Property Rights, Citizenship, Corruption, and Inequality: Confiscating Loyalist Estates during the American Revolution

In Maryland, fierce debate attended the decision to confiscate loyalist lands, but the state eventually embraced confiscation, seizing significantly more loyalist land than neighbors who had access to lands in the trans-Appalachian west. State senators who initially objected to property confiscations found themselves forced by necessity to adopt a revolutionary view of subjecthood, in which loyalists who abandoned the state voluntarily abrogated their citizenship. While some irregularity surrounded Maryland’s confiscations, this paled in comparison to the corruption that attended confiscation in neighboring states like Pennsylvania and New Jersey. However, as in other confiscations, the state’s political and military officers came to dominate purchases of loyalist land, demonstrating the influence of the wealthy over Maryland’s political process.