When the Revolutionary War broke out in the 1770s, it was not an
instantaneous event where suddenly all the colonists took up arms. As I noted
in (*1), the resentment against the actions of the British because of things
like the Stamp Act and the Intolerable Acts had been growing for several years.
Nonetheless, the forming of a colonial army in 1775 and the signing and
publication of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 required people to take
sides.
But this was not a trivial decision to make. There were many benefits
to being a member of the British empire. As noted in (*2), “It’s not an easy
decision. Not only will your way of life be drastically affected, but whomever
you choose to side with will make you instant enemies.”
The population of the colonies at this time was about 2.5 million, with
about .5 million being black slaves, primarily located in the southern colonies
although there were some in the northern colonies as well. According to (*3),
about 15-20% of the white colonists, or 300,000-400,000 were loyalists. There were
some black loyalists as well, as one of the tactics of the British was to offer
freedom to some of the slaves on the condition that they fight on the side of
the British (*4). With these rather significant numbers, I wondered if there
were loyalists in my family tree.
Since I have no roots in the southern colonies, nor to my knowledge did
any of my ancestors have any slaves, I have none in that classification, despite
the individual in (*4) having a last name that is similar to my mother’s
Pierpont ancestors.
Nearly all of my ancestors on my mother’s side were in Connecticut at
the time, having been there for over 100 years already. Since they had all come
to America during the Great Migration of the 1620-1640 period and were
primarily of Puritan background, they also had their roots in being in
opposition to oppression by the British, so they overwhelmingly were on the
side of the American patriots. In fact, not only were some of the leading
opponents related to my family, as noted in (*1), but one relative, William
Leete, an early governor of Connecticut had shown his opposition as early as
the 1660s (*5). I have been unable to find any loyalists among those ancestors,
although it’s possible that there were some who opposed taking it to the level
of armed resistance during the early stages of the war.
My Russell ancestors had only come to this country a generation earlier
in 1750 in the Hudson River valley. As I blogged earlier, my great*5
grandfather, John Russell, was a member of the NY militia and served during the
Revolutionary War. So there were no British sympathizers there either. But I
still needed to check my wife’s ancestry.
My wife’s mother has two primary lines of ancestry in her lineage. My
wife’s maternal grandmother is descended from German immigrants from the 1860s,
so they were not in America at the time of the Revolutionary War. And my wife’s
maternal grandfather is descended from the same group of individuals in CT and
MA as I am (which is why my wife and I are distant cousins - *6) so they were
similarly on the side of the Patriots.
But my wife’s father’s ancestors are a different story. As I have
documented before (*7), the VanDeCar family were originally Dutch settlers in
New Holland in the 1630s. So they did not necessarily have the same attitude
toward the British as did the Puritans. And their feelings would have also have
been influenced by the takeover of New Holland by the British in the early
1660s. So, what side would they choose?
It appears that most of them chose to side with the patriots. The list
of individuals serving in the NY militia includes no fewer than eight men in the
Albany militia with the Van Der Kar/Vandekar last name (*8). However, there was
one individual, Ruloffe Van De Karr (with many alternate spellings), my wife’s
great*5 grandfather, who decided to fight on the side of the British.
Ruloffe was a member of Jessup’s Raiders, a group operating in New York
that had loyalty to the British (*9). However, when the war ended a few years
later and the British were not the victors, these individuals all migrated to
Canada which was still part of the British empire. The British made partial
reparations to these men for the land, etc. which they had lost. Roloffe was
awarded 360 pounds, 16.3 shillings for his loyalty. The VanDeCar family
remained in Canada until around 1840, when they returned to the US, not to New
York where their patriot relatives still lived, but to frontier of the newly
formed state of Michigan.
It’s easy to look back at history and make decisions in retrospect. But
while history is being made, it’s not always as easy. Those who chose to remain
loyal to the British probably thought that they were making the right decision
at the time. But when things did not go as they thought, it proved very
disruptive to their lives. My wife’s ancestors being in Michigan is a direct
result of one of those types of decisions.
Notes:
Some interesting stories on Grandpa Joe's side of the family.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nps.gov/mima/hartwell-tavern.htm