“Without the smallest recompense”: Scottish loyalist women in revolutionary North Carolina

Abstract

Loyalism has a long history in the British Atlantic world, running much deeper than the years comprising the American Revolution. These stories, however, have often been pushed to the margins of our understanding of the era. In North Carolina, categorising colonial residents into the binaries of “rebel” or “loyalist” is problematic. This is further complicated by the introduction of gender as a factor, given the lack of access to and engagement with the public sphere that women experienced. While greater attention is being given to women in the Revolution, southern women’s stories are often marginalised in favour of the “hotbeds” of revolution, like Boston, Philadelphia, or New York. By studying Scottish women loyalists in early North Carolina, Sherman argues, we may come to understand better the influence of gender, ethnicity, and region on the experiences of those in Revolutionary America.