarations and drawing for land, after which they were issued with certificates with lot numbers and their names on them. By mid-July many had moved out nearer to their intended locations. The townships were initially numbered rather than named. It had been decided that the first five of the Royal Townships were to go to the first battalion of the Royal Yorkers, the settlers being divided at their own request according to race and religion. Catholic Highlanders, Scottish Presbyterians, German Calvanists, German Lutherans and Anglicans accordingly occupied these townships in that order, once again demonstrating the ethnic and cultural plurality of the Loyalist phenomenon. The next three townships were alloted to Major Jessup's corps. No. 1 of the Cataraqui Townships went to the party of Associated Loyalists under Captain Grass, No. 2 to the remaining members of Major Jessup's corps, Nos. 3 and 4 to members of Johnson's second battalion, to whom were joined men from Major Rogers' corps and the rest of the Associated Loyalists under Major Van Alstyne. The 5th township was settled by detachments of disbanded regulars, primarily the 84th and German mercenaries. The process of settling in was not entirely smooth. The Royal Townships, where the basic pattern was already established and only work on blocking out the lots was necessary, had a definite head start. Most Loyalists moved quickly on to their land, and by July huts were going up and settlers were waiting impatiently for seed grain. Some had problems; much of the land in the first and fourth townships proved unsatisfactory and a number of settlers were delayed while other land was allotted to them. A few had wandered off to examine the land on the Ottawa River and were soon asking to have surveys carried out for them there, a requestt which was refused. The last of the settlers were on their land by mid-September. The problems in the Royal Townships were minor compared to those encountered at Cataraqui. There, only the first and second townships were anywhere near ready for settlement. The lucky few assigned land in the first two townships were hardly better off than the majority without. They had virtually no seed of any kind, axes and hoes had not arrived for half of them and, it was reported, "many [had] not so much as a blanket to cover them in Winter."14 Accusations were made that supplies were being stopped at New Oswegatchie and not allowed to pass up the river. The situation at Cataraqui was further complicated by the lack of cohesiveness among the groups of settlers there. Unlike those in the Royal Townships, few of the settlers at Cataraqui had served together during the war; they had little sense 73

The Growth of a Loyalist Town: Cataraqui, August 1783 A comparison of this view of Cataraqui in August 1783 painted by James Peachey with the one (page 65) taken barely two months earlier in June dramatizes the incredible growth of the first major centre in eastern Ontario. The ruins of Fort Frontenac are now barely visible among the new structures, built in the main by the British military. The building at the far left is the hospital, with the commanding officer's house guarded by a small sentry box. The engineer's house, several barracks, sufficient for more than 300 men, and storehouses stand on ruins of Fort Frontenac. Private commerce had already begun

s

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here; the two largest buildings along the shore with wharfs in front of them belonged to private citizens. The building at the far right on the shore was a King's storehouse for government storage. The sloop before them at this period would have to be a vessel of the Provincial Marine as private shipping was not yet allowed on the lake, but the Provincial Marine was permitted to carry private as well as government cargoes. It is likely that Peachey copied this view in 1785 from one drawn in 1783 by Lieutenant Louis Kotte.

of unity or hierarchy. "Disputes among the Loyalists frequently arise," complained Major Ross, "the most material as yet are between the master and servant where severe correction seems to take place...." 15 Provisions were also a matter of concern. Just as the Loyalists were departing from Montreal, Haldimand had received word from Great Britain that the Loyalists were to be reduced from the one army ration each adult had received to a two-thirds ration, followed by a cut to one-third in May 1785. The assumption in Great Britain was that the Loyalists could begin immediately to produce their own food. The Loyalists protested strongly, asserting that they could not perform the hard manual labour involved in clearing the land on reduced rations. Finally, in late July Haldimand restored full rations until futher notice on his own recognizance. Delays dragged on at Cataraqui. There were disputes among eager settlers over who was to be allowed to settle in the third and fourth townships. As early as July some families, discouraged, drifted back to Montreal or into the United States. In August, the surveyors reported that "the poor people have set themselves down half a dozen together in different parts of the Townships, not knowing where to find their Lots ,..."16 Even when the surveyors departed from Cataraqui in October, some were still without land. Among the worst sufferers were the Germans and the regular soldiers who were to settle the fifth township. One German officer there pleaded that his men and their families had been reduced to sleeping on the ground without so much as a blanket to protect them from the wind and rains of late autumn. Some Loyalists were even forced to leave the Cataraqui Townships for the winter, and returned in the spring to find others in possession of their lots. On the other hand, much progress was made quickly in the Royal Townships. At the end of the first year of settlement, it was reported that "they [the settlers] appear in General to be extremely well pleased with their present Situation, and have made much greater improvements than could be expected in so short a time, they have all Comfortable Houses and their cleared Lands sown, with different Kinds of Grain... the only complaint at present is the want of Grist Mills, which shall be provided against the Spring, when they will be much wanted."17 A reported total of 3,780 to 3,820 Loyalists and disbanded troops had been settled along the St. Lawrence and the Bay of Quinte by the fall of 1784. The individual Haldimand officially entrusted with the general supervision of settlement was Sir John Johnson. In many ways, the selection was an obvious one. Johnson was the commander of what had been by far the largest Loyalist regiment in the province, the Royal Yorkers. In 1782 he had assumed the post of superintendant general of the Indian Department, a position which made him directly responsible for the Iroquois who were to be settled in Upper Canada and for negotiation over land title with the Mississauga. Haldimand, probably influenced by Johnson's status and family background, thought highly of him and had even told him in confidence that he would suggest to the home government that Johnson be made a lieutenant-governor. Obvious as Johnson's selection was, it was also a poor one. Always a distant and rather passive man, Johnson was not 75

