Massachusetts had a significant Loyalist population: Crown officials, merchants with imperial ties, and those who simply believed it wrong to oppose the mother country. One of the most poignant stories involves Lucy Flucker, daughter of a prominent Loyalist family, who married the young Patriot bookseller-turned-soldier Henry Knox. When the British evacuated Boston on March 17, 1776, Lucy's parents and siblings boarded the ships and sailed away, never to see her again. Katherine Greene Amory fled with her husband John to London in May 1775, kept a diary of her years in exile, and died there in 1777. Massachusetts's Banishment Act of 1778 barred many Loyalists from returning to their homes and confiscated their property, a human cost of the Revolution often overlooked in patriotic celebrations.
Interviewees
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Sara Martin
- Editor in Chief, The Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society
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Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai
- Peter Drummey Chief Historian, Massachusetts Historical Society
