The American Loyalists in the Bahama Islands: Who They Were

The American loyalists who moved to the Bahama Islands at the close of the American Revolution were from many places and many walks of life so that classification of them is not easy. Still, some patterns do emerge and suggest a prototype with the following characteristics: a man, either first or second generation from Scotland or England, Presbyterian or Anglican, well-educated, and “bred to accounting.” He was living in the South at the time of the American Revolution, either as a merchant, the employee of a merchant, or as a slave-owning planter. When the war came he served in one of the volunteer provincial armies of the British, usually as an officer. During the war, when the Patriots proscribed him and confiscated his property, he moved to East Florida and then found he had to make a second move as Florida was returned to Spain in 1783