cut out for the demanding role of Loyalist leadership. As early as February 1784 he had complained that after he had made a beginning at settling the Loyalists he "would wish to retire to some more happy Clime, free from Envy, Censure and Detraction, leaving to the Enjoyment of others, what nothing but a Wish to serve my Country and my consequent Misfortunes could ever have made me accept." 18 Johnson never had Haldimand's utter devotion to the welfare of the Loyalists nor his zest for vigorous leadership. A mere three days after his appointment, the new superintendant of the Loyalists was pressing for permission to sail for England at the first opportunity on urgent "private business." Johnson's lack of zeal is evident in the rather tepid leadership he provided during the settlement period. He had not participated in the surveys of 1783. In March 1784 he had travelled as far as the surveyor's camp at St. Regis and spent a few days there, but he had not gone on to Cataraqui so that he had little first-hand knowledge of the development in the areas where the Loyalists were to settle. Johnson was not present at Sorel in the spring of 1784, leaving the job of supervising the Loyalists to Surveyor General Holland and his deputy, John Collins. Instead, he met the Loyalists at Montreal and, some time after June 7, set out for the new settlements. At Cataraqui he did what was immediately possible in settling the first and second townships then left the remaining knotty problems for others, while moving on to the Royal Townships. By July 7 he was back in Montreal, having spent less than a month with his charges. Besides a general supervision of the Loyalists, the major task Haldimand had set Johnson was to keep a close watch on the distribution of land. Under the terms of the Royal Instructions of July 16, 1783 (which had been less generous than Haldimand had hoped) heads of Loyalist families received 100 acres of land and 50 acres for each person in their family. Discharged soldiers received 100 acres if privates, 200 if non-commissioned officers, and 50 acres for every person in their families. Larger grants were made to reduced officers of provincial corps and of the Associated Loyalists. Field officers received 1,000 acres; captains, 700; subalterns, staff officers and warrant officers, 500. Under the terms of their enlistment those in the 84th regiment received larger grants: field officers, 5,000 acres; captains, 3,000; subalterns, 2,000; non-commissioned officers, 200; and privates, 50. Haldimand wished strict impartiality to be observed in the distribution of this land. All lots, he instructed Johnson, were to be drawn for by officers as well as men. "I had it in idea," Haldimand wrote to him, "that the officers should have a proportion of their Quotas in front, but upon reconsidering the King's Instruction and the good Effect such an Evident impartiality must have I have determined upon the Latter."19 Johnson and others of the Loyalist officers did not agree. They much preferred some system of distribution which would operate more directly in their favour. There were several exchanges on the matter, but Haldimand remained firm. Johnson, in the event, disobeyed his instructions and did favour the officers in his distribution. Haldimand, although he said little in his correspondence, was obviously disappointed at Johnson's self-serving actions. This incident, along with another minor example of graft, undoubtedly lowered Haldimand's opinion of him. When Johnson was finally suggested as lieu76

The Growth of a Loyalist Town: Cataraqui, July 1784 This view, again by James Peachey, was taken from east of the town along the Cataraqui River. In little more than a year, Cataraqui appears to have quadrupled in size and continues its hectic growth. A new structure is going up at the water's edge on the far left, while on the right behind the Indian encampment more timber is being dressed. Two ships of the Provincial Marine are anchored before the town. Over the winter of 1783-84, the military had built a new mill, a gristmill, and a navy store as well as two houses for Molly and Joseph Brant. It is from the location of those houses that this sketch was taken. The pace of private building was also beginning to quicken. By 1785, a traveller noted fifty houses in the town.

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tenant-governor of Upper Canada in 1791, he was rejected by the British government on the rather revealing grounds that he had too much property in the province to govern it properly. Although Sir John remained connected to Upper Canada by the Indian Department and although, as a member of the Legislative Council of Quebec (to which he was appointed in 1787) he was something of a spokesman for the Loyalists, Johnson never resided permanently in Upper Canada. His connection to the Loyalists after 1784 became increasingly tenuous. Those who most notably provided leadership from within the Loyalist ranks were Major Edward Jessup and Captain Justus Sherwood. Both had actively involved themselves in projects to obtain seed and cattle for the Loyalists and had constantly represented the concerns of those under their supervision to the government. Sherwood had been directly involved in the early surveys and both men had led contingents to Sorel. Jessup, after settling in the Royal Townships, had proceeded to Cataraqui to aid the settlement of his men there. Sherwood, after arriving in 1784, threw himself into further surveys in the Royal Townships and undertook a general supervision of the settlement. He continued into the autumn to forward schemes for obtaining seed and represented his charges' need for tools. In addition to Jessup and Sherwood, officers of the British army assumed a major role in supervising the Loyalists, in distributing supplies and in keeping the government at Quebec informed of developments. Other Loyalist leaders like Grass, Van Alstyne and Major James Rogers may have provided direction for their own smaller groups, but their roles were not as evident.

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4

Resettlement in Niagara and the Western Peninsula Robert Hamilton sat in his store at Queenston checking his accounts. Long hours of working by candlelight had greatly strained his eyes. He was tired and his mind kept wandering back over the recent past. Hamilton himself was not a Loyalist but a Scot who had done business with the British army at Fort Niagara on what was now officially the American side of the Niagara River. He had moved over to Queenston shortly after the end of the war. Originally he had avoided doing much business with the new Loyalist inhabitants of the Niagara peninsula. Most had brought very little with them and their first crops had been for subsistence only. They had been very poor credit risks. Now, a decade later, the story was very different. He had a burgeoning business with the Loyalists and others who had followed after them. Where before there had been nothing, settlement now spread right around the peninsula and as far as the head of Lake Ontario. The Iroquois settled at Grand River brought no business to Hamilton, and like many others in the white community, he feared they might ultimately pose a threat to white settlement. The new Loyalist settlement at Long Point on Lake Erie, however, was already bringing business to him. Further west, opposite Detroit on the Canadian side, Hamilton's father-in-law, John Askin, was moving out of the fur trade into general merchandising and settlement along the Thames River also looked promising for enterprising merchants. Hamilton rubbed his eyes and turned to his accounts. These Loyalists, he thought, were indeed laying the basis for a very promising community. Although the St. Lawrence-Bay of Quinte region received the largest proportion of the Ontario Loyalists, the Niagara peninsula had the distinction of being the first area of substantial settlement. Indeed, settlement there had commenced well before the end of the Revolutionary War. The British posts on the Great Lakes had suffered throughout the Revolution from major supply problems, being as they were at the end of a long and tenuous transportation system. The logistical problems were particularly acute at Fort Niagara, which had to provision not only regular troops, provincial corps and white refugees but, after Sullivan's Indian campaign of 1779, virtually the whole of the Six Nation Iroquois. In February 1779 there had been 1,346 people drawing rations at the post; by October, even after war parties had been sent out, there were an additional 3,678 hungry and homeless natives to be provided for. The government at Quebec was desperate for ways and means to feed all these mouths and, from late 1778, Haldimand pressed the idea of local cultivation at Niagara, using prisoners, refugees and those unfit for service. Such a settlement could be no more than a partial solution to the food problem but those involved might at least feed themselves and perhaps provide a bit extra for the garrison. The commandant at Niagara at first resisted. Although in a 1764 treaty of peace the Senecas had granted the British a strip of land, two miles in 79

Settlement at Niagara, ca. 1783 James Peachey may have taken this view in 1783 or 1788-89 as he was at Niagara at both dates. The precise location of the view is difficult to place, but it is near the site of Niagara-on-theLake, at first called Butlersbury after John Butler. The two buildings at the far right may be part of the Navy Hall complex, a local depot of the Provincial Marine. To the left are farmhouses. The numerous small buildings visible over the hat of the Indian furthest left may be the rough log houses associated with Butler's Barracks and built around 1778-80. The respectable gardens and the haystacks indicate agriculture was developing apace. Fort Niagara is clearly visible on the American shore. It was not surrendered until 1796 and early British commercial development tended to cluster around it, as witnessed by the numerous buildings below the fort.

