The Legacy of Loyalism and Resistance in the North Atlantic - A Panel Discussion

This is a hybrid event. The in-person reception will begin at 4:30 PM. Please visit here to register.

This panel examines the presence of loyalism in the North Atlantic following the American Revolution. Alexandra Mairs-Kessler’s work demonstrates how Bermuda, a colony whose population remained loyal to the Crown while simultaneously providing economic support to the rebellion, became home to loyalist refugees seeking to rebuild. Refugees William Browne and Bridger Goodrich highlight the tension between pragmatism and vengeance that was part of the loyalist diaspora. These two refugees from Massachusetts and Virginia took different paths during the war, and both their passive and active choices shaped their lasting attitudes regarding the post-war Atlantic World. This study explores how wartime experiences of violence and loss shaped the relationship between these two men and their new colonial home. Ross Nedervelt’s paper discusses how British officials and loyalists turned neighboring border-sea territories—specifically the Bahamas—into sites where imperial forces challenged the United States and its citizens’ sovereignty through resistance and subversive activities. Bahamian colonists, Seminoles, and Black maroons became strategic players in Britain’s counterrevolutionary operations during and immediately after the War of 1812, and an active threat to the United States’ westward expansion. The Bahamian, Seminole, and maroon groups’ armed resistance resulted in General Andrew Jackson and the U.S. army invading Spanish Florida, solidified the U.S.-British Empire border, and began the development of an American foreign policy intended to resist European interference in the western hemisphere.