Re: "Drakon" by S. M. Stirling

Robert Woodward wrote:

In article <v4qmh1$10mc5$1@dont-email.me>,
  William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
 

Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 6/17/2024 5:26 PM, William Hyde wrote:

Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 6/16/2024 11:48 AM, Robert Woodward wrote:

.

>
The single trigger event is when George Washington exiled the 120,000
Loyalists to South Africa instead of Canada after the USA
Revolutionary war.
>

 <Snip>
 

But the vast majority of loyalists stayed behind, and played a role in
the politics of the new nation.  The last laws against former
loyalists were repealed a few years after the war, though local
prejudice lasted much longer.
>
And Canada certainly did not receive 100k of loyalist immigrants.
>
 > I had no idea that this really happened in the late 1700s.
>
Not mentioned in high school history?
>
William Hyde

>
https://www.britannica.com/topic/loyalist
>

 <Snip>
 

>
But we didn't get 100k.  After all, if you are a loyalist from Georgia,
do you really want to grow turnips in Upper Canada, or sugar in Jamaica?
And if you're a urban type from NY, do you chose Montreal or London?
>
When I was a kid there were still people who added "UE" to their names
as descendants of the loyalists.  It's been a long while since I've seen
that, though.
>

 My paternal grandmother denied it, but my late father believed that she
had Loyalist ancestors because she had ancestors born in the regions of
Canada that had Loyalist settlements (IIRC, initially settled by
Loyalists).

The loyalists formed a larger percentage of the anglophone settlers in what would become Ontario than in the rest of the British colonies, though more on an absolute basis went elsewhere. So I would imagine that was the location she was referring to.
However, Ontario also received a number of "delayed loyalists", i.e. Americans attracted by free land, well after the war(1).  As these proved far from loyal to the British in the war of 1812(2), perhaps your grandmother had a point.
Of course, most Americans who have roots back to 1780 have some loyalist ancestors.
(1) Horace Greeley hadn't yet gotten around to telling young men which way to go.
(2) Alas, they got it from both sides.
William Hyde