This is not a dictatorship

[Plane]

So, bottom line is, no comparison between Loyalist refugees from the American Revolution, who were tortured by the Americans, and Cajuns expelled by the British to the U.S.A., who were not tortured by the British.

Just as I thought.  The British are basically good guys.  In comparison to the Americans.

You can pick your instance and come up with anything. In Kenya and Ireland there was British torture from time to time. It seems that there isn't much complaint of such in Canada , tho there was a lot of complaining about being moved , the death and pain resulting were not worse than the Cherokee experience  a few decades later in the "Trail of tears".

Is the subject primarly torture?

[Michael Tee]

<<Is the subject primarly torture?>>

Not really - - this started out as an exchange between sirs, who felt the "cowardly" al Qaeda was bullying and executing noncompliant members of the civilian community and JS told him to get off his high horse because American Revolutionaries had done the same to Loyalists.  I posted some stuff about Loyalists settling Ontario and you posted about Cajuns settling Louisiana.  THEN it became about torture and murder, because the British expelled the Cajuns without torturing or murdering them (which you at first refused to accept) wherea there were instances of Loyalists being tortured and murdered by the Americans.  Proving that the British were indisputably the better men.

[Plane]

<<Is the subject primarly torture?>>

Not really - - this started out as an exchange between sirs, who felt the "cowardly" al Qaeda was bullying and executing noncompliant members of the civilian community and JS told him to get off his high horse because American Revolutionaries had done the same to Loyalists.  I posted some stuff about Loyalists settling Ontario and you posted about Cajuns settling Louisiana.  THEN it became about torture and murder, because the British expelled the Cajuns without torturing or murdering them (which you at first refused to accept) wherea there were instances of Loyalists being tortured and murdered by the Americans.  Proving that the British were indisputably the better men.

No, I can accept it , but I really didn't know till I looked.

One of the issues that was iritateing to the thirteen colonys was the way that Canada seemed to be getting prefrence , and that they were keeping the French system of laws which the colonys thought could become a pattern for repression elesewhere. There was a lot of suspicion that westward expantion would be slowed by the British goernment and that the border with Canada would be pretty far south.

I am pleasantly surprised that the Acadians got no torture but only forced exile and death or enslavement in unfreindy territorys , good show old chaps.

Tarlton was a harsh military commander who took few prisoners, but it was loyalists who made up the main part of his troop strength , when they went home after the war they were walking amoung the widows of the patriots , they didn't all get linched or leave and all the decendants of the ones that stayed are qualified for the DAR now.

[Michael Tee]

<<One of the issues that was iritateing to the thirteen colonys was the way that Canada seemed to be getting prefrence , and that they were keeping the French system of laws which the colonys thought could become a pattern for repression elesewhere. There was a lot of suspicion that westward expantion would be slowed by the British goernment and that the border with Canada would be pretty far south.>>

You know, I think I mentioned before in this group that we had a full year of American history (in Grade 9) and studied the American Revolution very carefully (partly because it affected the way the British treated their Canadian colonies afterwards.)   It was easy to see why Americans were so proud of their country and its achievements.  Later on, I realized that we were being provided with a sugar-coated version of the real history, because we used an American textbook, "This Is America's Story."  But they seem to have treated the Revolution fairly, with equal time for the Loyalists.   From what I recall of the Revolution, the Canadian issues involved must have been very far down on the list of irritants leading up to the break.  Taxation and lack of self-determination seemed to me to be the major issues and I would expect that Quebec's continued use of French law would have been a very divided issue since it didn't directly involve any Americans and probably seemed reasonable to as many of them as it did to the British politicians who approved it.

[_JS]

I ask for a "bill of particulars" on the mistreatment of loyalists, provisionally positing in its absence a lack of true atrocity but rather a mere presence of perhaps harsh but superrficially rational measures to blunt the impact of enemy sympathizers, through humane means such as closing newspapers and imprisoning the most recalcitrant and likely to engage in espionage, for example.

What would you like Domer?

For example, the Congress in New York allowed the delegation there to smoke in order that the gentlemen could maintain their health. Why? Because a few floors down, in the basement, there was an overcrowded prison of loyalists chained to the walls, some dead, others dying in their own feces and waste. The smell was overwhelming.