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depth on the west (Canadian) side of the Niagara River and four miles on the east, it had been stipulated that the land was to be reserved for the use of the crown and was not to be available for settlement. Colonel Mason Bolton, the Niagara commandant, feared any suggestion of settlement would upset the Iroquois, a contingency to be avoided while the war was in progress. To complicate matters further, the Mississauga Indians had moved into the area since the signing of the treaty and also felt they had rights to the land. Haldimand, however, was adamant and instructed the local authorities to begin negotiations with the Indians. Settlement in fact commenced before any formal agreement was reached. In the fall and winter of 1778, John Butler had constructed a row of log barracks on the side of the river opposite Fort Niagara for his rangers, on the present site of Niagara-on-the-Lake. By 1780 some families were already established in clearings near their barracks, where log houses were built for them and some grain was sown in ground roughly broken up with such implements as could be procured. The site was an obvious one for agricultural development. Not only was it near to the fort and the rangers' quarters, but it had been previously cleared. Indeed, it had been the site of Onghiara, the principal settlement of the long-departed Neutrals, and later had been used by the Mississauga for raising their crops of maize and beans. It appears that permission to use the land was obtained from the Iroquois at a conference in October 1780. It was not, however, until May of 1781 that formal negotiations were concluded with the Mississauga for a strip four miles wide on the west bank of the river. "The Indians are well satisfied," boasted Guy Johnson, "having received about the value of Three Hundred Suits of Clothing, which was as little as I could give them, and they would have got the most part of that quantity in a little time without any consideration from their necessitous condition."1 It was decided that the settlers on the newly acquired lands would be tenants, holding their land from year to year. No rent would be required of them. They would receive one year's provisions and the necessary agricultural implements. All their produce beyond their own needs was to be disposed of to the garrison. Colonel Butler was to exercise a general superintendence over the fledgling community. Most of the first settlers were old or disabled soldiers from Butler's Rangers or the Indian Department, many of whom had their families with them or sent for them to the camps in Quebec. These early settlers were fortunate to commence farming four years before the main wave of Loyalist occupation, as there was at that time no particular pressure on available supplies of seeds and implements. The Loyalists' agricultural requirements were ordered for them in the winter of 1780 and they appear to have received what they needed. The accounts for Niagara in 1781 contain an item "For Seed, Grain and sundry Tools & ca for Husbandry... £212.1 Is.8l4d." 2 Development was rapid; the settlers were able to maintain themselves without army rations after the harvest of 1781. In late 1782 the government undertook to build a grist and sawmill on Four Mile Creek (St. Catharines) to provide lumber for the settlement and to grind its grain. The mill, unfortunately, was not completed for a year. 81

The progress which had been made was evident from a return of August 1782. There were then seventeen families farming at Niagara, a total of eighty-four people. They had cleared an impressive 236 acres and raised 926 bushels of Indian corn and 630 bushels of potatoes, the main crop on which the settlers and their stock would have subsisted. They had produced two subsidiary crops, 206 bushels of wheat and 46 bushels of oats. Even more interesting, they had collectively acquired 49 horses, 53 head of cattle, 30 sheep and 103 hogs, most of which, no doubt, had been purchased or seized in the rebel colonies. The following year, the settlement had grown to forty-six families who had cleared 713 acres and built 44 houses and 20 barns. Thus when the surveys for eastern Ontario were begun, some settlers in the Niagara peninsula were already well established. The main body of Butler's Rangers were disbanded in June 1784, along with elements of the 8th and 34th Regiments of the regular army and most of the Indian Department. Haldimand directed that land was to be surveyed for these people and, like the Loyalists in the lower settlements, they were to be burdened with oaths, declarations and other bureaucratic paraphernalia. Tools and seeds would be forwarded to them. Those who wished it, were to be transported to the St. Lawrence or the Bay of Quinte for settlement. By late July, 620 people had signified their desire to settle at Niagara. The existing settlement was obviously not large enough to absorb such a multitude nor was there enough arable land in the purchase which had initially been made from the Mississauga to accommodate all the potential settlers. The British authorities, with some trepidation, again approached the Mississauga to purchase all the land between Lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario. As John Butler with good reason commented, "I am persuaded that the Indians will be greatly surprised (and I fear will alarm others who are not concerned), when they find that we want to purchase the whole country."3 The Mississauga refused to sell all the land between the three lakes for the very good reason that it was not all their territory. They agreed, in May 1784, to sell the land from the head of Lake Ontario to the source of the Thames River, down to Lake Erie and back along its shore and the Niagara River to Lake Ontario. In large part, the Mississauga seemed willing to surrender this territory because the Iroquois as well as the white Loyalists were to be provided for within its boundaries. Although a year before the Mississauga had objected to Iroquois settlement in Ontario, they were quickly coming to see them as fellow Indians and possible allies in any future contentions with the new white interlopers. "We are Indians and consider ourselves and the Six Nations to be one and the same people," as Pokquan, the Mississauga spokesman put it, "and agreeable to a former and mutual agreement we are bound to help each other."4 For their lands, the native people received £1180.7s.4d. or roughly a tenth of a penny per acre. Surveys were very slow in getting under way in the Niagara peninsula. Allan Macdonell, a former sergeant in the Rangers, had made a survey of the existing settlement in March 1783. The government promised in 1784 that professional surveyors would be sent to do more extensive surveys after the work was completed at Cataraqui. This did not prove feasible and a Lieutenant Tinling of the Royal Engineers was designated to act as a deputy surveyor. His surveys were described 82

Surveys in the Niagara Peninsula, ca. 1790 This map, compiled in the surveyor general's office at Quebec City in 1798, gives an indication of the slowness of surveys in the Niagara peninsula. Only the two townships fronting on the Niagara River and later named Niagara and Stamford were fully surveyed. They were the areas of heaviest early settlement. Surveys had followed settlement along the Lake On-

tario shore as far as the head of the lake, but for the most part, only the areas nearest the shorelines where people actually settled had been surveyed. By 1790 surveys (which are not shown here) had been conducted above the first two townships along the river. Even there, however, surveys had been spotty and covered only the areas where people were actually settling.

