Essay 2 revised

Araina Rowe
11/21/08
Essay 2
-----It is 1775, and the peak of the American Revolution. I am a small farmer living in the backcountry of South Carolina and I am attending a rally with other fellow loyalists speak out about the revolution, and why they choose to be loyalists. The backcountry of South Carolina is the western half of South Carolina, but I will refer to it as the backcountry. The backcountry is made up of mostly loyalists, and the rest of South Carolina, which is the eastern side, is made up of majority patriots. Sometimes, the factor of where a certain individual lives will play crucial role in whether they would want to take the loyalist side or the patriots’ side. In South Carolina, economy, political and social views of the people are the three factors that cause backcountry farmers like myself to side with Britain and become loyalists.

-----I was walking back to my house the other day after a long day of work tending to my farm, when I came across my neighbor, John Williams heading back from town. Although he is a small farmer like myself, he is still very interested in politics and the war going on. He began to talk about the east side of South Carolina and places such as the “coastal region north of Santee River [and how it has been] increase[ing] in population and prosperity”( Bull 572).Economy is one of the factors that has caused loyalists to side with the British. The eastern half of South Carolina is more economically developed then the back country of South Carolina. He described how most of the eastern side of South Carolina’s economy was thriving because of the wealthy patriots and their big plantations they owned with many slaves to do their work to help them prosper. “[I]n the backcountry of the southern colonies, and beyond the Appalachian Mountains in Indian Country” (Roark 232), it was a little different because people didn’t have the big plantations. In our South Carolina, the wealthier a person becomes, the more involved they become in politics, because they have money and social status, so people respect them right off the bat.

-----This is how economy ties into the social views of the people. Because the patriots had money and social status, “back country farmers in the Carolina’s tended to be loyalists out of resentment over the political and economic power of the lowland gentry, generally patriot persuasion” (Roark 232). A lot of my fellow loyalists such as my friend, John Williams, were jealous of the political and economic power the patriots had. I think that we are jealous because we want a say in government but were not sure how we would be represented if the only way to be represented would to become rich. “It’s not fair!” he protested, as he slammed his fist against the fence almost knocking me off balance. “The wealthy plantation owners don’t do any work while we are over here working as hard as we can just to get food on the table.”

-----Social class ties into political views because since a lot of patriots had a say in the government, if the British were to lose, then the small farmers wouldn’t be as represented in government as the patriots. The problem we both agreed on was the fact that patriots wanted independence. Having two different opposing political views in the state of South Carolina and having only one of them represented is not what us as loyalists want in America.

-----As a result, the British winning is what the American colonists need right now for guidance and support, because the British way of government has worked for hundreds of years and there is no reason why we need to change now. All my family and I wish is that “our Majesty may enjoy a long and prosperous reign, and that [his] descendants may govern [his] dominions with honor to themselves and happiness to their subjects, is our sincere and fervent prayer” (The Avalon Project, The Olive Petition). Our country was founded on the British and their principles and we should not abandon them now just because the patriots want to be selfish.

-----In final analysis, the problems in socialism were overall created by the prospering economy of South Carolina at the time. If the backcountry of South Carolina were to have a larger source of economy then there wouldn’t be the existing problem of the loyalists resenting the patriots. There wouldn’t be that big distinction between loyalists and patriots in the state of South Carolina. It would probably be either loyalists as the majority or patriots as the majority in the state, instead of the state being split in half between the two groups of people.


Citations
Bull, Henry D.. "A Note on James Stuart, Loyalist Clergyman in South Carolina." The
Journal of Southern History 12(1973): 402-426.

Roark, James L.. The American Promise. 4. Boston NY: Bedford/ St Martin's, 2009.

Continental Congress, "The Olive Petition." Avalon Project 2(1905): 158-172.

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