Three Peoples, One King: Loyalists, Indians, and Slaves in the Revolutionary South, 1775-1782

by Jim Piecuch

Three Peoples, One King explores the contributions and conjoined fates of Loyalists, Indians, and slaves who stood with the British Empire in the Deep South colonies during the American Revolution. Challenging the traditional view that British efforts to regain control of the southern colonies were undermined by a lack of local support, Jim Piecuch demonstrates the breadth of loyal assistance provided by these three groups in South Carolina, Georgia, and East and West Florida. Piecuch attributes the ultimate failure of the Crown's southern campaign to the ruthless program of violent suppression of Loyalist forces carried out by the revolutionaries and Britain's inability to capitalize fully on the support available. In the process of revisiting some cherished opinions respecting the Revolution, Piecuch provides a compelling alternative to long-held notions of heroism and villainy in America's war for independence.Covering the period from 1775 to 1782, Piecuch systematically surveys the roles of these three groups—Loyalists, Indians, and slaves—across the southernmost colonies to illustrate the investments each had in allying with the British, their interconnected efforts on behalf of their king, and the high price they paid for their loyalty during and after the war. In honing his focus on the Deep South, where British forces struggled to maintain control as their hold on the northern colonies waned and where some of the war's fiercest combat took place, Piecuch offers a sustained interpretation of the war from the British perspective.Although other studies have assessed the stance of white Loyalist militias and the efforts of revolutionaries to woo them or defeat them, Piecuch's is the first to offer a synthetic approach to all three Loyalist populations—white, black, and Native American—in the South during this era. He subjects each of the groups to intensive investigation, making new discoveries in the histories of escaped or liberated slaves, of still-powerful Indian tribes, and of the bitter legacies of white loyalism. He then employs an integrated approach that advances understanding of Britain's long hold on the South and the hardships experienced by those groups who were in varying degrees abandoned by the Crown in defeat. Aided by thirty-four illustrations and maps, Piecuch's pathbreaking study will appeal to scholars and students of American history as well as Revolutionary War enthusiasts open to hearing an opposing perspective.

Genres: History, American Revolution, American History

439 pages, Hardcover

First published August 30, 2008

Reviews

[Rhuff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This probing investigation into the forgotten history of the American Revolution reveals not only closeted skeletons, but the founding nature of the resulting "regime." Long seen as the foil of dominant Patriot triumphalism, the British Loyalists have been rescued from the demonology of the losing side of what was as much a vicious civil war as against an external power.

In much detail, Professor Piecuch explore the motives of white "Tories," Indian allies, and freedom-seeking slaves in allying with the British counter-revolutionary expedition. It is surprising, given the number of Loyalists in the Southern colonies, that Britain ever lost them. Piecuch explains this for two reasons: many high British officers - especially the aristocratic commanding general Cornwallis - were too snobbish to effectively deploy their "native" assets; and the overwhelming first-strike terrorism of fanatic "Whigs." In South Carolina especially there is a direct line of descent from anti-British to vehement anti-Union passion of the next century, both centered in Charleston. The back-country folk were at odds with the lowland gentry in 1776 as in 1861: an inconvenient truth immediately obscured after Patriot victory.

Indian motivations are easily understood: native nations were in the way of land and profit. The British demarcation line of 1763 had to go, along with the Indians and the King. Although the Indian contribution to the British war effort was not always effective - the Indians waxed and waned according to shrewd realpolitik and subsidies - they kept the frontier Patriots diverted until the last days of war.

The black contributions have remained the most controversial. Thousands of slaves were inspired by Lord Dunmore's offer of freedom to those crossing to the British side. Those who did met varying fates according to the fortunes of war and the will of officers and officials: some escapees served as irregular soldiers and spies, even in a commissioned unit called The Black Dragoons; others were conscripted into support roles for the British; others squatted in limbo as "contraband of war;" while others remained in servitude. After the fall of Charleston and Savannah the most favored were evacuated with British forces to Canada or the Caribbean. Their mass deployment, although eagerly sought by some commanders, was in the end too controversial, even for the British. Hoping to regain control of the Southern colonies they wished to restore "good order," not lead a social revolution any more than slave-owning Patriots.

Piecuch's thesis is if the British had relied on its native assets of white Loyalists, Indian forces, and rebel slaves, the Empire could have retained the Southern Colonies and halved the future United States; perhaps even freeing more British Regulars to defeat Washington's Continentals at Yorktown, thus winning the war. True as far as it goes, Piecuch concedes it was a long shot. British commanders had reservations about all three allies; the allies themselves, though they could and did work together, also had divergent interests. By the time the British Army was desperate enough to turn its attitude, Parliament was sick of the whole thing and "Vietnamed" out.

"Their achievements have never been properly recognized," Piecuch concludes. They were instead made scapegoats for defeat by both sides, one anxious to enjoy victory, the other to wash its hands of defeat. Such are the fortunes of the losing side, forever damned as collaborationists and war criminals; even when their only crime was resisting freedom forced at gunpoint.