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by his successor as "few and very erroneous." Finally Philip Frey, late an ensign in the 8th Regiment, was appointed in 1785. He, however, had work to complete at Detroit before starting at Niagara. All in all, by late September 1787, only two townships (later called Niagara and Stamford) had been surveyed along the Niagara River front. A year later surveys had extended only to Sugar Loaf Hill, seventeen miles west from Niagara along the river; even then, the surveyor had found it necessary "to carry on my surveys only in such Parts of the country where I found people were taking lands and settling in a promiscuous manner."5 It would be 1790 before surveys were completed along the Lake Ontario shore to the present site of Ancaster. Settlement, however, was not much impeded by the lack of surveys. Settlers happily staked out claims where they pleased. Such wild abandon was calculated to drive rational men (as surveyors undoubtedly were) mad. Many Loyalists spread their farms out along the lake and river fronts. "This," Frey scolded, "entirely spoils the appearance of the settlement and destroys the intention of having it as compact as possible." Worse yet, moaned one of Frey's assistants, others arbitrarily fixed their own boundaries before surveys were done, just marking off the customary width of a lot and, horror of horrors, "not considering how the side lines would intersect at right angles." Just when the surveyors thought they had them securely pegged down, people obstinately proceeded to swap land with their neighbours. "I have not been able to keep my Book of Locations for one week," grumbled Frey, "without three or four alterations."6 There were other problems at Niagara. Tools did not arrive in 1784 as promised. About seventy disgruntled Loyalists, dissatisfied with the terms on which they were to be given land, went off to the former colonies. But, in the main, the settlement during the war had provided a solid base on which further development could occur. The cheerful anarchy of Niagara's early development is a refreshing contrast to the more disciplined but less immediately successful settlement process on the Bay of Quinte and the Upper St. Lawrence. The situation was more confused opposite Detroit, the third place at which the government had projected a major Loyalist settlement. On that restless and turbulent frontier, distance and the lack of effective official control defeated plans for a significant new community. There was, of course, already a sizable French-speaking population on the Canadian shore, concentrated at L'Assumption and Petite Cote, settlements which were along the upper reaches of the Detroit River and the lower shores of Lake St. Clair. English merchants, traders and sutlers had followed the occupation troops to Detroit after the Conquest, but nothing had been done to bring British colonists to either side of the Detroit River. The end of the Revolution and the coming of the Loyalists offered an opportunity to change that. During the Revolution, some settlement of Loyalists had been authorized at Hog Island (now Belle Island at the upper end of the Detroit River). Because of the significance of Detroit in Britain's continuing relations with the Indians of the Ohio and Illinois Country, Haldimand in 1784 proposed a major military settlement opposite the Island of Bois Blanc. It was to be composed of reduced officers of the Indian Department and as many men of Butler's Rangers as wished to settle there. This plan was disrupted by the actions of a group com84

Loyalist Settlement on the Canadian Side near Detroit, 1790 This map by Patrick McNiff graphically illustrates the inequities of initial Loyalist landgranting in the Windsor border region. Lake Erie is at the bottom of the map, Detroit River is on the left. The large shaded area at the bottom left of the map and the lots laid out above it along the Detroit River were the purchase illegally negotiated by a group composed of Indian Department agents and others. Above their lots was a large Huron reserve and above that, along the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair, were established French settlements. For other Loyalists interested in settling in the area, that left only the north shore of Lake Erie. Although the map shows extensive locations along that shore, poor locations and lack of supplies led to a quick diminution of their original numbers.

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The First Survey of the Thames River, 1790 This illustration is the first page of the surveyor's notebook kept by Augustus Jones while conducting a preliminary survey of the Thames in the fall of 1790.

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posed mainly of Indian Department officers who, in defiance of strict prohibitions against such transactions, negotiated with the Indians a purchase for themselves of all the lands from Bois Blanc Island to the mouth of the Detroit River. In a misplaced effort to encourage settlement, Haldimand decided to allow the grant to be recognized. Three Loyalist officers who had been prominent in the Revolution, Captains McKee, Elliott and Caldwell, along with the British officer, Captain Bird, each received enormous grants with a river frontage of ten acres. The rest of the land was divided in the main among a few officers of the Indian Department, with a further extensive tract right at the mouth of the Detroit River for Caldwell's sons. These large grants made concentrated Loyalist settlement in this prime area impossible. Indeed, with the French settlements and a Huron reserve to the north, the whole of the Detroit River front, the obvious site for Loyalist settlement, was occupied. Plans for a major settlement at Detroit evaporated. There were, however, a group of Loyalists, numbering among them some who had served there with Butler's Rangers, who still wished to settle at Detroit. To accommodate them, Captain Caldwell obtained from the Indians a parcel of land on the north shore of Lake Erie. In 1787, this tract was given to the government. As surveyed that summer, it consisted of ninety-seven lots. The area was called the New Settlements (now Colchester and Gosfield Townships). When this stretch of water frontage was exhausted, fifty-two lots were laid out in the back concessions. At first, the newly surveyed lands boded fair to become at least a modest Loyalist haven. A total of 173 heads of households applied for lots, about a third of whom had served as Butler's Rangers and a further third who were designated in the official records simply as ''loyalists." Of the rest, twenty-three came from the regular army and associated services, while there were small representations of the Indian Department, other Loyalist corps and German mercenaries. The New Settlements, however, did not offer as attractive a location as many available elsewhere. Many settlers found their lots unfit for farming because they were too wet. Provisions and tools, which had been promised to them as to other Loyalists, failed to arrive. A few tools were eventually supplied, but many of the settlers had to go without them. By 1794, only thirty-five of the original settlers, about two-thirds of them Loyalists, were still at the new settlement. Any further Loyalist occupation of the region which bordered on Detroit was impeded by its distance from established centres, slow and erratic surveys, lack of available land and confused land titles. The few other Loyalists who came to Detroit were mostly forced to buy or rent farms or hire themselves out as labourers or seamen. The only other two concentrations of Loyalists were in the towns of Sandwich (within the present-day boundaries of Windsor) and Amherstburg. The town of Detroit remained in British hands until 1796 when it was finally handed over to the Americans. Many of its citizens who wished to retain their British allegiance then moved across the river. A goodly number of these people, mainly merchants and traders, could claim to be Loyalists, and many of them took up residence in a tract purchased from the Indians between L'Assumption and Petite Cote. There Sandwich, the new administrative centre for the region, was founded in 87

The Proposed Site of Charlotteville, ca. 17931795 The first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, had grandiose plans for the establishment of the province's major naval base at Long Point. His dream never came to fruition, but some Loyalist settlement did develop in the area. The sketch is attributed to the lieutenant-governor's wife, Elizabeth Simcoe. She in turn may have copied it from Lieutenant Robert Pi I king ton who sketched along Lake Erie and lent Mrs. Simcoe his drawings. There is some possibility that the sketch is his original work.

