“Without the smallest recompense”: Scottish loyalist women in revolutionary North Carolina

ABSTRACT

Loyalism has a long history in the British Atlantic world, running much deeper than the years comprising the American Revolution. These stories, however, have often been pushed to the margins of our understanding of the era. In North Carolina, categorising colonial residents into the binaries of “rebel” or “loyalist” is problematic. This is further complicated by the introduction of gender as a factor, given the lack of access to and engagement with the public sphere that women experienced. While greater attention is being given to women in the Revolution, southern women’s stories are often marginalised in favour of the “hotbeds” of revolution, like Boston, Philadelphia, or New York. By studying Scottish women loyalists in early North Carolina, Sherman argues, we may come to understand better the influence of gender, ethnicity, and region on the experiences of those in Revolutionary America.

KEYWORDS:

• Loyalism
• women
• Scots
• North Carolina
• American Revolution
• Atlantic world
• migration

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the David Library of the American Revolution for their support. She would also like to thank Dr. Sarah White and Dr. Jamie Hinrichs for the generosity of their time in reading early drafts of the text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Saunders, ed., The Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, 10:1028.

2 Ibid., 10:1029.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ann Pollock to Samuel Johnston, 20 November 1775, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, Hayes Collection #324, Folder 1.86, Box 3.

6 Bannister and Riordan, The Loyal Atlantic, 8–10; Jasanoff, “The Other Side of Revolution,” 206.

7 Chopra, Choosing Sides, 7.

8 Quoted in Tillman, Stripped and Script, 10.

9 Kierner, Southern Women in Revolution, 94–95.

10 Harrell, “North Carolina Loyalists,” 576–577, 590.

11 Harrell also argues that the anarchical society of North Carolina and its "inherent lawlessness" actually influenced the nature of civil war in the new state more than any feelings of patriotism to the American cause or loyalty to the British Crown. Harrell, “North Carolina Loyalists,” 577, 579.

12 Tillman, Stripped and Script, 6, 10–11, 21. See also Smith, “The American Loyalists,” 261.

13 Tillman, Stripped and Script, 2, 21; Jasanoff, “The Other Side of Revolution,” 207; Chopra, Choosing Sides, 1–2.

14 Hook, Scotland and America, 48–49.

15 Dziennik, “Through an Imperial Prism,” 332.

16 Hook, Scotland and America, 48.

17 Richards, “Scotland and the Uses of the Atlantic Empire,” 98–99.

18 Ibid., 99–100.

19 Graham, Colonists from Scotland, 128–130, 151–152; Hook, Scotland and America, 51. For more on the depiction of Scots in eighteenth-century political cartoons, see Pentland, “We Speak for the Ready,” 64–95.

20 Graham, Colonists from Scotland, 160.

21 Rankin, “‘Musquetoe’ Bites,” 202–203. Richard H. Rayburn has recently confirmed the identity of the ‘Musquetoe’ as Dr. James Fallon, an Irishman who established a medical practice in Wilmington as late as 1774. An outsider to North Carolina politics, Fallon quickly became a subversive voice in the Lower Cape Fear. Rayburn, “Infallible Power: The ‘Musquetoe’,” 387–388, 406–409.

22 Several popular satirical comedies also used Scotophobia as a plot device, including Munford’s The Patriots (1777) and Leacock’s The Fall of British Tyranny (1776). One of Munford’s characters concluded, “Most of the Caledonians are suspected of disaffection to the American cause, and either from friendship or attachment to their own country, disapprove the public measures.” When questioned what to do about these Scotsmen, another character replied, “Wou’d you protect our enemies, gentlemen? would you ruin your country for the sake of Scotchmen?” Munford, “The Patriots,” in A Collection of Plays and Poems, 71. See also McDonnell, “A World Turned ‘Topsy Turvy’,” 235–270; Hook, Scotland and America, 47–48. For more on victimisation of Scots and understandings of Britishness in Boston, see Nicolson, “A Plan ‘To Banish All the Scotchmen’,” 55–102.

23 Bannister and Riordan, The Loyal Atlantic, 9.

24 Ibid., 10.

25 For more on the letter-journal as a writing form, see Tillman, Stripped and Script, 11–15.

26 Bannister and Riordan, The Loyal Atlantic, 9.

27 Schaw, Journal of a Lady of Quality, 180.

28 Ibid., 181.

29 Ibid., 182.

30 Ibid., 155.

31 Ibid., 190.

32 Ibid., 200.

33 Perhaps Schaw is referring to Falstaff’s description of “honour” in Henry IV, Part I, V, i. Schaw, Journal of a Lady, 191.

