If I must be enslaved let it be by a King at least, and not by a parcel of upstart lawless Committeemen. If I must be devoured, let me be devoured by the jaws of a lion, and not gnawed to death by rats and vermin.

PASSIONS ran high and deadly in the American revolt against British rule in the war of 1774-1783, as the Rev. Samuel Seabury wrote at the time. Those who became nationalists were called "patriots", a term that still resonates in American society. The others were labelled treasonous or "loyalists" and for their refusal to join the rebels, a few lost their lives, and many had their lands confiscated.

Nowadays, such appropriation of property might be considered illegal, as witnessed by the return to owning families of properties seized by Communist regimes in Eastern Europe. The most recent example of such behaviour in the US was the confiscation of Japanese-American properties in the 1941-45 war, though few such persons claimed themselves as loyalists to the Japanese imperial agenda.

Many Loyalists in what became the United States of America remained in the country and prospered. Reverend Seabury was one and he became the first Episcopalian bishop of the new nation. Many went north at the end of the war, including some 4,000 blacks who were given lands in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Some 1,500 of these departed a few years later for the new British colony of Sierra Leone, where they eventually formed a part of the ruling elite. Birchtown, Nova Scotia, with 2,500 people became the largest community of free blacks outside Africa. Thousands of Iroquois and other native people ended up in Canada as well. It is said that modern Canada was formed by the influx of those Loyalists.

Some 75,000 blacks were taken to the West Indies as slaves, where conditions were worse than on continental lands. For these benighted people and their owners, the grass generally proved to be less than green on the other side of the continental divide created by the American Revolution.

In some places, such as the Turks and Caicos Islands, it proved to be an arid experience, where brown grass and failed hopes replaced the wealth of the American landscape. A number of the displaced Loyalists in those islands later sent members of their families to Bermuda, where some yet prosper.

Of freemen who left the "Thirteen Colonies", Canada received about 46,000, England around 7,000, and some 17,000 went to the Caribbean. Many of the last were Southern Loyalists and they were granted lands in the British West Indies islands and the Bahamas. Geographically and geologically, the Turks and Caicos Islands are a part of the Bahamas, but for a considerable political period Bermudian merchants and settlers controlled them.

Bermuda's association with the Turks and Caicos goes back to the late 1600s because of the natural salt ponds found on Salt Cay and Grand Turk. Later on, salt production was established in the Caicos Islands nearby and their output was eventually the largest. The salt industry outlasted the sugar, cotton and sisal industries, but did not long survive nationalisation in the 1950s.

The Harriott family of Bermuda and Salt Cay were the last private producers. There are now discussions about reviving the industry, with the present interest in organic foods, such as sea salt. A visit to the islands was made possible some years ago by a travel grant from the predecessor of the Bank of Bermuda Foundation.

One of the major loyalists from East Florida who relocated to North Caicos was Wade Stubbs, who established a plantation at Wades Green, near the village of Kew. A justice of the peace, Stubbs was granted 960 acres, upon which he built his great house and plantation buildings.

The fate of his buildings and most others followed a trend described for the Greenwich plantation by H. E. Sadler in his Turks Island Landfall, a history of the islands. Lt. Col. Stephen Delancy, formerly of the New York Royalist Regiment, owned Greenwich.

"His estate was described as an elegant establishment with a fine stone great house. His possessions included a new cotton gin, 18 slaves and several plantation boats. Today, the property is grown over with scrub bushes and cactus plants."

The Loyalists in the Caicos Islands and the Bahamas turned to the production of "Sea Island Cotton" (Gossypium barbadense), the best variety in the world and endemic to Barbados. It takes its common name from its cultivation on the Sea Islands, off the coast of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, known as well for their Gullah culture and language.

IN a few short years after the end of the war, production in the Bahamas chain, including Turks and Caicos, grew to more than a million pounds per year. Then in 1789, the Boll Weevil attacked and the new enterprises failed utterly. A visitor in 1803 to abandoned plantations observed that while "Nature in these islands spontaneously brings forth many vegetables both curious and beautiful, she has hitherto refused to resign herself to continued cultivation".

The Great House at Wades Green sits on a hill with fine vistas, an elegant ruin surrounded and invaded by bush that has colonised the now arid land. It was a fine structure of stone with two storeys, with its roof hidden behind a continuous pediment.

Nearby, large iron kettles for boiling sugar cane juice are reminders of the White Gold trade, which also failed as the sparse soil of North Caicos was exhausted. Several stones lay about, one inscribed in mortar for a "W. Stubbs" and the other carved by a member of the Harriott family.

With these monuments and the Flamingo Pond and other natural attractions, North Caicos is a tourist place of considerable interest, a timeless reminder of the revolution that shook the established world of the later 18th century.

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. The views expressed here are his opinion, not necessarily those of the trustees or staff of the Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm, to PO Box MA 133, Sandys MABX, or by telephone 799-5480.