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1797. Other Loyalists in that same year took up lots in the new town of Amherstburg opposite Bois Blanc Island and near the just-created British military base for the area, Fort Maiden. Many Loyalists, discouraged by the problems of obtaining grants in the Detroit area, began to petition for nearby land, notably along the Thames River. When the authorities were slow in meeting their requests, some took to squatting on the land. The government finally purchased the area from the Indians in 1790 as a part of a much larger tract stretching from Long Point on Lake Erie to Chenal Ecarte at the mouth of the St. Clair River. When the first surveys along the Thames were conducted late in that year, twenty-eight log houses were already standing below the site of Chatham, all but nine on the south bank of what is now Raleigh Township. Those residing in them included Loyalists who had served with Butler's Rangers and the Indian Department, as well as disbanded soldiers of the regular army and colonists who had been brought as prisoners to Detroit. Several other farmers and labourers were living in the Thames Valley at this time who did not yet have houses of their own. There were further problems over the survey and allocation of land along the Thames and it was not until the summer of 1792 that the Thames River front as far as the present township of Camden and Howard was finally thrown open for settlement. Reduced soldiers and Loyalists who had been waiting for years for land finally began to move in. Land near the river mouth was settled largely by French people from Detroit River area, many of whom had served in the war as volunteers and officers of the Indian Department. Above the French were the original squatters as well as other Loyalists who settled at that time. Above them to the end of the surveyed lands were more Loyalists and ex-soldiers of British or German ancestry. The evacuation of Detroit in 1796 led to further Loyalist settlement along the river. The last substantial centre of white Loyalist settlement to emerge after the Revolution was in the Long Point peninsula of Lake Erie. It, along with Turkey Point to the east, helped form a large bay where boats could find shelter. The point had been included in the purchase of territory from the Mississauga in 1784 and the land to the west of it had been purchased in 1790. The first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, in one of his many schemes for the defence of the province, proposed that a naval base be established at Long Point and by 1796 had had three townships laid out in the area. In accordance with his military plans for the area, Simcoe wanted only "brave and determined Loyalists" settled in them. The plans for a naval base never materialized but settlers did begin to trickle into the area beginning in 1793. Many came directly from the United States, but the majority were Loyalists who had originally settled elsewhere, chiefly in New Brunswick, with a few coming from the Niagara peninsula. One of the Loyalists, Captain Samuel Ryerse (Ryerson) of the New Jersey Volunteers, built a sawmill and gristmill which became the nucleus for a little community, Port Ryerse. By the end of 1796, the population within twenty miles' distance of Port Ryerse had reached about one hundred. The conditions of settlement for the natives who supported the crown were different from those of the white Loyalists and in some ways, because of the government's need for their continuing support, 89

"The Mohawk Village, Grand River," ca. 1793, by Elizabeth Simcoe Like Kingston and Niagara-on-the-Lake, the Mohawk Village standing on the outskirts of what is now Brantford depended heavily on government subsidization. The Mohawk chapel on the right was government-built, as was the village's school house, sawmill, and gristmill. The chapel, constructed in 1785, is the oldest standing Protestant church in Ontario. The building on the left is the Indian council house.

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rather better. When the fighting ceased, the Indians at Fort Niagara were temporarily settled about eight miles from the fort at a village christened, appropriately enough, the Loyal Confederate Valley (Lewiston, N.Y.). By 1784 it had only 1,250 inhabitants, a pale reflection of the native contingent at the height of the Revolution. Many of the Iroquois, notably the Senecas, had reluctantly decided to return to their tribal lands in western New York and seek, if possible, some accommodation with their American enemies. Of the Iroquois who stayed, the largest number were Mohawks. The most influential of the Iroquois, at least in white circles, remained the Mohawk, Joseph Brant. Indeed, in 1783 Haldimand had bestowed upon him the grand title of "Captain of the Northern Confederate Indians." It was Brant who made the major decisions on the permanent site for Indian settlement. He, in company with several other Iroquois, had journeyed to Cataraqui in June 1783 while Holland's original survey was proceeding. Brant at first seemed to favour settlement on the Bay of Quinte near the planned Loyalist communities; the government was enthusiastically in favour of that location. By the spring of 1784, however, Brant had shifted his gaze westward to the lands of the Grand River Valley. His new preference reflected his conception of a larger native strategy. He wanted to maintain close communications with the western Indians, the peoples of the upper lakes, who looked to the Iroquois for guidance in their continuing struggles with the Americans. Brant was concerned as well with his own kinsmen, the Senecas, who were still clinging to part of their lands in the Genessee Valley of western New York. To have settled at the eastern end of Lake Ontario would have been to abandon the Senecas on the borders of American settlement. Not all the Iroquois shared Brant's perceptions; in fact it is likely that a majority at first opposed settlement at Grand River. A group of Mohawks who were encamped at Lachine under the leadership of John Deseronto had already resolved to move to the Bay of Quinte and declared they would proceed with their plan. Deseronto argued that the Grand River was too close to the Americans and "I thought I could not live in peace so near those people and made choice of this place as being at greater distance from them. The Americans are like a worm that cuts off the corn as soon as it appears."7 There was more than met the eye to this disagreement on location; Deseronto's apparently simple preference was a hint at the tensions among the Iroquois. Deseronto and his band were Fort Hunter Mohawks, a distinct group who had lived separately from the others in New York State. The Fort Hunter Mohawks had traditionally been the leaders of the Six Nation Confederacy and they resented the loss of their former consequence - especially to an upstart like Brant who was not even a traditional chief. To maintain their independence of him, they preferred to settle separately. The Revolution and its aftermath wrought many changes among the Iroquois and the more traditional elements in time came to share Deseronto's dislike of Brant. There was conflict at Grand River and some movement from there to Deseronto's settlement. The British were desperately eager to avoid conflict between the Indian factions and to placate the Iroquois in general. Their generosity, for a period, knew no bounds. Both Deseronto and Brant were 91

given settlements for their war losses and generous pensions. Houses were built for Brant and his sister Molly. Haldimand agreed that two settlements could be established. The British would provide a schoolmaster for the Bay of Quinte Mohawks as well as a church and school. Grand River was to be showered with a church, a school, a sawmill, a gristmill and a £25 per annum allowance for a schoolmaster. The Mohawks under Brant were privileged to receive £1,500 general compensation for their war losses, a compensation which neither the other Indians nor the whites received at that time. There were later discussions of allocating another £6,000 to cover the losses of the rest of the Iroquois. All the Indians, in keeping with Indian Department practice, were to receive annual presents. At the time of settlement, the natives, like the whites, received clothing, some tools and a reasonable quantity of provisions. There were cogent reasons for the British generosity to their native allies. The Iroquois' continuing friendship was necessary to maintain British influence with the more westerly tribes in Canada and the United States. To keep that friendship and show their continuing concern for Indian security, the British had retained certain posts in the United States. They knew they would eventually have to give the posts up and their munificence at the time of Indian settlement was meant to placate the Indians before that further blow. As Haldimand said in speaking of Grand River: This Settlement should meet with every Indulgence and Encouragement from Government, not only in consideration of Their past Services but in proportion as it shall be thought necessary to preserve the Friendship of the Indians, in other Words the possession of the Upper Country and the Furr Trade - and these Measures should be taken without delay; that the Indians may be comfortably established, and experience the Sweets of the King's Protection before the Posts shall be evacuated by us; otherwise even should we take Posts on the North side of the River, They will assuredly abandon us, and return to their former settlements, which the Americans already hold out to Them in order to detach them from us.8

