Egerton Ryerson’s history of the American Loyalists tells the story of the tens of thousands of colonists who remained loyal to the British Crown during the Revolution, and who were ultimately expelled, dispossessed, or forced to flee — many of them settling in what would become Canada. Ryerson, himself a descendant of Loyalist refugees, writes with deep sympathy and scholarly rigor about this often-overlooked dimension of the founding era.
The book documents the political, social, and legal pressures placed on Loyalists during and after the war, offering a counter-narrative to triumphalist accounts of American independence. Download this free EPUB for a rich and nuanced perspective on the Revolutionary period.