When sizable numbers of those elites became Patriots and led the government, some Protestant religious minorities and recently settled farmers decided that they trusted a far-off king more than the local elites, who were more likely to enact policies for the benefit of easterners than those who lived in the west.
Neutrals had differing motivations. Religious beliefs certainly influenced many. Quakers, Mennonites, and other pacifists people opposed to all war were neutrals and had their patriotism questioned as a result. Although many ordinary Anglicans members of the Church of England, the official state church in several colonies became Patriots despite their religious beliefs, the vast majority of Anglican clergymen were Loyalists. Many Anglicans wanted to remain loyal to the monarch as the head of state and head of the Church of England.
This association of Anglicanism with Loyalism tarred the church for many years after the Revolution. Some Protestant minorities, especially Presbyterians, were slightly more likely to choose Loyalism than others. Some neutrals did not much care who governed them so long as the government largely left them alone; others simply did not want to be on the losing side. It was a great risk to stake out a position, and the truth is most humans usually try to take the safe course.
In places where the war stayed a distant concern, people found it easier to be neutral, or barring that, lukewarm in their support of either side. But where troops arrived on the doorstep, pressure grew rapidly to take a side and vigorously support it. In the port city of Boston, Patriots were motivated by political ideology, but also by economic concerns. In occupied New York City, artisans were under pressure to choose the Loyalist cause to keep working in the city.
Farmers in the backcountry South who had tried to stay out of politics found one side or the other plundering their food and horses—and promptly chose the other side. Can you tell whether each artist supported the Patriot or Loyalist cause? Historians have not found any connection between educational level, occupation, position in society, or economic status and the choice to be a Patriot or a Loyalist. Well-educated doctors, lawyers, and newspaper publishers all could be found on both sides.
Families were split by the Revolution. Benjamin Franklin, a newspaper publisher and Enlightenment scientist, became a Patriot. He had secured a royal post for his son William Franklin as governor of New Jersey, and William chose to be a Loyalist.
The two never spoke again. Enslaved Africans and African Americans usually chose to support the British cause. It might also unnerve otherwise-loyal colonists in the Caribbean colonies, who did not join the independence movement but depended on slavery to generate wealth.
Yet as the War for Independence wore on, and British and Loyalist troops swept through the South from on, slaves took the gamble. More than 20 percent of the enslaved population voted with their feet and ran to British lines in South Carolina and Georgia during the war to claim their freedom. Free blacks, on the other hand, lived lives similar to those of poor white colonists, and they often chose the Patriot side for similar reasons.
Crispus Attucks worked as a sailor and on the docks, and he joined fellow dockworkers on March 5, , to protest now-hated British policies. New England states offered male slaves freedom in return for their military service, although their owners had to agree to allow them to serve. The first were at the forefront of the fight for independence from Britain while the latter believed that the British rule was fair, just and necessary.
The opposition between the two factions built up for years, but patriots were much more numerous than loyalists were and, with the support of France and other parties, eventually succeeded in gaining independence.
However, in the context of the American independence war, patriots were those who believed that the thirteen colonies needed to obtain their independence from Great Britain. Not everyone was unhappy with the British rule and wanted to achieve independence. However, the loyalist support to the British monarchy was not quite as strong as the motherland believed.
Even while cries for independence and liberty were spreading across the thirteen colonies, loyalists continued to show their support to the British Empire — although they had to be more cautious once royal representatives were expelled from the country. Loyalists wanted to maintain the ties with the old continent for several reasons:.
Loyalists — also known as Royalists supporters of the monarchy and Tories conservatives — had small strongholds in all thirteen colonies, but fled to Canada and other British colonies once their cause was defeated. Patriots and loyalists represent the two main opposing factions that fought each other during the American independence war. However, while their ideas and views on the relation between Britain and the thirteen colonies were completely different, we can still identify few similarities between the two:.
The difference between the different parties in the 18 th century and the current dichotomy in the United States lies in the extent to which patriots and loyalists were willing to go to promote their ideas. Indeed, such comparison is not entirely accurate given the very different circumstances including political, economic and social balance , but shows how patriots and loyalists were, indeed, part of the same people. The key difference between patriots and loyalists is the fact that the first were striving for liberty and independence from British domination while the latter were happy with British rule and believed that a unified empire was a strong empire.
However, there are various underlying reasons and points of view that clarify the opposing perspectives adopted by patriots and loyalists. Patriots and Loyalists were the key players of the American independence war and the true figures that shaped the fate of the British Empire. Building on the differences analyzed in the previous section, we can identify few other factors that differentiate patriots from loyalists. Patriots strived for independence and liberty, and their claims were based on the idea of civic rights and representation.
Patriots were against the taxation system imposed on all colonies by Britain and claimed their representation within the British parliament. Conversely, loyalists believed in the strength of a unified empire and insisted that independence from Britain would have led to great economic losses and military insecurity. In the aftermath of the war, the defeated loyalists fled to other countries mainly Canada, Nova Scotia or England. Few remained in America, but became very cautions and silent about their ideas and views of the relations between the colonies and Great Britain.
Difference Between Patriots and Loyalists. Difference Between Similar Terms and Objects. MLA 8 Squadrin, Giulia. Britsh troops in Boston: British troops enforced Townshend duties including more taxes on paint, paper, tea etc.
Also, several Boston colonist radicals were shot dead by the British troops. Boston Tea Party: This was a direct action by patriots in the town of Boston to protest against the new tax on tea. British intimidations in Massachusettes: The coercive acts passed by the British parliament for colonists along with the act of closing Boston and stripping Massachusetts of its historic right of self-government and putting it under army rule caused an immediate uprising against British rule.
Establishment of the Committee of Correspondents: American patriots from the colonies met together and established a committee to oppose British policies. This marks an important point in the mutual unity and the development of national identity among the American colonists. Consequently, on April 19, , the American revolutionary war or the American War of Independence broke out. With the aggravating tax systems and the oppressing British rule, the people of the 13 colonies had to decide whether they wanted to be ruled by the British rule or not.
The separation of them as two parties — Patriots and Loyalists — was the immediate response to it. The basic difference between a patriot and a loyalist is their view towards the British rule.
Figure 2: Patriots of the Continental Army. Furthermore, the rebellion of patriots was based on the social and political philosophy of republicanism.
Republicanism rejected the ideas of a monarchy and aristocracy — essentially, inherited power. Hence, they rebelled against the British rule and advocated ideologies of liberty and unalienable individual rights as its core values.
Moreover, Whigs, Rebels, Colonials and Sons of Liberty are some other names for patriots, and most of them lived especially in places such as Boston. Furthermore, they were well organized under the rule of George Washington. Moreover, the national capital moved from New York to Philadelphia in and finally settled in Washington DC in
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