Tomorrow is Evacuation Day. November 25, 1783 was the day American
patriots reclaimed New York City from the British troops and their loyalist
occupiers. General George Washington
marched his troops through the streets of Manhattan. He was astonished at what he saw.
The Americans stopped at
the Blue Bell Tavern, at what is now 181st St. and Broadway, once a hotbed of
patriotic sentiment, where the head of King George III’s statue was stuck on a post
in the first days of liberty. They marched through McGowan’s Pass, along what
is now Central Park’s East Drive at about 102nd St., then made their way down
the Bowery to Pearl St., and turning west on Wall St. — following much of the
same route along which they fled in a desperate retreat from British troops
seven years before.
The landscape about them
was unrecognizable, “the island . . . totally stripped of trees,” an astonished
Washington reported. Most of the villages of upper Manhattan had been burned
and looted. It was, one observer said, “one general scene of ravage and desolation.”
Those
who remained loyal to the crown sailed back to England or moved to Canada. Here is a picture of a statue in Hamilton,
Ontario lamenting the fate of British refugees.
This Monument is
Dedicated to the Lasting Memory of The United Empire Loyalists who, after the
Declaration of Independence, came into British America from the seceded
American Colonies and who, with faith and fortitude, and under great pioneering
difficulties, largely laid the foundations of this Canadian nation as an
integral part of the British Empire.
Neither confiscation of their property, the pitiless persecution of their kinsmen in revolt, nor the galling chains of imprisonment could break their spirits, or divorce them from a loyalty almost without parallel.
“No country ever had such founders — no country in the world — no, not since the days of Abraham.” — Lady Tennyson
I
can’t wait for the day when patriotic Americans once again liberate this
country from the current occupiers that infest this country.
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