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For most people living in British North America, allegiances during the Revolutionary War were fluid, contingent, and often contradictory. As with violent revolutions that occurred in other times and places, women and men chose sides for a variety of personal and ideological reasons, and often changed their loyalties, sometimes multiple times, as circumstances shifted. Nowhere are the complex processes by which people established and changed allegiances more evident than in American port cities occupied by the British army. Reacting to the harsh conditions and new opportunities under military rule, men and women living in occupied towns developed distinctly flexible loyalties, frustrating British leaders who hoped to secure their adherence. Ultimately, these ambiguous allegiances undermined the varying concepts of loyalism that civilians and officers attempted to use as an organizing principle for restoring imperial rule.

In their everyday lives, people living under military rule made pragmatic, calculated decisions to ensure their survival, protect loved ones, and safeguard property. These choices could tacitly or openly support either side of the conflict without prejudice, and, as a result, the same individual could appear, to one side, a rebel while maintaining Loyalist status with the other side. Despite the fluidity of their loyalties, these men and women cannot be regarded as mere opportunists. Rather than a selfish expedient, keeping their loyalties ambiguous represented a deliberate and necessary strategy to survive the food shortages, cramped quarters, and often-dangerous circumstances of occupation. Like many people who made compromises under military rule in other historical circumstances, Americans living under occupation negotiated their loyalties in relation to changing, uncertain circumstances.

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