When you were in elementary school and you were learning about George Washington and the American Revolution, it all seemed like it was all gonna go really well. They were gonna win, obviously, and it was in no way obvious and it was super messy. There was a political mess. There was family mess, there was economic mess. It just gets to be so complicated so quickly.

In this episode of Revolution Revisited, host Maggie explores the perilous landscape of loyalty in revolutionary Virginia, a world where the choice between Crown and Colony could cost you everything. Through the voices of enslaved people seeking freedom behind British lines, Quakers standing firm in pacifism, and women navigating survival in the political crossfire, Maggie reveals that allegiance was rarely absolute. What emerges is a portrait of ordinary Virginians forced to choose between principle and preservation, and the quiet courage it took to survive a revolution that demanded sides.

Inside the Episode:

Inside this episode of Revolution Revisited, Maggie explores the gray zones of allegiance to show how “Patriot” and “Loyalist” identities were far more fluid than most history books suggest. She follows stories like Mary Willing Bird, accused of treason after British forces arrived at her doorstep and seized her property; Harry Washington, an enslaved man who sought freedom through the British lines; and Robert Pleasence, a Quaker whose pacifist convictions put him at odds with both sides. 

Alongside curators Andy Talkov and Christina Vita, Maggie unpacks how class, geography, race, and religion intertwined to shape what loyalty meant in a fractured world. Drawing from letters, court cases, and firsthand accounts, this episode asks what it truly means to stand by your beliefs when every choice carries consequences and whether neutrality was ever really possible during a revolution.

TIMESTAMPS:

• 00:00 Introduction to shifting allegiances
• 00:35 Why choosing a side was risky and uncertain
• 02:22 Introducing historians Andy Talkov and Christina Vita
• 03:03 The dangers of being a loyalist in Virginia
• 05:16 Patriot leadership and rising pressure in the mid-1770s
• 06:03 Dunmore’s Proclamation and the promise of freedom
• 06:37 Rethinking “Black Loyalists” and motivations for escape
• 07:24 Harry Washington and the search for liberty
• 10:58 The Book of Negroes and journeys to Nova Scotia
• 12:27 Merchants, economics, and the cost of allegiance
• 14:15 Hardin Burnley Jr.’s loyalism and confiscated property
• 15:05 John Wickham’s capture, house arrest, and shifting loyalties
• 16:41 Wickham’s escape, British enlistment, and postwar career
• 19:12 Punishments, retribution, and the limits of community trust
• 21:15 Shadrach Furman and violent reprisals
• 22:48 Mary Willing Byrd accused of trading with the enemy
• 24:59 Gender, suspicion, and navigating neutrality
• 25:59 Quaker pacifism and refusal to take sides
• 27:25 Robert Pleasance, abolition, and protecting his sons
• 28:40 Quaker exile, imprisonment, and moral conviction
• 30:02 Pleasance’s contradictions and the fight for manumission
• 31:28 Black Loyalists in Canada and fragile new beginnings
• 32:54 Virginia’s 1782 manumission law and its impact
• 34:20 Allegiance shaped by survival, circumstance, and identity
• 35:30 Understanding complexity beyond patriots vs. loyalists
• 37:00 Exhibition preview and continuing the story

RELATED CONTENT:

• Virginia Museum of History & Culture
• Revolution Revisited Podcast
• Finding Freedom
• Norfolk to Nova Scotia Judith Jackson's Crooked Road to Freedom
• Virginia Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery
• The Tory's Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America
• Benedict Arnold
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• Mary Willing Byrd