Scottish loyalism in the British Atlantic world

ABSTRACT

This group of essays explores the ways in which Scottish loyalists shaped and contributed to the British Atlantic world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Once thought of as a narrow and defensive conservative reaction to political change and external military threat, historians have recently recast loyalism as the embodiment of a disparate and multifaced identity embraced by those of different ethnicities, religions, and political persuasions, touching even those who claimed neutrality. By adopting an expanded geographical and chronological range, these essays investigate examples of loyalism and popular royalism carried by Scots at home and in the British Atlantic world, at the time of the Revolutionary War, and in the decades that followed. As these essays demonstrate, loyalism was a patriotism born out of the messiness of the political, social, and economic transformation of this world, one that was entwined with the expansion of democracy.

KEYWORDS:

• Loyalism
• British Atlantic world
• American Revolutionary War
• Scotland
• Jacobitism
• royalism

Acknowledgements

This collection of essays has resulted from the willingness of a group of transatlantic historians to share their research in a spirit of collaboration, and to maintain patience in the pursuit of a multi-headed approach to a diverse and nuanced historical problem. We are grateful for their enthusiasm when answering our call, and for all the hard work involved in their examination of Scottish loyalism in the British Atlantic world.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Bélanger, “Loyalty, Order, and Quebec’s Catholic Hierarchy,” 36–52; Kehoe, “Catholic Relief,” 2–7; Kehoe, “Catholic Highland Scots,” 80–81. For more on Irish Catholics and the British empire see: McGowan, “Canadian Catholics, Loyalty, and the British Empire.”

2 Mason, “Loyalism in British North America,” 164.

3 Ibid., 165.

4 Ranlet, “How Many American Loyalists Left?,” 296.

5 Jones, “Steadily Attached to His Majesty?,” 163–198.

6 Ibid., 165.

7 Mason, “The American Loyalist Problem of Identity,” 42.

8 Jasanoff, “The Other Side of Revolution,” 206

9 Ibid., 207–208.

10 Ranlet, “How Many American Loyalists Left?,” 296–306.

11 Bannister and Riordan, “Loyalism and the British Atlantic,” 3–4. Morton and Bueltmann, “Partners in Empire,” 210–216.

12 Blackstock and O’Gorman, Loyalism and the Formation of the British World, 1–2.

13 Dziennik, “Through an Imperial Prism,” 332–333.

14 Douglas, “MacDonald, Flora (1722–1790).”

15 Dziennik, “Through an Imperial Prism,” 335.

16 MacDonald, “Letters, 1772.”

17 Douglas, “MacDonald, Flora (1722–1790).”

18 Tuckett and Whatley, “Textiles in Transition,” 42–46.

19 Jones, Resisting Independence, 218.

20 Kidd, “Britishness,” 382.

21 Dziennik, “‘Armailt làidir de mhilìsidh’,” 171–172.

22 Blackstock and O’Gorman, Loyalism and the Formation of the British World, 8–9.

23 Echeverri, “Monarchy, Empire, and Popular Politics,” 18; Jones, Resisting Independence, 2.

24 Ibid., 3–4, 209.

25 Bannister and Riordan, “Loyalism and the British Atlantic,” 6.

26 Blackstock and Gorman, Loyalism and the Formation of the British World, 2; Jones, Resisting Independence, 209–210.

27 Union with England, Act 1707 (1707 r.7), article 2.

28 “Aims and objectives of the Legitimist Jacobite League,” Belfast Newsletter, 9 June 1892, 4.

29 Anon, “The Carlists,” 106–119.

30 Ruvigny and Raineval, and Metcalfe “Legitimism in England,” 362.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katie Louise McCullough

Katie Louise McCullough is a researcher for the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs. She is the former Director for the Centre for Scottish Studies (2015–2020) and Shadbolt Fellow in the Humanities (2015–2020) at Simon Fraser University. Her forthcoming co-authored monograph, Mohawks and Scots in Early Canada, will be published by Edinburgh University Press.

Graeme Morton

Graeme Morton is Professor of Modern History at the University of Dundee. He is the author of several books on Scottish national identity, nationalism, and emigration, including Weather, Migration and the Scottish Diaspora: Leaving the Cold Country (Routledge, 2021), William Wallace: A National Tale (Edinburgh University Press, 2014), Ourselves and Others: Scotland 1832–1914 (Edinburgh University Press, 2012), and Unionist-Nationalism: Governing Urban Scotland, 1830–1860 (Tuckwell Press, 1999).