34 Ibid., 189.

35 Ibid., 192.

36 Allan MacDonald to John McKenzie, 2 March 1773, Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland (hereafter NLS), MS.1306, ff.67–68; Flora MacDonald Letters, 1772, NLS, MS.1306, f. 72; Vining, Flora: A Biography, 117–128.

37 Flora MacDonald Letters, 1772, NLS, MS.1306, f.72.

38 Powell, Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, s.v. “MacDonald, Allan.”

39 Graham, Colonists from Scotland, 154–155; Rankin, The Moore’s Creek Bridge Campaign, 9–10; Powell, Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, s.v. ‘MacDonald, Allan’; Flora MacDonald, Autobiographical memoranda, c. 1789, NLS, MS.2618, ff.82–84; Dziennik, The Fatal Land, 169–170. See also Schaw, Journal of a Lady, 206; Saunders, Colonial Records, 10:13, 116–117, 452.

40 Alexander Schaw to Lord Dartmouth, 31 October 1775, in Schaw, Journal of a Lady, 281.

41 In November 1775, the Congress dispatched two ministers to North Carolina to inform Scottish Highlanders near Cross Creek of the American position and to diffuse the Loyalist sentiments espoused by one of their Presbyterian ministers, John McLeod. Their expedition was of little success, seeing that much of the local population spoke Gaelic alone. Saunders, Colonial Records, 10:390; Rankin, Moore’s Creek, 8. For more on Highland recruitment, see Dziennik, The Fatal Land, 172–173.

42 Rankin, Moore’s Creek, 1–12.

43 Ibid., 12–19; Flora MacDonald, Autobiographical memoranda, c. 1789, NLS, MS.2618, ff.82–84; Saunders, Colonial Records, 11:276–279.

44 In “A Narrative of the Proceedings of a Body of Loyalists,” Wicker, points out a letter written in April 1776 that mentions a speech given to the Loyalist men about to leave for Moore’s Creek. This letter does not identify who gave the speech, but it may have been attributed to MacDonald over time. Similarly, in his historical drama Highland Call the playwright Paul Green depicts Flora MacDonald giving a speech to her Highland brethren before their departure. Toffey, A Woman Nobly Planned, 124–125, 169; Wicker, Miscellaneous Ancient Records of Moore County, 46.

45 Rankin, Moore’s Creek, 26–35; Powell, Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, s.v. “MacDonald, Allan”; Flora MacDonald, Autobiographical memoranda, c. 1789, NLS, MS.2618, ff.82–84. After Moore’s Creek, several Cumberland County merchants were also arrested and all but three of their stores shut down. They were released by the end of March and business resumed. Rankin, Moore’s Creek, 36–37, 42; Troxler, The Loyalist Experience, 7–8, 20; Graham, Colonists from Scotland, 159–160.

46 Saunders, Colonial Records, 23:980–84.

47 Ibid., 10:472, 639.

48 Harrell, “North Carolina Loyalists,” 580–581.

49 Norton, The British-Americans, 34; Kierner, Southern Women in Revolution, 95.

50 Sales of confiscated land amounted to £284,452.4.10 by 1791, though most transactions took place in the form of certificates rather than specie. These are likely only partial figures. Records of the confiscation commission are sparse, and much county-level data has been lost. Harrell, “North Carolina Loyalists,” 588n; Maass, “‘The Cure for All Our Political Calamities’,” 264; Saunders, Colonial Records, 15:203.

51 Berkin, Revolutionary Mothers, 96.

52 Tillman, Stripped and Script, 1–2.

53 Ibid., 3.

54 Tillman, Stripped and Script, 4; Van Buskirk, Generous Enemies, 51.

55 Saunders, Colonial Records, 10:549.

56 Ibid., 10:554.

57 Ibid., 10:888.

58 Ibid.

59 Troxler, Loyalist Experience, 31.

60 Norton, “Eighteenth-Century American Women in Peace and War,” 398.

61 Berkin, Revolutionary Mothers, 97.

62 Tillman, Stripped and Script, 5; Berkin, Revolutionary Mothers, 96.

63 Tillman, Stripped and Script, 11; Ulrich, Good Wives, 42–43.

64 Flora MacDonald, Autobiographical memoranda, c. 1789, NLS, MS.2618 ff. 82–84. One early twentieth century biographer blamed Flora MacDonald for her family’s disastrous experience, claiming that she undoubtedly roused the Highlanders and “used her powerful influence in forcing the insurrection of 1776.” Thus, Allan MacDonald blindly went forth to ruin, “influenced by his wife.” Such conclusions place too much power in the hands of a wife and mother in an overwhelmingly patriarchal society and no evidence suggests that Allan MacDonald acted on anything outside his own self-proclaimed loyalties. MacLean, Flora MacDonald in America, 36.