Title to the Indian lands at the Bay of Quinte and Grand River had already been obtained as part of the larger purchases from the Mississauga. Deseronto's party arrived at the Bay of Quinte on May 22, before the first white Loyalists, and settled along the north shore of the Bay of Quinte, west of the projected boundaries of the white townships. These Mohawks were Christians and the story is told that "when the little band landed on the shore at their new home, they upturned a canoe, covered it with a communion cloth, and placed all the pieces of the old Queen Anne communion set on it in plain view of all the people, that then the chief said prayers and they sang a hymn. Afterwards they planted a cross and a flagstaff on the spot. Many of the older residents remember the flagstaff." 9 When surveys were finally carried out, the Indian settlement was designated as Tyendenaga Township. By 1787, twenty families of the Mohawks were settled in the area. The rest of the Iroquois were slower in making the move to their new lands. In June of 1784, fifty of the principal warriors travelled from Niagara to Grand River and the Head of the Lake (Ancaster) to reconnoitre the ground. The Iroquois suffered horribly that fall at 92

A Class of Mohawk Children, ca. 1783 This etching by James Peachey for the frontispiece of Daniel Clous' A Primer for the Use of the Mohawk Children may be a representation of the Indian school established at Fort Niagara during the Revolution. It had a native school master; the first teacher at Grand River was a Yankee.

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their temporary encampment from yellow fever and it was the winter and spring of 1784-85 before they finally moved to their new home. The various tribes settled in groups, the Mohawks around Brant's Ford, and the others along the course of the Grand River - the Onondagas and Senecas on the west bank, the Tuscaroras and Oneidas on the east bank and the Cayugas at the mouth. Small numbers of the Iroquois' allies and some whites the Indians had invited to live among them were also settled at Grand River. A total of about 1,850 Indians took up residence there. Surveys to determine the exact boundaries of these Indian lands were completed by 1790.

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5

The Colony Begins to Grow Mathew Elliott stood on the shore of the Detroit River, clasped his hands behind his back and turned his gaze inland. From here, he had a superb view up his two hundred yards of carefully tended and fenced lawn to his stately home. Beyond it, he could just see the beginning of his eight hundred acres of cleared fields. A small work party, composed of both blacks and Indians, constituted only a portion of his more than fifty slaves. Surveying it all, Elliott felt a warm glow of pride. He began to walk slowly towards the house. It hardly seemed possible that a mere fifteen years ago the Revolution had just ended and nothing of this existed. As an officer in the Indian Department, Elliott had been in the thick of the fighting in the west. He had been bitterly disappointed at the loss of the war yet, ironically, the war had worked to his advantage. He had acquired the nucleus of his slaves in raids into Kentucky. His status in the Indian Department had allowed him, with others, to purchase seven square miles from the Indians at the mouth of the Detroit River. In 1787 the British government had awarded him £250 for his war losses. It was only a third of what he had claimed, but it had been more than enough to start this plantation. Government generosity towards him had continued. In 1794 he had received three thousand acres of crown land in Maiden Township as an ex-Revolutionary captain. His services had been recognized in other ways: he had been appointed a justice of the peace in 1788 and reappointed to the Indian Department as assistant agent of Indian affairs at Detroit in 1790. Not bad for someone who had come to North America thirty years ago an illiterate Irish immigrant. Of course, Elliott would not pretend the war had worked so well for all the Loyalists, but large numbers had received land, compensation and even military halfpay. Upper Canada, the new colony which had been formed out of the Loyalist settlement in Upper Quebec, promised to develop rapidly. Yes, thought Elliott as he opened his front door, the Revolution was a long time ago.' The final settling of the Ontario Loyalists on their new lands might be seen as the end of a process; it was also the beginning of another. In the decade and a half following 1785, the upper portion of Quebec underwent a population explosion; the peopling of Ontario had begun. Even by 1791 there were twenty to thirty thousand people living in the area, three to four times the initial Loyalist influx. In the fifteen years after that first occupation, settlement was not only consolidated in the original areas of habitation, but new sectors opened up. Settlement flowed from the St. Lawrence up the Ottawa River to the Rideau. Habitation extended ten miles around the Bay of Quinte. It formed a narrow strip along the Lake Ontario shore to York where farms extended fifteen miles up Yonge Street. The Mississauga continued to hunt in the forests extending from York to Dundas, but white settlers now occupied the narrow strip of good land below the escarpment around the Niagara peninsula and extending part way up the Lake Erie shore. White communities would soon join the native one at Grand River; the node of settlement at Long Point was grow95

The "Late" Loyalists: "Thomas Merritt" (17591842), artist unknown Thomas Merritt, the father of William Hamilton Merritt, is a well-travelled example of a late Loyalist. Born in New York, he served in the American South with the Queen's Rangers during the war. His regiment was disbanded in New York at the end of the Revolution and with his wife, he went to Saint John, New Brunswick. From there they moved to the Carolinas, then Bedford, New York, and later New York City before finally coming to Upper Canada in 1796. Merritt was likely drawn by a combination of loyalty and the hope of advancement under his old regimental colonel, Simcoe. He later became sheriff of Lincoln County and deputy surveyor general of woods for Upper Canada. 96

