The Creation of the Loyalist Identity in Revolutionary New Hampshire, 1774-1784 James Leslie Walsh University of New Hampshire, Durham
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University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Fall 1996 Friend of government or damned Tory: The creation of the loyalist identity in revolutionary New Hampshire, 1774-1784 James Leslie Walsh University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation Walsh, James Leslie, "Friend of government or damned Tory: The creation of the loyalist identity in revolutionary New Hampshire, 1774-1784" (1996). Doctoral Dissertations. 1924. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/1924 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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BY James Leslie W alsh B A , Florida Southern College, 1987 M A , U niversity of N ew Hampshire , 1989 DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE in Partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY SEPTEMBER, 1996 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 9703371 Copyright 1996 by Walsh, James Leslie All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9703371 Copyright 1996, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©1996 James l. Walsh Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This dissertation has been examined and approved. C_Hjs £ . C'JU Dissertation Director, Charles E Clark, Professor of History Associate Professor of History ster Assis essor of History Higa p t. Gould Assistant Professor of History /yL 'Vi Nina Glick-Schiller Associate Professor of Anthropology IMI Date Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This dissertation is in part the labor of love of all of my family whose contributions made it possible. For my mother, and the memory of my father, for James and Brendan, and most especially For Mary, my Wife, without whom this would not be done, and without whom it would all be for naught. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgements This dissertation benefited greatly from research at the Massachusetts Historical Society and the generous support of the W.H.B. Douse Fellowship. Many thanks are due the staff there for their help and time. The staff of the American Antiquarian Society and the New Hampshire State library were also quite helpful, and I thank them as well. Support for a portion of the research for this work was provided by a Dissertation Year Fellowship from the Graduate School of the University of New Hampshire, and thanks are due for that I would also like to thank Professor Jeffrey Bolster, Professor Eliga Gould, Professor Lucy Salyer, and Professor Nina Glick-Schiller for their careful and critical readings of several drafts. Their advice has been welcome and valuable. I would also like to thank my graduate colleagues for their insightful questions and suggestions at various stages of this work. Special thanks are due for a most valuable and timely suggestion last April from Professor J. William Harris. Finally, I must thank Professor Charles E. Clark who has been more than an advisor, mentor, and friend. He has tried to teach me to write, and to write history. Where this dissertation does not measure up, it is my deficiency and not his. But most of all, he has taught me how to be an historian, by example. I cannot thank him enough for his advice and support these many years. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Dedication iv Acknowledgements v Abstract vii Chapter Page Introduction 1 Chapter One: The New Hampshire Loyalists: Questions and Sources 18 Chapter Two: Demonstrating Loyalty: Loyalist Acts as Profession of Personal Identity 5 8 Chapter Three: The Rebel Response: Physical Repercussions to Self-proclaimed Loyalists 100 Chapter Four: Civiliter Mortuos: The Imposition of Identity Through Law 135 Chapter Five: Who Will Rule at Home: Identity and the Battle for Cultural Supremacy 195 Chapter Six: Zealous Sufferers, Identity and the Formation of the Loyalist Community 242 Conclusion 284 Bibliography 292 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A bstract Friend of Government or Da m n e d T ory: T he Creation of the Loyalist identity in Revolutionary N ew Ham pshire , 1774-1784. BY J.L. Walsh UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE September 1996 The dissertation examines the creation of loyalist identity during the American Revolution. Two distinct identities were fashioned, one by the loyalists themselves and a second competing identity which was created for them by their opponents, the radical faction of the revolutionary movement. Both identities were created consciously and for political or economic motives. The identity created by the loyalists through their actions and words is to be found in a close reading of the claims filed with the Claims Commission created by Parliament in 1783. The dissertation argues that loyalists self-fashioned an individual political identity, as part of the creation of a self-conscious minority seeking redress from the British government for the losses they suffered during the war, and as individual participants in an ideational community formed by the trauma of a generation at war. The self-fashioned identity found its expression in the memorials presented to the Claims Commission and in the public and private writings of various participants. Simultaneously, the rebel leaders, writers, and ideologues created another identity for their enemies. Through legal fictions such as bills of attainder and confiscation, through pamphlets, and through vii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. newspapers, rebel leaders and writers created an identity for the loyalists as traitors, bloodthirsty acolytes of a demonized British King, and enemies of the country of their nativity. The content of the claims are supported and supplemented by petitions, trial transcripts, newspaper accounts, and pertinent official documents of the "rebel" government. The dissertation enters into the ongoing discussion concerning the communal history of self-conscious minorities, as well as an exploration of political identity. The work also analyzes the revolution in New Hampshire in terms of a culture war, a discursive battle between two ideologically opposed groups, each striving to convince the populace in general of the desirability of embracing its vision of the way society ought to be. This study also adds to the growing number of works which concentrate on the loyalist experience at the provincial level. viii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 Introduction Because human beings are bound together by sympathy, the reflection in the glass is necessarily not of one person only. The common, the shared and the general is to be found in the particular, if that particular is truthfully described, and with imagination. To discover such a common