65 Kew, The National Archives (hereafter TNA), American Loyalist Claims, Series II, AO13/121/478.

66 Ibid.

67 TNA, AO13/118/185.

68 TNA, AO13/121/183.

69 TNA, AO13/121/668.

70 TNA, AO13/91/190.

71 Norton, Liberty’s Daughters, 117.

72 TNA, AO13/121/668.

73 TNA, AO13/91/190–191.

74 Kierner, Southern Women in Revolution, 103.

75 Van Buskirk, Generous Enemies, 51.

76 Berkin, Revolutionary Mothers, 99–100; Van Buskirk, Generous Enemies, 63, 68.

77 Tillman, Stripped and Script, 5.

78 Norton, Liberty’s Daughters, 175.

79 TNA, AO13/96/263.

80 Saunders, Colonial Records, 16:467.

81 Ibid., 16:467–469.

82 Ibid., 16:469.

83 For more, see Maass, “The Cure for all our Political Calamities,” 251–281.

84 James Devane Pension Application, NC (1832), National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter NARA), Washington, DC, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, M804.

85 Kierner, Southern Women in Revolution, 96.

86 Mason, “The American Loyalist Diaspora,” 239; Jasanoff, “The Other Side of Revolution,” 208.

87 Saunders, Colonial Records, 13:478.

88 Jasanoff, “The Other Side of Revolution,” 208.

89 Graham, Colonists from Scotland, 155–157.

90 Quoted in Graham, Colonists from Scotland, 157.

91 Maass, “The Cure for All Our Political Calamities,” 256.

92 TNA, AO13/91/338–339; AO13/123/94–106; AO13/124/13–20, 275–304; Saunders, Colonial Records, 17:10, 427, 26:591, 594, 607; Powell, Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, s.v. “MacNair, Ralph,” s.v. “Thompson, John”; Troxler, Loyalist Experience, 40.

93 Flora MacDonald, Autobiographical memoranda, c. 1789, NLS, MS.2618, ff. 82–84.

94 Ibid.

95 Ibid.

96 Indeed, the extant claims are only a small snapshot of the thousands of men and women who were deemed loyalists, given that a family would need to make it to a location where the commission held offices or had connections to an agent who would represent them from afar. Norton, “Eighteenth-Century Women in Peace and War,” 388.

97 Ibid.

98 I have compiled these estimates based on research in the TNA, AO12 American Loyalist Claims, Series I, and AO13 American Loyalist Claims, Series II, records making decisions about ethnicity either based on the claimants’ self-identification or by making assumptions about the etymology of surnames. Indexes such as Coldham, American Migrations, can also be helpful.

99 Men usually saw a return of 39.5 percent on their claims while women only 34.1 percent (not including the many disallowed for lack of proof). Norton, “Eighteenth-Century Women in Peace and War,” 389–394.

100 Ibid.,” 399–400, 403–404; Kierner, Southern Women in Revolution, 99–100.

101 Norton, “Eighteenth-Century Women in Peace and War,” 402, 405–408. It is fascinating that in Allan MacDonald’s memorial to the Loyalist Claims Commission, he only obliquely references his “family” and never once his wife, Flora. He emphasises his principled loyalty to the Crown since “infancy” and explicitly records his service under the Duke of Cumberland and Lord Loudon during the Jacobite Rising of 1745–1746. Perhaps he thought that, despite Flora’s own sacrifices during the Revolution for the sake of the empire, his wife’s history as a notorious Jacobite heroine would compromise his claim to lost property. TNA, AO13/122/28–32.

102 TNA, AO13/123/94–106.

103 Ibid.

104 “Report of the Committee on Public Bills on the petition of Paulina Telfair (concurred),” 19 December 1792, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC, General Assembly Session Records, Box 3; Kierner, Southern Women in Revolution, 97.

105 TNA, American Loyalist Claims, Series I, AO12/37/82–90.

106 Ibid.

107 Ibid.

108 TNA, AO12/37/82–90; Norton, Liberty’s Daughters, 214.

109 Schaw, Journal of a Lady, 216.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the David Library of the American Revolution under a Short-term Research Fellowship, 2019.

Notes on contributors

Kimberly B. Sherman

Kimberly B. Sherman is a historian, writer, and educator from Wilmington, NC. She earned BA and MA degrees in History from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and her PhD in Modern History at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Her research has focused on the history of the family, gender, and deathways, as well as environmental history in North Carolina. Dr. Sherman is a Lecturer in History at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her writing has appeared in print and digital magazines as well as in scholarly journals.