ing; the Detroit River front was inhabited and settlement was beginning to move along the south shore of Lake St. Clair; and the Thames was inhabited well up its course. The vast majority of new settlers in Ontario came from the old colonies. Indeed, there was no real break between the coming of the Loyalists and the start of this new wave. In the same letter in which he reported that he had sent off the last boatload of Loyalists from Lachine, the officer responsible for transport reported that new refugees were coming in from the United States and asked for instructions on how to deal with them. In June 1785 Joseph Hadfield, a British traveller, noted while passing through the St. Lawrence settlements that there had been a great influx of people there that month "continuing every day."2 Hadfield himself had passed three to four hundred aspiring settlers on his journey from Montreal. The same month a Loyalist complained that a great many people who were not Loyalists had settled at Johnstown, adding that it was very hard that those people who were not Loyalists should meet with the same encouragement as people who had fought in the war and lost all their possessions. This trickle of new settlers broadened into a stream and finally became a flood. By 1800 Thomas Merritt, a Loyalist in the Niagara peninsula, was exulting to his brother in New Brunswick, "This is one of the finest Countrys in the world for a Farmer that will be Industrys [sic] . . . you would be astonished to see the people from all Parts of the States, by land and by water, 250 Waggons at a time, with their familys on the road, something like an Army on the Move; the Goodness of the land is beyond all Description, their is the best of Crops this Season I ever saw."3 Many who came in the early years after first settlement could legitimately claim to be Loyalists; they had been delayed from leaving by plausible reasons or, after having made a short attempt, had decided they could not adjust to life in the new republic. These people could with justice be called "late Loyalists." Increasing numbers, and probably the vast majority, however, were simply Americans attracted by the availability and relative cheapness of land in Ontario, and by its easy accessibility by the lakes. Ontario was becoming part of the advancing American settlement frontier. These new settlers added further pieces to the already complex cultural mosaic of early Ontario. Numbers of them belonged to the sects collectively referred to as the "plain folk" - Quakers, Mennonites, Tunkers and Moravians. These people, many of them German in origin, had been neutral rather than loyal during the Revolution, and they came to Upper Canada for a variety of reasons. Like many Americans, they were attracted by the prospect of obtaining good land and repelled by the economic and social instability in the United States following the Revolution. The plain folk had ideological reasons for coming as well. Although most of them had sincerely attempted to remain aloof from the war, they were persecuted by the more radical elements among the revolutionaries for their refusal to take oaths of allegiance or to condone armed violence in any way. One small group of Mennonite farmers in Pennsylvania, for instance, were stripped of all their possessions by the Patriots: Even their beds, bedding, linen, Bibles and books were taken from them and sold by the sheriff .... From some of them all their 97

The Plain People: "Adolphustown Friends Meeting House, Hay Bay," photographer unknown The small community of Quakers which had been established at Adolphustown held meetings in private homes until 1798 when they built this meeting house. One of the oldest places of public worship in Ontario, it was destroyed in 1897.

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provisions were taken and not even a morsel of bread left them for their children .... As all their iron stoves were taken from them, . . . they were deprived of every means of keeping their children warm in the approaching winter, especially at nights, being obliged to lie on the floor without any beds . . . some of the men's wives were pregnant and near the time of deliverance, which makes their case the more distressing. 4

In the Revolutionary period, the old tolerance of colonial times passed away; Mennonites and members of other pacifist religious minorities were uncertain about their futures under new and potentially unsympathetic masters. Many preferred to shelter themselves once again under British rule in Upper Canada. By 1800 groups of plain folk had moved into the major communities of Upper Canada. The Niagara peninsula was a favourite area because of its accessibility to the Quaker, Mennonite and Tunker settlements in Pennsylvania. Quakerism had taken root in the Short Hills (Pelham Township) and Black Creek (Bertie) before the turn of the century. Mennonites and Tunkers mixed with the Quakers at Black Creek; there were Tunkers in the Short Hills, while a substantial Mennonite settlement was beginning at Twenty Mile Creek (Vineland and Jordan). The other area for settlement of these religious minorities was around the Bay of Quinte. A few Quakers had been among the original settlers of Adolphustown and Quakerism was strong in the area which would become Prince Edward County. Moravians were scattered along the shores of the bay and their missionaries made a brief attempt at missionary work among the Mohawks of Deseronto's band. Shortly after the turn of the century, Mennonites, Tunkers and Quakers had all established firm footholds on Yonge Street, especially in Markham and Vaughan townships, while the Mennonites had begun what was to be their largest settlement in Waterloo County. Although they were neither pacifists nor plain folk the Baptists and Lutherans had close ties to these groups. There were early established Baptist congregations at Thirty Mile Creek (Beamsville) and in Clinton Township, in the Niagara peninsula; at Hallowell in Prince Edward County and Thurlow Township on the north shore of the Bay of Quinte; and in Haldimand and Cramahe townships slightly to the west, as well as in Markham. The German mercenaries who settled in Cataraqui Township No. 5 (Marysburg) were Lutherans and there were Lutheran congregations near the bay at Bath and Ernestown as well as one in the St. Lawrence settlements at Morrisburg. One of the most interesting and certainly the most tragic of the pacifist religious groups were the Praying or Christian Delawares, ninety-six of whom had been massacred by American militia at their village at Gradenhutten. The British, on the other hand, suspecting that the Moravian missionaries with the Indian band were passing information on their movements to the Americans, called on their Indian allies to drive the Christian Delawares from their settlements to the Upper Sandusky where they could be more closely watched. There the Indians passed a bitter, hungry winter. Their missionaries were taken away from them and incarcerated at Detroit. After the war, the band tried unsuccessfully to re-establish themselves in the American northwest, still a hotbed of conflict as a general Indian war loomed nearer. Finally, they sought refuge in Ontario, settling in 1791 on the 99

estates of Mathew Elliott and Alexander McKee on the Detroit River front. Here, however, they again felt themselves too close to corrupting white influences and the following year, they moved up the Thames River beyond white settlement to establish their own village of Moraviantown (Fairfield). There they rested from their long wanderings in relative peace and tranquility until the Americans again destroyed their settlement in the War of 1812. However small their numbers, one must be constantly amazed at the incredible kaleidoscope of ethnic origins, backgrounds and motivation among the Loyalists and early post-Loyalist settlers who came to Ontario. Yet another contribution to the early Ontario mosaic came from blacks. Most Negroes coming into Canada during or shortly after the Revolution were slaves, either captured in the course of the war or brought in by their masters. There exists a list of forty-three Negro slaves captured in the colonies by the King's Royal Regiment, the Indian Department and the Indians. A number of them were sold in Montreal, some to Loyalists. In December 1783, those attached to Jessup's Rangers included no less than twenty-nine Negro slaves; a number of slaves, indeed, served directly in the Loyalist corps. At least four of the families who first settled at the Bay of Quinte, including that of Major Peter Van Alstyne, had ten or more slaves. Captain Justus Sherwood had several, as did John Stuart, the first Anglican missionary at Kingston. Joseph Brant kept slaves, including some in livery at his estate near Grand River. The secret of the rapid development of the Detroit River estate of Mathew Elliott, a prominent member of the Indian Department, was slave labour; he had fifty to sixty slaves, Indian and Negro, the core of which he had garnered as the spoils of war in the Ohio and Illinois Country. It has been estimated that in the Niagara District alone - where the first slave arrived in 1782 - the slave population was nearly three hundred by 1791. Information on free blacks is more difficult to come by; several black men at Lachine applied to the authorities, asserting they had "join'd the British Army and come off with the Loyalists."5 They wished to know whether they were to receive lands and the other privileges of Loyalists. Sir John Johnson rejected the notion that any of these Negroes were freemen, asserting that they must have been the property of Loyalists. He believed they should receive land in the same proportion as other men, but possibly thought their land should go to their supposed masters. In the Niagara peninsula, nineteen blacks unsuccessfully petitioned the government in 1794, asserting that many of them fought the Revolution as freemen and Loyalists. They asked for contiguous lots of land so that they might help each other, but no mention is made of any land they might have received at the end of the Revolution. Most settlers coming to Upper Canada after the Revolution were neither blacks nor plain folk, but common-or-garden variety white colonists. One contemporary estimated that by 1812 only one individual in four of American descent in Upper Canada was a Loyalist. Such a rapid submersion of the Loyalists in a larger population meant that the government had to face very early the question of who was a Loyalist and, more fundamentally, did it matter? Were there to be special privileges in the province for Loyalists? Was Upper Canada to be an exclusive haven for that special core of colonists who had remained loyal or 100

