The Loyal Refugees

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

“We traded one tyrant 3,000 miles away for 3,000 tyrants one mile
away” was one 18th-century lament heard from Americans who preferred
to stay loyal to Great Britain during the American Revolution. When the
British lost the war, more than 70,000 Loyalists were driven from the 13
colonies by their vengeful neighbors. This book chronicles the struggles
of these Americans, most of whom eventually settled in Canada. Unlike
many children’s books about the American Revolution, the text includes
many references to the cruelty visited by both Rebels and Loyalists
Americans on each other. It also underscores the fact that North
American society was extremely multiethnic in the 18th century with
African-Americans and First Nations people playing major roles on both
sides of the conflict.

The text occasionally leaves the reader hanging. For example, the first
chapter claims that loyal Scottish Highlanders were “largely”
responsible for defeating the Americans as they invaded Quebec, but it
does not say why or how. It also mentions that Benedict Arnold was so
unpopular with his fellow Loyalists in New Brunswick that he was forced
to move to England and, again, fails to mention why. Though irksome,
this lack of follow-through does not diminish in any major way the
overall value of this fine book, which includes numerous black-and-white
sketches, maps, and even a crossword puzzle to test the reader’s
knowledge of the American Loyalists. Recommended.