Date: February 19
Loyalists and Traitors in American Revolution
American history has traditionally considered loyalists as traitors and American patriots as heroes during American Revolutionary War. As the history had written, loyalists or “Tories” as their opponents called them, were traitors during American Revolutionary War. However, is it moral when American patriots called those people are traitors while they betrayed the people who first discovered America, which is the British? This essay will focus on connection between loyalist and traitor; the essay will first define the meaning of loyalist and traitor during American Revolutionary War and thereafter will compare a contrast with Joseph Brant and Benedict Arnold. …show more content…
Arnold was an American patriot, in 1765 he opposed the stamp Act. In 1770 Arnold was in the West Indies when the Boston Massacre occurred. “Good God” Arnold had exclaimed at the time of the Boston Massacre, “are the Americans all asleep and tamely giving up their liberties, or are they turned philosophers, that they don’t take immediate vengeance on such miscreants.” (Randall, 1990, p68) In accordance to this, it shows that Benedict Arnold was the one who stood up and strongly supported the rebellion. During the American Revolutionary War Arnold was a general, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and eventually Arnold defected to the British Army and entered the British Army as a brigadier general. Furthermore, after joining the growing army outside Boston, he considered himself through acts of cunning and bravery. Benedict Arnold was a brilliant military talent but he was so ambitious and greedy that willing to risk his life and the lives of others to get what he wanted. According to Howe for Benedict Arnold money is important than anything else in the world that he could betray his country for it, Howe wrote, “ Money is this man’s God, and to get enough of it he would sacrifice his country”, (Howe, 1998,p4-6). Following this further, in 1779 he opened secret negotiations with the British, he trading information for money, more than that Arnold plot to sell a West Point victory to the British. However, his plot was exposed when the American captured British Major Andre was carrying papers that revealed the plot. No doubt that Benedict Arnold is a greatest traitor in American history, he might be an American hero if he hadn’t cared so much about