Brian Sharrock wrote:

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message

Quite so, thus following the letter of the law, however those
loyalists who had sided with the British during the American revolution
tended to get rather less gentle treatment.

I think the post war US government itself was not especially harsh
on loyalists. State governments tended to be more severe, but I
don't know if there was large scale, organized oppression of those
who remained loyal. The problem was more on the scale of conflicted
neighbors, making it clear to loyalists they had no future in America.

The real brutal treatment of loyalists during the war was at the hands
of local military or paramilitary groups, and bandit gangs selective
in who they preyed upon. Both loyalist and revolutionary communities
had their groups. Similar things happened on the eve of the American
Civil War; "Bleeding Kansas" being a good example of conflict between
pro and anti slave groups.

IIRC, Lousiana has its "French flavor" due to people kicked out of
Canada when the British took over Canada at the end of what we call
the "French and Indian War", and of course the direct and indirect
displacement of the Irish is well known.

Lose the fight and you lose your property seems to be pretty much the
way it goes, especially on local levels.


SMH