United Empire Loyalists (or simply Loyalists) is an honorific title which was first given by the 1st Lord Dorchester, the Governor of Quebec, and Governor General of the Canadas, to American Loyalists who resettled in British North America during or after the American Revolution. At the time, the demonym Canadian or Canadien was used to refer to the indigenous First Nations groups and the descendants of New France settlers inhabiting the Province of Quebec.
They settled primarily in Nova Scotia and the Province of Quebec. The influx of loyalist settlers resulted in the creation of several new colonies. In 1784, New Brunswick was partitioned from the Colony of Nova Scotia after significant loyalist resettlement around the Bay of Fundy. The influx of loyalist refugees also resulted in the Province of Quebec's division into Lower Canada (present-day Quebec), and Upper Canada (present-day Ontario) in 1791. The Crown gave them land grants of one lot. One lot consisted of per person to encourage their resettlement, as the Government wanted to develop the frontier of Upper Canada. This resettlement added many English speakers to the Canadian population. It was the beginning of new waves of immigration that established a predominantly Anglo-Canadian population in the future Canada both west and east of the modern Quebec border.
History
American Revolution
Following the end of the American Revolutionary War and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, both Loyalist soldiers and civilians were evacuated from New York City, most heading for Canada. Many Loyalists had already migrated to Canada, especially from New York and northern New England, where violence against them had increased during the war.
The Crown-allotted land in Canada was sometimes allotted according to which Loyalist regiment a man had fought in. This Loyalist resettlement was critical to the development of present-day Ontario, and some 10,000 refugees went to Quebec (including the Eastern Townships and modern-day Ontario). But Nova Scotia (including modern-day New Brunswick) received three times that number: about 35,000–40,000 Loyalist refugees.
An unknown but substantial number of individuals did not stay; they eventually returned to the United States. As some families split in their loyalties during the war years, many Loyalists in Canada continued to maintain close ties with relatives in the United States. They conducted commerce across the border with little regard to British trade laws. In the 1790s, the offer of land and low taxes, which were one-quarter those in America, for allegiance by Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe resulted in the arrival of 30,000 Americans often referred to as Late Loyalists. By the outbreak of the War of 1812, of the 110,000 inhabitants of Upper Canada, 20,000 were the initial Loyalists, 60,000 were later American immigrants and their descendants, and 30,000 were immigrants from the UK, their descendants or from the Old Province of Quebec. The later arrival of many of the inhabitants of Upper Canada suggests that land was the main reason for immigration.
Resettlement
The arrival of the Loyalists after the Revolutionary War led to the division of Canada into the provinces of Upper Canada (what is now southern Ontario) and Lower Canada (today's southern Quebec). They arrived and were largely settled in groups by ethnicity and religion. Many soldiers settled with others of the regiments they had served with. The settlers came from every social class and all thirteen colonies, unlike the depiction of them in the Sandham painting which suggests the arrivals were well-dressed upper-class immigrants.
Loyalists soon petitioned the government to be allowed to use the British legal system, which they were accustomed to in the American colonies, rather than the French system. Great Britain had maintained the French legal system and allowed freedom of religion after taking over the former French colony with the defeat of France in the Seven Years' War. With the creation of Upper and Lower Canada, most Loyalists in the west could live under British laws and institutions. The predominantly ethnic French population of Lower Canada, who were still French-speaking, could maintain their familiar French civil law and Catholic religion.
Realizing the importance of some type of recognition, on 9 November 1789, Lord Dorchester, the governor of Quebec and Governor General of British North America, declared "that it was his Wish to put the mark of Honour upon the Families who had adhered to the Unity of the Empire". As a result of Dorchester's statement, the printed militia rolls carried the notation: