The British are coming, again : loyalists, property confiscation, and reintegration in the mid-Atlantic, 1777-1800
Kimberly M. Nath (Author), Cathy D. Matson (Degree supervisor), University of Delaware (Degree granting institution), University of Delaware Department of History
This dissertation explores the complex nature of loyalty in the mid- Atlantic region during the American Revolution, the confiscation of property, and the question of loyalist reintegration in the years following the civil war in North America. Historians have long explored the question of loyalist flight and exile, and this dissertation explores an additional problem of loyalist reintegration. In order to approach this complex topic, this dissertation analyzes property confiscation legislation and the ways in which property seizure and contests defined the experiences of those who left and returned or attempted to return. Property confiscation legislation, the practical process of confiscation, and the sale of taken property became crucial to the ways that patriots in the newly emerging states understood citizenship during a period of revolutionary turmoil. Patriots effectively began to define who would share in the rights and obligations of citizens in large part through the process of confiscating the property of those whom they placed outside of the republic. In the chaos of warfare at this local and personal level, the meanings of citizenship began to emerge in pragmatic, ideological, and then legislated ways. Contests over property, too, were complex and drawn out. Wives, children, and family all contested the seizure of loyalist property. These contests extended well beyond the years of the American Revolution and, in some extraordinary cases, became drawn out court battles that spanned decades. A handful of loyalists did return and reintegrate while others were never permitted to return, and others never felt comfortable in the newly established United States and left once more. Finally, the return of some loyalists also permits an exploration of the ways in which citizenship and loyalism coexisted uneasily in the early republic
Thesis, Dissertation, English, 2016
2016