Loyalist Literature

The highly readable is more than a bibliography. Written in a narrative style, it is as well a short history of the Loyalists: who they were, why they left, where they settled, and what their legacy is.

This book chronicles experiences of African Americans who were part of the influx of Loyalist refugees from the American Revolution. The Black Loyalists were both freed and enslaved Black Americans who had joined the British side. For their loyalty, they were evacuated by the British Navy to Nova Scotia, where they were to receive freedom, land, and provisions. The Black Loyalists landed at a settlement named Birchtown, adjoining the white Loyalist town of Shelburne. On arrival they found virtually no shelter. Many died and others only survived by digging small holes in the ground and fixing logs over top for makeshift huts. Food was extremely scarce. White Loyalists quickly received their land and provisions. It was years before the Black Loyalists received their land grants, and not everyone got a plot. The lands provided proved to be rocky and hard to cultivate. Ultimately many Black Loyalists chose to leave Nova Scotia to go to Sierra Leone, West Africa, founding a new settlement there. Others remained, and their descendants are found in communities across Nova Scotia and beyond. Through images, artifacts, and text, this book tells the story of Birchtown and its residents as well as the larger story of Black Loyalist history, reflecting the research and exhibits in the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre in Birchtown.

The American refugees who fled north to Canada after Britain's defeat by the revolutionary U.S. army were determined to build a culture separate from the U.S. By their numbers and their politics they became effectively the founders of English Canada. In 1784 Britain carved out the new province, New Brunswick, for these Loyalist refugees, creating a special homeland where they could run their own show. But, given a chance to found a new society, the Loyalist refugees turned against each other in a savage contest for political power. In Saint John, where 10,000 people arrived in a space of months, an elite of well-connected, powerful men mainly from Massachusetts allied themselves with officials appointed by Britain and sought to control the levers of power in the colony. They were opposed by upstart political leaders who, with the support of a majority of residents, bitterly fought the already-entrenched minority. The result was conflict, a war of words that soon escalated into mob violence and criminal trials. British soldiers were called out in defiance of normal constitutional practice to restore order. When the critics of the governor won an election, the governor and his coterie engineered a reversal of the result. Popular political leaders were charged and convicted of sedition. Then the governor and his supporters passed legislation making even written petitions illegal. The new colony's conservative elite used every available device to maintain their grip on power. In the end, the governor boasted to London that the new colony was now passive and obedient. The hostility of colonial administrators in Canada to dissent and political opposition and their labelling their opponents -- even Loyalists -- as disloyal rebels was long lasting. From his extensive research in early records and his understanding of this crucial period, David G. Bell has written a fascinating account of early Canadian politics that challenges many conventional ideas about the role of Loyalists and British colonial administrators in Canada's original political culture.

After the crushing end of the War of 1812, William and Catherine Garner find their allotted two hundred acres in Nissouri Township by following the Thames River into the wild heart of Upper Canada. On their valuable land straddling the river, dense forest, wild beasts, displaced Natives, and pesky neighbors daily challenge them. The political atmosphere laced with greed and corruption threatens to undermine all of the new settlers' hopes and plans. William knows he cannot take his family back to Niagara but he longs to check on his parents from whom he has heard nothing for two years. Leaving Catherine and their children, he hurries back along the Governor's Road toward the turn-off to Fort Erie, hoping to return home in time for spring planting. With spectacular scenes of settlers recovering from the wartime catastophes in early Ontario, Elaine Cougler shows a different kind of battle, one of ordinary people somehow finding the inner resources to shape new lives and a new country. The Loyalist Legacy delves further into the history of the Loyalists as they begin to disagree on how to deal with the injustices of the powerful "Family Compact" and on just how loyal to Britain they want to remain.

Writing the Rebellion presents a cultural history of loyalist writing in early America. There has been a spate of related works recently, but Philip Gould's narrative offers a completely different view of the loyalist/patriot contentions than appears in any of these accounts. By focusing on the literary projections of the loyalist cause, Gould dissolves the old legend that loyalists were more British than American, and patriots the embodiment of a new sensibility drawn from their American situation and upbringing. He shows that both sides claimed to be heritors of British civil discourse, Old World learning, and the genius of English culture. The first half of Writing Rebellion deals with the ways "political disputation spilled into arguments about style, form, and aesthetics, as though these subjects could secure (or ruin) the very status of political authorship." Chapters in this section illustrate how loyalists attack patriot rhetoric by invoking British satires of an inflated Whig style by Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. Another chapter turns to Loyalist critiques of Congressional language and especially the Continental Association, which was responsible for radical and increasingly violent measures against the Loyalists. The second half of Gould's book looks at satiric adaptations of the ancient ballad tradition to see what happens when patriots and loyalists interpret and adapt the same text (or texts) for distinctive yet related purposes. The last two chapters look at the Loyalist response to Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the ways the concept of the author became defined in early America. Throughout the manuscript, Gould acknowledges the purchase English literary culture continued to have in revolutionary America, even among revolutionaries.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Highways of Canadian Literature" by John Daniel Logan, Donald G. French. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.