The American Revolution did not end in 1783. For many American Loyalists and their descendants, the conflict continued in British courts well into the nineteenth century as they litigated disputes that arose as a consequence of the war.
At the annual conference of the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona College, SCOS team-member Jim Ambuske delivered a talk entitled "American Loyalists Before the Court of Session: Litigating the American Revolution in Scotland's Supreme Civil Court." Ambuske explored how exiled Americans and their heirs argued over property matters, government compensation claims, inheritance rights, and other issues as they struggled to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of American independence and the division of the British Empire in North America.
Ambuske argued that Session Papers and British court records in general offer us a unique way of understanding how the king's loyal American subjects experienced war and revolution, the persistence of transatlantic ties between Scotland and America in the post-war period, and the on-going legal woes that plagued subjects and citizens on both sides of the Atlantic long after the military conflict came to an end.
