Hi John, I don't think we should take John Adams numbers as rigid, he had no real way of knowing for certain, there were no polls or anything like them. I'm sure, as a politician, he thought he had an idea of how the people in his area thought and he had enough contacts with other regions to have some idea of how people thought there. I do think they are probably close because they run against his interest, I'm sure he would prefer if the number were 80% revolutionary and 20% loyalists. The other reason I think these numbers are probably close is because most colonies had to resort to some sort of draft, in Pennsylvania it was acknowledged that the draft was the result of the inability to gather enough volunteers. I think its true that these numbers flexed somewhat based on circumstances and regions. At one point, when the British occupied Philadelphia, there was a great concern about the number of people who were shifting their loyalties towards the British, according to Gary Nash, the historican (I'll give the full citation when I can find his book). People were making good money providing provisions to the British and this caused a shift in loyalties. New Jersey even began making some show arrests to try to stem the tide but the proBritish sentiments only lasted until the British abandoned Philadelphia. I think its an interesting question just how democratic the American Revolution was, your British loyalists who thought two thirds were against it may not have been too far off but we don't really know. If we assume the thirds Adams talks about were only males we still don't know how many of them would have had the right to vote. None the less, I think this is an interesting question, fortunately it turned out for the best in any case. Jim ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Robertson" <jr@jrshelby.com> To: <AMERICAN-REVOLUTION-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, June 09, 2002 7:38 AM Subject: [A-REV] Some thoughts on allegiance > My reading has led me to conclude that the allegiances (patriot/rebel, > loyalist/tory, neutral) were not nearly so deep nor nearly so permanent as > modern descendents would like to believe. The choice was not nearly so > clear cut as our hindsight would lead us to believe. One's choice to be on > one side or the other, in some cases, was not made voluntarily. It was > not at all uncommon for persons to change sides, sometimes more than once. > > Sometimes when a person was captured by their opponents, an option was > given them to switch sides. Since the alternatives were not very > attractive, the option was frequently taken (even if only temporarily). > > Near the end of the conflict, in the South, anyway, a person who had been a > Loyalist could "erase that record" by serving a certain number of months in > the patriot/rebel militia. Even after such a vitriolic civil war, *most* > loyalists, if they had done nothing really bad, stayed on their land (or > returned to it, by community consent) and continued to attend the same > church they had attended before (but perhaps not allowed to vote on church > matters for 3 years!). The way they lived with it was to "agree not to > talk about it". Many modern descendents of loyalists in the area are > dumbfounded to discover their ancestors were loyalists (the grandchildren > were not told which side granddaddy fought on, they has merely "assumed" he > was a patriot). > > We are sometimes given the impression that after the war, all those who had > been Loyalists lost everything they had and had to leave the country. This > is believed to have been true for only one loyalist in five. Locally, in > some cases, it could well have been five out of five, but overall, the > fraction was much smaller. > > We often hear John Adams being quoted as an authority for saying that the > population was divided evenly into thirds (for/against/neutral). If you > dig deep enough into his writings, you can find him giving other > breakdowns, dependent upon the point he was making. I have heard one > unrepentant loyalist descendent use this breakdown in his chop-logic for > declaring the US government being an "illegal" government (since 2/3 did > not favot it)! I don't think anyone can argue with there being "some" > for, "some" against, and "some" on the fence. It is far too simplistic to > say that there were equal numbers of each, and that this distribution never > changed during 7 or 8 years of conflict. There would have been a lot of > ebb and flow into and out of these "camps". In 1775, I believe it would be > hard to make a case that there was any substantial percentage of the > population favoring independence, and that the vast majority of the > population could have been placed in a category of "concerned about other > things". As the war ground on, the percentage who came to conclude that > independence was not only a viable option but the most viable option would > have increased substantially. As the fortunes of one side or the other > improved, there would have been some shifting of position among many who > wanted to position themselves (and their property) "out of harm's way". It > would seem reasonable to me that after Yorktown, if there had been a > Gallup-type poll, it would have been found that there was a substantial > increase in those favoring independence! So rather than there being some > fixed distribution or allegiances, this would have been a dynamic > ever-changing situation. > > > > ==== AMERICAN-REVOLUTION Mailing List ==== > > > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >