page_title: Loyalists fighting in the American Revolution
section_title: The fate of the Loyalists
hierarchical_section_title: Loyalists fighting in the American Revolution / The fate of the Loyalists
caption_attribution_description: English: "Tory Refugees on the Way to Canada" by Howard Pyle. The work appeared in Harper's Monthly in December 1901.
context_page_description: Colonists who supported the British cause in the American Revolution were Loyalists, often called Tories, or, occasionally, Royalists or King's Men. George Washington's winning side in the war called themselves "Patriots", and in this article Americans on the revolutionary side are called Patriots.
context_section_description: The majority of the 400,000 to 500,000 Loyalists remained in the United States after the British left. Those who were in Loyalist combat units, and non-combatant Loyalist families who had very visibly aided the British cause, and/or were unshakably loyal to Britain, mostly left. The largest number became the foundation of the English-speaking Canadian community.  According to recent estimates, about 62,000 Loyalists at a minimum left the United States by 1784: 46,000 to Canada, 8000-10,000 to Great Britain and the rest to the Caribbean. 5,090 whites and 8,385 blacks went to Florida, but almost all moved on after it was returned to Spain in 1784: 421 whites and 2,561 blacks returned to the States.. 
  The greater part of Loyalist emigration to Canada went to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. There were at least two waves of American immigration shortly after the Revolution to what is now Ontario, then Upper Canada. The first wave were the wartime Loyalists, who in the early 1780s, went to the southern and eastern parts of the Niagara Peninsula. (Others went to the Eastern Townships in Quebec.) The emigrants to Ontario numbered approximately 6,600, not counting the Native American Iroquois. Small numbers of dedicated "Tories" continued to arrive in Upper Canada during the 1780s either as individual families or in small groups from the Mid-Atlantic States. In the second wave, 30,000 Americans, attracted by promises of land and low taxes in exchange for swearing allegiance to the King, went in the 1790s to the western Niagara Peninsula. Referring to this later group of land-seeking immigrants, Canadian historian Fred Landon concludes that, "Western Ontario received far more land-seekers than Loyalists." However, the first wave, the dedicated Loyalist soldiers and families who came shortly after the Revolution, had a much greater influence on the political and social development of Ontario.  
  As to the Loyalists who went to England, their story was sometimes not as happy as they had no doubt dreamed.  "Transplanted Americans were treated as Americans, not former or new Britons," and, "Some wealthy Loyalists chose exile in England, though they knew Loyalists were not welcome there." 
  As to the Loyalists who remained within the United States, Loyalists were a minority in every state and in most communities. This differentiated them from the assertive, vocal, white pro-Confederate majorities in the South after the Civil War, who proudly proclaimed their Confederate heritage. After the Revolution, Loyalists and their descendants, prudently, rarely drew attention to themselves. An example of some who did is the Tiffany family, originally of Connecticut, who donated the diary of a Loyalist ancestor to the Library of Congress in 2000. The diary indicated that in fact the Patriot hero Nathan Hale was captured by Robert Rogers and his Loyalists, a narrative not known before. 
  Remaining in the United States after the Revolution, or leaving and later returning, were not options for some of the Loyalists. Those who had fought for, or supported, the King sometimes rejected the new republic. The figure of a minimum of 62,000 Loyalist emigrants is given above. Another, higher, estimate is given in an American work dated 2010, which states that about one hundred thousand Loyalists were evacuated, most of them to Canada. The numbers of those who left, and who stayed away, are debatable. For more information on this topic, see Loyalist (American Revolution), United Empire Loyalist, and Expulsion of the Loyalists. 
  In Canada, land was sometimes allotted according to what regiment Loyalists had fought in. Thus, the King's Royal Regiment of New York, Butler's Rangers, Jessup's Corps, the King's Rangers and Joseph Brant's Iroquois got land in what is now Ontario; part of de Lancey's brigade, the Pennsylvania Loyalists, the King's American Dragoons, the New Jersey Volunteers, the Royal Fencible Americans, the Orange Rangers and others were given land in what is now New Brunswick. Other Loyalists settled in Nova Scotia and Quebec.
  The defeated Tories of 
caption: "Tory Refugees on their way to Canada" by Howard Pyle
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