The Loyalist

MacGregors

of  Western

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotian mythology created a Loyalist persona. 

He is a white British (Scottish/English) Anglican, Tory merchant or office-holder from a good New England family.  His virtue was untarnished  by the levelling principles of American republicanism.  During the American Revolutionary War, he suffered grievously and sacrificed all for Britain's Constitution and Empire.

To his new home, he brought a sense of purpose out of which was eventually born a new country - Canada.  In truth, the 20,000 or so Loyalists who came to Nova Scotia in the wake of the American Revolution were surprisingly diverse.   The war had caused elemental divisions within the Thirteen Colonies.  It had split families and communities.  Loyalists crossed lines of gender, ethnicity, religion, and class so that the composition of either side was broadly representative of colonial society.

The Loyalists hoped for much better in Nova Scotia.  Initially, the security that British rule could offer must have given comfort.   Gone was the threat to person and property - a threat not much reduced by the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783.  But security was little recompense for their privations.