The Black Loyalists: The Petition of the Free Negroes, 1794 Blacks at the end of the Revolution did not necessarily receive all the privileges of white Loyalists. This modest and rather pathetic petition signed by nineteen blacks, many of whom had fought or had come to Canada as freemen at the end of the war, asked that they be given a con-

tiguous block of land so that they could cooperate among themselves and demonstrate "that Negroes are capable of being industrious, and that in loyalty to the Crown they are not deficient. " The petition was refused.

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was it to be a more general and less discriminating North American society? On the question, first, of who was a Loyalist, early notions were fairly concise, not to say rigid. Haldimand seemed to consider only those who had actually fought in the war as true Loyalists; even many of the Associated Loyalists from New York were, he believed, "Mechanics who never served at all and who have only changed one situation to exercise their trades in another."6 Haldimand could see, though, that the new settlements, if successful, would attract others from the United States. He stated he had no objections to such settlers provided their loyalty was "undoubted," although such individuals were not to expect the same provisions or other privileges that those who had left the United States immediately after the war had received. In 1783 the British government had decided to recompense Loyalists for their wartime losses and appointed commissioners to receive their claims. The commissioners concentrated in their written reports on defining the classes of losses to be considered; but, as they heard cases, they worked out major standards by which Loyalists could be distinguished. A Loyalist, as defined by their decisions, had to be an American by birth or living in the colonies in 1775 at the outbreak of the Revolution; a Loyalist had to have rendered substantial service to the royal cause in the course of the war; and a Loyalist must have left the old colonies during the war or shortly thereafter. In practice, the period of time they allowed for leaving was quite brief, since the commissioners finished their hearings in Ontario and Quebec in 1788, five years after the end of the Revolution. If one examines the cases brought before them in Ontario and Quebec, it is clear that the commissioners were willing to consider as substantial service not only enlistment in the various military units, but spying, secret provisioning of loyal troops and similar clandestine service, as well as civilian service in bureaucratic positions with the regular army such as, for example, a clerk with the commissariat or service with the engineers, building fortifications and other emplacements. The commissioners were sympathetic to those too old or ill for military duty or who had other valid reasons for not fighting; they were tolerant of those who under compulsion had at first taken oaths to the new republic or for a short period had enlisted with the rebel forces provided they had later fought for the crown. They did not accept submissions from able-bodied males who were merely refugees and had not rendered any definable service; and they appear to have been sceptical of those who served only on general guard duty with volunteer militia. The commissioners would not accept claims from those who were still within the United States or who had returned there to settle permanently. In accordance with their definition, they did not consider disbanded soldiers of the regular British army (other than those enlisted in America for the Revolution) or German mercenaries to be Loyalists. With the exception of a few leading chiefs, they did not consider Indian claims and there is no evidence that any blacks came before them. The early criteria for land-granting in Ontario were markedly different from those governing Loyalist claims. In this matter the government weighed its desire to recognize the Loyalists against the imperatives of settling the province. After some initial hesitation, the desire to attract settlement won out. The policy adopted was to grant 102

land to all whom the term "Loyalist" could be stretched to cover and to encourage the "speedy settlement of the upper country with profitable subjects." Almost anyone willing to swear an oath of allegiance could obtain a lot of two hundred acres. In 1794 the standards were further broadened to allow all persons professing the Christian religion whose past life was respectable and law-abiding and who were capable of manual labour to be admitted as settlers. Loyalism, then, had nothing to do with a settler's rights to land. It was perhaps in part to compensate the Loyalists for this decision that a new governor, Lord Dorchester, issued a proclamation announcing a special mark of honour for those who had remained faithful. "These Loyalists who had adhered to the Unity of the Empire and joined the Royal Standard before the Treaty of Peace in 1783, and all their children and their Descendants by either sex," proclaimed the governor in 1789, "are to be distinguished by the following capitals affixed to their names: U.E., alluding to their great principle, the Unity of the Empire." Dorchester's proclamation established what would be treated as the official definition of a Loyalist in Upper Canada. It was wider than the standards of the claims commissioners since it required only that one had "joined the Royal Standard," rather than defining acceptable wartime service. It did assume residence in Canada, but established no cut-off date for residence. No list of U.E. Loyalists seems to have been made at this time, but those entitled to the letters "U.E." were so distinguished on the militia rolls. Beyond this designation and certain special land grants, United Empire Loyalists enjoyed no further established privileges in Upper Canadian society. The stipulation of further special land grants for Loyalists tended to obscure the definitions of a U.E.L. As the special grants came to be interpreted, all descendents of U.E.L.s were entitled to a grant of two hundred acres free of any expense. It therefore became quite profitable to be able to write "U.E." after one's name and many who did not deserve the designation began to appear on U.E. lists prepared by the local magistrates. On the other hand, it was eventually decreed that in order for his family to qualify for the special land grant, a Loyalist had to be resident in the province before July 28, 1798. There was a natural tendency to confuse this right to land and the definition of a Loyalist so that only those present before 1798 came de facto to be considered Loyalists. Any Loyalists who had first settled in the Maritimes before coming to Upper Canada had a particularly hard time in getting their rights recognized. Several purges of the U.E. lists were carried out by the provincial government amidst accusations that it was playing politics with the lists, taking names off and putting them on as it saw fit. Many complained that their names had been removed before they had been given a chance to be heard on their own behalf. One successful attempt was made in 1806 to open the U.E. lists to revision and individuals presented their claims to be listed or reinstated. Even today, when the controversy over privileged land grants is a matter of no more than arcane interest, any precise definition of a Loyalist is difficult. Perhaps the standards of the claims commissioners - residence in America before 1775, some definable service 103

Upper-Canada. BY HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN G. SIMCOE, ESQ. LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR AND MAJOR GENERAL OF

HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES, &c. &c. &c,

$•

PROCLAMATION PVHfcREAS it appears by the minutes of the Council of thjl late Province of Quebec, dated Monday the ninth day of l^tr