When the British evacuated New York in 1783, the American Revolution was over—but for the people of Long Island and Connecticut, the hardest decisions were only beginning.
In this episode of _Revolutionary Refugees_, we explore what “going home” meant after seven years of British occupation. Patriot refugees weighed a return to damaged farms, missing livestock, hostile neighbors, and years of property disputes under New York’s Trespass Act. Loyalists faced exile with the departing British or life under suspicion in the new United States. Enslaved people navigated the dangerous, uncertain possibilities of British evacuation, continued bondage, family separation, and the search for freedom. Indigenous communities faced renewed colonial settlement and pressure on their homelands as the war ended.
Through Long Island Sound, the Treaty of Paris, the British evacuation of New York, wartime property claims, and the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, this documentary asks a simple question with no simple answer: **after war transforms a place, can anyone truly go home?**
This episode examines:
– Long Island refugees in Connecticut after the American Revolution
– British evacuation of New York and Long Island, November 1783
– Patriot and Loyalist experiences after the war
– The Treaty of Paris and postwar property disputes
– New York’s Trespass Act and contested farms
– Black Loyalists, enslaved people, freedom, and forced separation
– Indigenous homelands and the expansion of post-Revolution settlement
– The history of Long Island Sound, Connecticut, and Revolutionary-era migration
Subscribe to **Northeast Cold Case** for story-driven videos on New England history, genealogy, Long Island, Connecticut, local archives, and the ordinary people caught in extraordinary events.
RESOURCES
The American Revolutionary War
https://www.emersonkent.com/wars_and_battles_in_history/american_war_of_independence.htm
Treaty of Paris
https://www.americanacorner.com/maps-american-revolution/treaty-of-paris-1783
Who were the Loyalists?
Native Land Digital
https://native-land.ca/
Lives of the Enslaved
https://enslaved.org/
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