Inventing the Loyalists

by Knowles, Norman

• ISBN13: 9780802009500
• ISBN10: 0802009506
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Toronto Pr

Summary

The Loyalists have often been credited with planting a coherent and unified tradition that has been passed on virtually unchanged to subsequent generations and that continues to define Ontario's political culture. Challenging past scholarship, Norman Knowles argues that there never has been consensus on the defining characteristics of the Loyalist tradition. He suggests that, in fact, the very concept of tradition has constantly been subject to appropriation by various constituencies who wish to legitimize their point of view and their claim to status by creating a usable past. The picture of the Loyalist tradition that emerges from this study is not of an inherited artefact but of a contested and dynamic phenomenon that has undergone continuous change. Inventing the Loyaliststraces the evolution of the Loyalist tradition from the Loyalists' arrival in Upper Canada in 1784 until the present. It explores how the Loyalist tradition was produced, established, and maintained, delineates the roles particular social groups and localities played in constructing differing versions of the Loyalist past, and examines the reception of these efforts by the larger community. Rejecting both consensual and hegemonic models, Knowles presents a pluralistic understanding of the invention of tradition as a complex process of social and cultural negotiation by which different groups, interests, and generations compete with each other over the content, meaning, and uses of the past. He demonstrates that in Ontario, many groups, including filiopietistic descendants, political propagandists, status-conscious professionals, reform-minded women, and Native peoples, invested in the creation of the Loyalist tradition. By exploring the ways in which the Loyalist past was, and still is, being negotiated, Inventing the Loyalistsrevises our understanding of the Loyalist tradition and provides insight into the politics of commemoration.

Author Biography

NORMAN KNOWLES teaches in the Department of History at the University of Calgary, and has written for Canadian Ethnic Studies and Ontario History, among other journals.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	ix
Introduction	3	(11)
1 `Chiefly landholders, farmers, and others': The Loyalist Reality	14	(12)
2 `An ancestry of which any people might be proud': Official History, the Vernacular Past, and the Shaping of the Loyalist Tradition at Mid-Century	26	(22)
3 `Loyalism is not dead in Adolphustown': Community Factionalism and the Adolphustown Loyalist Centennial Celebrations of 1884	48	(19)
4 `A sacred trust': The 1884 Toronto, Niagara, and Six Nations Loyalist Centennial Celebrations and the Politics of Commemoration	67	(24)
5 `Fairy tales in the guise of history': The Loyalists in Ontario Publications, 1884-1918	91	(24)
6 `Object lessons': Loyalist Monuments and the Creation of Usable Pasts	115	(24)
7 `A further and more enduring mark of honour': The Middle Class and the United Empire Loyalist Association of Ontario, 1896-1914	139	(24)
Conclusion	163	(12)
APPENDICES	175	(8)
I The Adolphustown Loyalist Centennial Committee, 1884	175	(1)
II The Committee of Management of the 1884 Toronto Loyalist Centennial Celebrations	176	(2)
III General Membership, United Empire Loyalist Association of Ontario, 1896-1913: Sex, Religious Affiliation, Political Affiliation, Occupation	178	(2)
IV Officers, United Empire Loyalist Association of Ontario, 1896-1913: Sex, Religious Affiliation, Political Affiliation, Occupation	180	(2)
V Membership: United Empire Loyalist Association of Ontario, 1896-1916	182	(1)
NOTES	183	(30)
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY	213	(22)
PICTURE CREDITS	235	(2)
INDEX	237