Fate of Empire Loyalists 1776–92

After the declaration of independence in 1776, the 15–20 per cent of the population who had been loyal to the British Crown were left unprotected. There continued to be bloodshed, with gangs of revolutionaries attacking gangs of loyalists, particularly in the South. As the British pulled out of the United States thousands of loyalists joined the retreating army and returned to Britain and other parts of the British Empire. Between 1776–83 tens of thousands of loyalists migrated to Canada, mostly settling in Nova Scotia and its provinces. In 1792 many of the black loyalists who had settled in Nova Scotia, frustrated by receiving less land and provisions and being paid lower wages than their white counterparts, emigrated to Settler Town (Freetown), Sierra Leone.