United Empire Loyalists

United Empire Loyalists in Canadian history, name applied to those settlers who, loyal to the British cause in the American Revolution, migrated from the Thirteen Colonies to Canada. Some emigrated during the Revolution, but the greatest number left the colonies in 1783-84, after the Treaty of Paris had failed to make adequate provision for the Loyalists . Numbers estimated at up to 50,000 went to British North America—principally to Nova Scotia and Quebec. In Nova Scotia, so many settled north of the Bay of Fundy that this region was separated from Nova Scotia and organized as the province of New Brunswick in 1784. Others, flocking to the region north of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, were numerous enough to cause the creation (1791) of Upper Canada (Ontario).

Bibliography: See studies by W. S. Wallace (1914, repr. 1972) and A. G. Bradley (1932, repr. 1972).

United Empire Loyalists was the term coined by the governor of British North America, Lord Dorchester, in 1789 to designate those citizens of the thirteen colonies who remained loyal to Britain during the American Revolution and fled to what is now Canada or returned to England.

United Empire Loyalists was the term coined by the governor of British North America, Lord Dorchester, in 1789 to designate those citizens of the thirteen colonies who remained loyal to Britain during the American Revolution and fled to what is now Canada or returned to England. Some went to Nova Scotia, and in 1776 loyalists were transported to Halifax from Boston when the army withdrew, and again in 1783 with the fall of New York. Many settled in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Ontario, and a small number later returned to the USA.

Sandra M. Dunkin