This page offers various resources for students, educators, genealogists, and scholars to access materials, print and digital, to further research and understanding of American Loyalists during the American Revolution. It is in active development by the Loyalist Institute. If there are resources that should be added, please contact Heath Bowen (hbowen@stac.edu) or Christopher F. Minty (cfm6b@virginia.edu).
The Philipse Family of New York
One of the Most Affluent and Influential Families of New York — Yet they Remain Forgotten.
The Philipse name and Frederick Philipse III are often not mentioned among the other prominent colonial families and men that have become immortalized and Loyalist British officials, such as Arnold, Andre, or Hutchison. Frederick Philipse III is forgotten by the general public.
View the Philipse Family StoryMap
Long Islanders’ Allegiances during the American Revolution
This StoryMap explores the 1778 oath of allegiance administered on Long Island during the American Revolutionary War. Drawing on thousands of archival records, it examines how British authorities—governing a region under prolonged occupation—used oaths to demand public loyalty, regulate civilian behavior, and stabilize imperial rule.
By mapping where oaths were tendered and analyzing who took them, this project reveals a Revolutionary experience shaped by geography, labor, age, and circumstance. Farmers, artisans, elders, and teenagers all appear in the record, challenging simple distinctions between “Patriot” and “Loyalist.” Allegiance, as these documents show, was often provisional and strategic, forged under pressure rather than conviction.
The StoryMap places eighteenth-century landscapes directly alongside the modern one, inviting viewers to see how familiar places once functioned as sites of surveillance, coercion, and negotiation. In doing so, it restores Long Island to the center of the Revolutionary story—not as a peripheral space, but as a crucial case study in how wars are lived under occupation.
View the Long Islanders’-focused StoryMap
Archival Resources (not digitized)
Exemplification of the laws of New York relating to the powers of the Commissioners of Forfeitures, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, New York, NY
Digital Resources
Philip Schuyler Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, New York, NY (portions digitized)
William Smith Jr. Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, New York, NY
Published Primary Resources
Catherine S. Crary, The Price of Loyalty: Tory Writings from the Revolutionary Era (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973)
Historical Memoirs From 16 March 1763 to 25 July 1778 of William Smith, ed. William H. W. Sabine (New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, 1969)
Historical Memoirs of William Smith 1778-1783, ed. William H. W. Sabine (New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, 1971)
Secondary Resources
Greg Brooking, From Empire to Revolution: Sir James Wright and the Price of Loyalty in Georgia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2024)
Ruma Chopra, Unnatural Rebellion: Loyalists in New York City in the Revolution (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011)
Christopher F. Minty, Unfriendly to Liberty: Loyalist Networks and the Coming of the American Revolution in New York City (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2023); use code 09BCARD at checkout for 30% off
Philip Papas, That Ever Loyal Island: Staten Island and the American Revolution (New York: New York University Press, 2007)