1775-86: Continental Revolution

The American Revolutionary War

1779 began a new strategy for the British: settling a new colony in Penobscot Bay, Maine for Loyalists, called New Ireland. This would also make Skrælige less isolated from the remaining British territory - at this point, British control to the south was limited to New York City (after recapturing it in July 1776) and coastal Georgia around Savannah (after its capture in December 1778), so a colony between Skrælige and Nova Scotia would strengthen supply lines. So on the 30th of May, eight British navy ships set sail from Halifax with 640 troops. They captured the village of Castine and erected Fort George up the hill. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts launched an expedition to retake the area, and laid siege to Fort George for 21 days. Despite outnumbering the British, the Massachusetts forces had to retreat upon the arrival of reinforcements, and then burn their ships when they were blocked in Penobscot Bay. After such a significant victory, the colony would not be invaded again for the remainder of the war.

The war effectively came to and end in October 1781 with the British army surrender at Yorktown, Virginia. The rescue fleet sent for the British, who were already in retreat, were intercepted by a larger French fleet. Without a way out, the army was forced to surrender. New York City, Charleston, and Savannah were still occupied by the British, as well as New Ireland and Skrælige, but the British made no further attempts to invade.

The Immediate Aftermath

The first initial impact of the loss in the Revolutionary War was migration. Tens of thousands of Loyalists fled the 13 newly independent states, including about 35,000 to Nova Scotia (which effectively included Skrælige by this point), 2,000 to Prince Edward Island, and 10,000 to Quebec (which also included modern day Ontario). Smaller numbers fled further, bound for Britain itself or the British West Indies.

Of the 35,000 the fled to Nova Scotia, 4,000 moved to the islands of Skrælige. Of these, around half accepted land grants in the upper Siguan River Valley in the towns of Egilstead and Bradstreet. There was some conflict with the new Loyalist immigrants, as a substantial proportion of the citizens outside of the lower Siguan River Valley were colonists from New England. However, given the vast numbers of new immigrants, the New Englanders were forced to either leave or accept the new citizens. The population of the lower valley was more mixed between Skræligen-speakers, English-speakers, and others, and the impact of new immigration was less significant. The earlier Þorormur Plan in Skrælingborough and the Havant Grid plan made housing the immigrants a much more straight-forward process.

Another significant demographic to move to Skrælige were black people, both free and enslaved. Prior to 1780, there were approximately 150-200 black people on the islands, most of whom (but not all) were slaves. In the following decade this population more than doubled due to two factors: Black Loyalists, and the slaves of White Loyalists. The British crown had promised freedom to slaves who could escape and serve the Loyalists, starting with Dunmore's Proclamation in November 1775 in Virginia. This was expanded by the Philipsburg Proclamation on the 30th of June, 1779, to free escaped slaves (from Patriots) in all of the colonies. Thousands of slaves escaped, so many that some slaves were ordered to return to their masters. The British did not regularly keep their promise to free escaped slaves, sometimes selling them back into slavery, but did ultimately facilitate the emigration of several thousand. This included around 3000 who were evacuated from New York to Nova Scotia, of which 300 ended up in Skrælige.

The White Loyalists, however, brought some slaves of their own, roughly 80 of them. This meant that now free black people outnumbered slaves, which helped rejuvenate the abolition movement in Skrælige. The new Massachusetts constitution banned slavery*, but of course this only applied to the American-controlled portion of the province. The legal status of slavery in Skrælige was unclear - once it was merged into Nova Scotia (see below), there was no longer any legal backing for the practice. A combination of abolitionist movements and the diminishing economic benefits of slavery meant that the practice died out in the early 19th century, well before the formal abolition across the British Empire in 1834.

Census of 1786

At a broader scale, there were three large demographic groups: Old Skræligens, Yankees, and Loyalists. Old Skræligens formerly referred to people descended from the independent Skræligens before Danish rule (as well as assimilated Abenaki), but with time came to include descendants of other Scandinavian immigrants. Depending on the definition used, this was about 5-6,000 people in the 1786 census. Yankees referred to English immigrants during its time as part of Massachusetts Bay. They were the largest group, at around 8,000 in the 1786 census. Many of these immigrants were from New England, and settled outside of the Lower Siguan Valley. These were the strongest supporters of being part of the United States. Loyalists were the latest group, which started with a minority of English immigrants but grew massively in the aftermath of the Revolution. By 1786 they numbered over 4,000. They were strong supporters of the Crown & the larger Empire. In addition, some prominent minorities included Jews (who were mostly separate from the other groups, numbering around 200), "Unassimilated Abenaki" (Abenaki who accepted Skræligen rule, but otherwise stayed separate, numbering around 400), and Black Skræligens (~550 of them). Black Skræligens were in no way a monolith though - some were current or former slaves, both of Yankees and Loyalists. A large new group though were the Black Loyalists - former slaves throughout the United States who escaped and fought for the Loyalists in exchange for the promise of freedom.

Author's Notes

• For a more comprehensive look at the Black Loyalists, I recommend Episode 187 of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast.

• There are a couple of minor errors with the maps above concerning Prince Edward Island:

  • In the 1775-83 map, PEI is not labelled, despite it being a separate colony from Nova Scotia.

  • In the 1786 map, PEI is incorrectly labelled. The island and the corresponding colony was known as St. John's Island until 1799.

• The population charts above are linked to a spreadsheet, and I forgot to open up permissions until September 16th - sorry about that!