LOYALISTS or TORIES, in America, the name given to the colonists who were loyal to Great Britain during the War of Inde pendence. In New England and the middle colonies loyalism had a religious as well as a political basis. It represented the Anglican as opposed to the Calvinistic influence. With scarcely an excep tion the Anglican ministers were ardent Loyalists, the writers and pamphleteers were the ministers and teachers of that faith, and virtually all the military or civil leaders were members of that Church. The Loyalists north of Maryland represented the old Tory traditions. In the southern colonies, where Anglicanism pre dominated, the division did not follow religious lines so closely. In Virginia and South Carolina the Whig leaders were almost without exception members of the established Church. Although many of the wealthy Anglican planters of the tide-water section fought for the mother country, the Tories derived their chief support from the non-Anglican Germans and Scots in the upper country. The natural leaders in these colonies were members of the same Church as the governor and vied with him in their zeal for the support of that Church. Since religion was not an issue, the disputes over questions purely political in character, such as taxation, distribution of land and appointment of officials, were all the more bitter. The settlers on the frontier were snubbed both socially and politically by the low-country aristocracy, and in North Carolina and South Carolina were denied courts of jus tice and any adequate representation in the colonial assembly. Naturally they refused to follow such leaders in a war in defence of principles in which they had no material interest. The failure of the British officers to realize that conditions in the south dif fered from those in the north, and the tendency on their part to treat all Dissenters as rebels, were partly responsible for the ulti mate loss of their southern campaign. The Scoto-Irish in the south were mostly in sympathy with the American cause.
Taking the 13 colonies as a whole, loyalism drew its strength largely from the following classes: (I) the official class—men holding positions in the civil, military and naval services, and their immediate families and social connections; (2) the professional classes—lawyers, physicians, teachers and ministers; (3) large landed proprietors and their tenants; (4) the wealthy commer cial classes in New York, Albany, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Charleston, whose business interests would be affected by war; (5) natural conservatives and numerous political trimmers and opportunists. Before 1776 the Loyalists may be divided into two
groups. There was a minority of extremists led by the Anglican ministers and teachers, who favoured an unquestioning obedience to all British legislation. The moderate majority disapproved of the mother country's unwise colonial policy and advocated op position to it through legally organized bodies. The aggressive attitude of Congress and the adoption of the Declaration of In dependence finally forced them into armed opposition. Very few really sanctioned the British policy as a whole, but all felt that it was their first duty to fight for the preservation of the empire and to leave constitutional questions for a later settlement. John Adams's estimate that one-third of all the people in the 13 States in 1776 were Loyalists was perhaps approximately correct. In New England the number was small, perhaps largest in Connecti cut and in the district which afterwards became the State of Ver mont. New York was the chief stronghold. The "De Lancey party" or the "Episcopalian party" included the majority of the wealthy farmers, merchants and bankers, and practically all com municants of the Anglican Church. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia contained large and influential Loyalist minorities ; North Carolina was about equally divided; South Carolina probably, and Georgia certainly, had Loyalist majorities. Some of the Loyalists joined the regular British army, others organized guerrilla bands and with their Indian allies inaugurated a reign of terror on the frontier from New York to Georgia. New York alone furnished about 23,500 Loyalist troops. This was more than any other colony supplied, perhaps more than all the others combined. Johnson's "Loyal Greens" and Butler's "Tory Rangers" served under Gen. St. Leger in the Burgoyne campaign of 1777,. and the latter took part in the Wyoming and Cherry Valley massacres of 1778. The strength of these Loyal ists in arms was weakened in New York by Gen. Sullivan's suc cess at Newtown (now Elmira) in 1779, and broken in the north west by George Rogers Clark's victories at Kaskaskia and Vin cennes in 1778 and '779, and in the south by the battles of King's Mountain and Cowpens in 1780.