The Maryland Loyalism Project presents the stories of the women and men of Maryland who remained loyal to the Crown during the American Revolution. It makes publicly available for the first time digitized and transcribed volumes of sources from a range of North American and United Kingdom archives. The project seeks to bring together records that illustrate the diversity of the Maryland Loyalist experience.

Learn more about Maryland Loyalists

A range of people hailing from different backgrounds and regions within the colony remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolution. They did so for many reasons, both opportunistic and ideological in nature. On this site you can learn about women and men like:

• Rebecca Williams, a woman who escaped enslavement in Maryland by joining the British fleet when it arrived on the Elk River in August 1777. In 1783 she boarded the ship Elizabeth in New York Harbor alongside another woman from her former plantation in order to begin a new life in Nova Scotia. Learn more about Williams here.
• Bennett Allen, an outspoken Anglican minister and slaveholder who fled to England in September 1775 after being called before the Fredericktown Committee of Correspondence. Allen continued his obstinate ways and killed Lloyd Dulaney, another Maryland Loyalist, in a duel in London in 1781. Learn more about Allen here.
• Robert Alexander, a member of the First Continental Congress and fierce defender of colonial rights during the Imperial Crisis of the 1760s and early 1770s. Alexander could not bring himself to support Independence and spent the final decades of his life exiled in London. Learn more about Alexander here.

Learn more about archival sources

The Maryland Loyalism Project functions as a digital archive bringing together collections in one place from different archives. The project is ever-evolving and new resources will be added when possible. Please see the Recent Updates page for news regarding added sources as they become available and other news. The current records on the site focus on the experiences of Loyalists who fled America during the war. Represented collections include:

• The Parliamentary Loyalist Claims Commission (LCC) records held at the National Archives, Kew. The records here are not a complete record of Marylanders in the LCC records. Rather, the sources on this site include the compiled “Evidence” volumes for the colony of Maryland. Learn more about the collection at the National Archives here.
• The Inspection Roll of Negroes, also known as the Book of Negroes, held in the National Archives, Kew and the National Archives, Washington, DC. All Marylanders identified within the Inspection Rolls are included in the Maryland Loyalist Project. Learn more about the Collection here.

Records on the site are organized by manuscript volume. Enjoy browsing the original manuscripts and transcriptions. for the too often overlooked experiences of women and men whose lives were turned upside down because of their loyalty to the British Crown.

Go to the Database

The Maryland Loyalism Project also has a companion biographical database. It provides the opportunity to search and explore biographical records for the thousands of women and men of Maryland who remained loyal to the Crown during the American Revolution. The database can accessed by links at the end of each Memorial, but can also be accessed directly here.

Interested in learning more about the image on the site homepage? Click here to learn more.