The King’s Friends: The Composition and Motives of the American Loyalist Claimants; Uses and Abuses of the American Loyalists’ Claims: A Critique of Quantitative Analyses

 The King’s Friends: The Composition and Motives of the American Loyalist Claimants by Wallace Brown

-The author estimates that there were 160,000 to 384,000 active Loyalists in America.  This amounted to 7.6% to 18.0% of the population in Colonial America at beginning of the Revolution.

-The author defines a “Loyalist” as being any person who was forced into exile for supporting Britain or rendered substantial military or civil service to the British.

-Loyalist claimants argued that Loyalist numbers could have been higher if the British had been more interested in giving support to Loyalists and were more willing to allocate resources to help the Loyalists.  There are recorded instances of Loyalist being harassed and their property being damaged or stolen by British and Hessian forces. 

-The Loyalist had the most influence in New York, South Carolina, and Georgia.  This is due to loyalism being more prominent in colonies occupied by the British army.

-Loyalism was concentrated in the urban coastal areas of colonies for the most part.  The only colonies that had a significant population of backcountry Loyalist were New York and North Carolina. 

-The reason for the Loyalist concentration in urban coastal areas was that a significant portion of royal officers, immigrants, merchants, and professionals were Loyalists, and these types of individuals were most present in coastal cities. 

-A slight majority of the Loyalist claimants were immigrants and not born in America.  A higher proportion of immigrants in America were Loyalists compared to the proportion of native born Americans who were Loyalist. 

Uses and Abuses of the American Loyalists’ Claims: A Critique of Quantitative Analyses by Eugene R. Fingerhut

-The author argues that the “quantitative method” is not effective because the sources about the loyalist are ambiguous or devoid of enough data to make an accurate quantitative study of the Loyalists.  According to Fingerhut the historical data is too vague. 

-These studies only can be accurate about what Loyalist Claimants sought from the commission and cannot accurately measure their economic or social status.  The claimants could have potentially overstated or understated their losses if they believed it would help their claim.

-Another issue with using claims data to measure Loyalists wealth and losses is that the Commission did not have guidelines for determining the worth of colonial currency vs. British currency.

-The author argues that restrictions that the British put on claims may have deterred Loyalist from filing petitions and thus would be left out of a statistical survey.  

-The author states that commercial and office holding coastal loyalists are overemphasized in studies of the claimants because they had the easiest access to British forces.  It was much more difficult for a loyalist backcountry farmer to file a claim because he would likely be isolated from British forces.  According to the author, rural and poorer loyalists could be underrepresented because of this.

5 Sentences

During the American Revolution there were an estimated 160,000 to 384,000 Loyalists actively supporting the British in the American colonies.  Loyalism was most active in New York, South Carolina, and Georgia due to British military occupation allowing Loyalists more influence in those colonies.  Loyalism was concentrated in urban, coastal areas and was dominated by merchants, royal officials, and professionals.  The exception to this was the large population of Loyalist backcountry farmers in New York and North Carolina.  Loyalist writings and interviews after the war show that the British army did not provide much help to the Loyalists and some Loyalists were harassed by British and Hessian soldiers.