"Tories in the Shadows: Loyalism, Society, and Warfare in Virginia during the American Revolution," Stephanie Seal Walters
Frequently hated
and persecuted by their fellow Virginians during and after the American
Revolution, Virginia’s loyalists also ceased to exist in most Virginia history
textbooks and classrooms for nearly 200 years.
“Their story is a
side in Virginia that very few people have paid any attention to,” said
historian Stephanie Seal Walters at the September 21, 2016 meeting of the
American Revolution Round Table of Richmond.
In fact Walters’
research shows where very few historians wrote anything about Virginia’s
loyalists prior to the nation’s bicentennial in 1976. At that time many
historians began to study the whole story of the American Revolution, not just
the battles and political activities of the famous Founding Fathers.
“During the
Bicentennial, historians began researching and writing about women, blacks and
other groups such as loyalists and the neutral population,” said Walters.
A few years later
Hollywood produced a very popular movie called The Patriot, which
told the fictitious story of a Mel Gibson character who fought against an evil
character who was loosely based on British Colonel Banastre Tarleton, the
commander of a loyalist cavalry regiment.
“The Tarleton-like
character was the most interesting character in the movie. For example, he
ordered his loyalist troops to burn down a church with the people still in it.
He was a wonderful villain,” laughed Walters.
Over the years
historians struggled and disagreed over how to identify people as loyalists
during the American Revolution. While conducting her research, Walters used
five criteria to identify loyalists. If anyone met at least one of the five
criteria, she regarded that person as showing serious loyalist tendencies.
Her first category
was whether a person tried to submit a postwar claim to the Loyalist Claims
Commission concerning property that was allegedly stolen or destroyed during
the war. Virginia’s loyalists were frequent targets for theft and vandalism.
Two other criteria which Walters used to identify Virginia loyalists were
whether a person was ever imprisoned for alleged loyalist views, or whether a
person ever joined the British army or a loyalist militia unit.
Walters said that
her fourth criteria was “somewhat of a gray area” because it involved
“neighbors hating neighbors”. During the American Revolution, people wrote to
public newspapers, charging people with loyalist beliefs. Routinely, the
accused would promptly reply in writing to the newspaper, and deny the charges
of being a loyalist. However Walters classified people who didn’t promptly deny
the accusations as being most likely loyalists.
Her fifth and final
criteria covered the actual writings of people who wrote either publicly or
privately about their loyalist views. Examples of private writings were diary
entries and personal letters to family members and close friends.
After applying her
five criteria to Virginia writings and public records from the American
Revolution years, Walters identified approximately 2,500 Virginians as
loyalists. This was a much larger number than previous estimates by historians
who placed the number of Virginia loyalists at approximately 500 people.
As for the
geographical breakdown of Virginia’s loyalists, Walters said that by far the
heaviest concentration was in Norfolk, Portsmouth and the Eastern Shore. Many
of Virginia’s merchants were loyalists, especially the wealthy ones who had
extensive trade deals with Great Britain.
Virginia’s first
problems with open rebellion against British authority took place on November
7, 1774 at what was called the Yorktown Tea Party. Approximately 10-15
protesters dumped tea into the York River in a similar manner to the more
famous tea party that took place in Boston one year earlier.
“The Revolution hit
Virginia really late,” said Walters. “They stayed out of the patriot versus
loyalist disputes when compared to New York, Massachusetts and the Carolinas.
However, Yorktown opened up a first-time debate. Even though the Yorktown Tea
Party was very small, its significance was important in starting a discussion.”
One of Virginia’s
earliest and prominent loyalists was John Agnew, the Anglican rector of the
Suffolk parish. According to Walters, he was “a grumpy man who sued his own
church to get paid more money.” Agnew’s attorney was none other than Thomas
Jefferson.
In March 1775 Agnew
called a meeting where he invited only the women parishioners, and spoke on
rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar’s and unto God what was God’s. When some
of the male parishioners learned about the secret women-only meeting, they
stormed into the church and ordered Agnew to shut up. They accused the loyalist
rector of having “a master in Heaven and a master in England”. A few days later
Agnew was imprisoned but he escaped, and soon joined the Queen’s Rangers
loyalist regiment as their chaplain.
Tensions steadily
increased across Virginia in 1775 between Virginia patriots such as Patrick
Henry and Virginia loyalists who supported Lord Dunmore, Virginia’s royal
governor. When Dunmore feared for his safety in Williamsburg and felt compelled
to move his base of operations, he chose Norfolk because it included many
residents who were loyal to the British crown.
Dunmore set off a
firestorm across Virginia in November 1775 when he declared that any slaves who
ran away from their masters and joined his all-black Ethiopian regiment would
be considered free people under British law. Dunmore also enraged Virginia
patriots by creating an all-white Virginia loyalist regiment.
Shortly after
Dunmore’s forces abandoned Norfolk in January 1776, Virginia patriots
reoccupied Norfolk and sought revenge against the city’s loyalist population.
Most loyalist homes were set ablaze, and the fires spread to the point where
they burned down most of the city.
After Virginia and
the other 12 American colonies declared their independence most of the state’s
newspapers, including the widely-read Virginia Gazette, became strong
promoters of independence. They quit covering stories about Virginia loyalists,
especially any patriot atrocities committed against them. For example, a
Virginia loyalist stole the Great Seal of Virginia and when he got caught in
the Fredericksburg area, a crowd tarred and feathered him. No news of the event
appeared in the Virginia Gazette, which basically censored the incident.
“Virginia’s
newspapers covered loyalist stories outside Virginia but they didn’t cover
those within the state. It was as if there were no loyalists in Virginia,” said
Walters.
Stephanie Seal
Walters is a first-year digital history fellow at the Roy Rosenzweig Digital
History Center at George Mason University, where she is also pursuing a PhD in
U.S. history. Her research interests include Colonial America, digital history,
war and society and loyalism during the American Revolution.
She received her BA
and MA in history at the University of Southern Mississippi where she was also
a graduate fellow for the Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the
South and the Dale Center for the Study of War & Society.
Prior to the
speaker’s presentation the American Revolution Round Table of Richmond discussed
the following topics:
1. President Bill
Welsch welcomed approximately 50 members of the University of Richmond’s Osher
Institute to the Round Table for what was an annual joint meeting between the
two organizations.
2. Osher member
Donna Callery thanked ARRT-Richmond for the invitation and urged ARRT-Richmond
members to join the Osher Institute and to register for Osher’s upcoming
mini-courses and tours which begin later this semester.
3. President Welsch
also announced the dates and locations of several upcoming lectures and tours
across Virginia that relate to the American Revolution.
--Bill Seward