George Clinton, Continental Congressman and First Governor of New York had a brilliant way of keeping taxes down. He seized loyalist estates and sold them. 2

Here's a list of 300 murdered loyalists from Charleston, SC 3

Estate confiscations in South Carolina 4

Land confiscated in North Carolina 5

More land confiscated in North Carolina 6

Lee writes from Suffolk, on April 23, that he is busy clearing the country of them and an overseer of the poor, in the county of Norfolk, speaks of the removal of a great many of the inhabitants with their families and goods. The confiscation of their estates made their departure profitable to the government and it was therefore not likely to be stopped. The sufferings of the Tories darken the pages of our revolutionary history. Men dreaded the power of their numbers, their wealth and their influence, and fear was quick to devise harsh measures. However successful its work along other lines, the Virginia committee, in ordering the removal of the Tories from Princess Anne and Norfolk Counties, must stand condemned both for want of judgment and of humanity.

From the Virginia Committee of Safety 7

James Allen, a conservative Pennsylvanian, writing in the period, said: "No country has ever been more harassed than Jersey. Those who are called Tories, though they have been passive, having been plundered and imprisoned without mercy."

He was speaking about the New Jersey Council of Safety 8

The entire book is interesting and many people have no idea what the Committees of Safety were. In some colonies they were the defacto government, in others they had a small advisory role. They often contained the most radical Revolutionaries who wanted war with the British. In Pennsylvania, for example, the Committee of Safety often butted heads with the more moderate (and peaceful) Quaker population which became a large source of contention. In Connecticut the CoS was very tolerant of the Loyalists, whereas in Virginia they were repressed with a vengeance.

Thomas Brown was a loyalist landowner whom the Sons of Liberty burned, scalped, tarred and feathered - afterward he became a loyalist fighter. 9

Here is the work of David Fanning, a Patriot who became a loyalist after being "exasperated by the outrage perpetrated by these desperadoes" 10

Pennsylvania notably taxed and seized the land of Quakers, Mennonites, German Baptists, Moravians, and Schwenkfelders. Interestingly these groups rather enjoyed their lot under British rule where the Mennonites wrote in 1773 that "through God's mercy we enjoy unlimited freedom in both civil and religious matters." Yet, when the fight for liberty began Pennsylvania patriots enacted the extra taxes because these Christians refused to fight. They also refused the extra taxes, and their land was confiscated. Something the British never did. 11

Now, none of this is to say that the British fought the war with kid gloves. Nor that there weren't legitimate griefs. Yet, I don't think all the measures were "rational." People have it in their mind that the American Revolution was Americans versus British. It wasn't. It was a Civil War and a very nasty and brutal one at that. The Americans and French versus British did play a major part in the war, but we very conveniently gloss over the civil war aspect so as to glorify the whole liberty, justice, etc spiel.

[_JS]

No, I can accept it , but I really didn't know till I looked.

One of the issues that was iritateing to the thirteen colonys was the way that Canada seemed to be getting prefrence , and that they were keeping the French system of laws which the colonys thought could become a pattern for repression elesewhere. There was a lot of suspicion that westward expantion would be slowed by the British goernment and that the border with Canada would be pretty far south.

I am pleasantly surprised that the Acadians got no torture but only forced exile and death or enslavement in unfreindy territorys , good show old chaps.

Tarlton was a harsh military commander who took few prisoners, but it was loyalists who made up the main part of his troop strength , when they went home after the war they were walking amoung the widows of the patriots , they didn't all get linched or leave and all the decendants of the ones that stayed are qualified for the DAR now.

Two points.

1. The reason Britain was restricting American expansion to the west is because it cost them a fortune to defend us. When we needed their help (French-Indian War) they came and helped us. Yet, they knew that westward expansion meant more of these wars with Indians and possibly again against the Spanish or French. Wars, as we all know, cost a hell of a lot of money. To make matters worse, when they tried to levy taxes on us (taxes that amounted to 1/26th of what the British taxpayer paid) we raised holy hell, although what they wanted was for us to pay for a small part of our own protection.

Now that stance can be argued, but that is the reason why the British wanted to restrict our access to the western territories. Protecting us was becoming a huge burden on the British Treasury.

2. Tarlton was an asshole, of that there is little doubt. But, you have to remember that loyalists in the South had been opressed and mistreated for a long time until the British took Charleston (by the way, Charleston was the worst defeat by the American military until Bataan). Plus, the Americans did the same thing at King's Mountain and other battles (often shouting "Tarleton's Quarter" when the gunned down surrendering soldiers). The most famous victim of that was British Captain Patrick Ferguson at kings Mountain, who once had the opportunity to shoot an American officer in the back with his rifle (thought to be General Washington) but chose not to out of the military chivalry of the day.

It was reported both by loyalists and patriots that Ferguson's corpse was violated after he was shot numerous times.