In many respects the American Revolution was a civil war pitting Americans loyal to the Crown against other Americans loyal to the vision of a new nation they sought to create. Neighbor fought against neighbor, brother against brother, father against son. One of the epicenters of this desperate struggle was New York’s Hudson Valley.
Suffering for the Crown: The Hudson Valley Loyalists and the Violence of Revolution (University of Virginia Press, 2026) by Kieran J. O’Keefe details the extreme violence, persecution, and displacement experienced by white, Black, and Native American Loyalists during the Revolution.
O’Keefe offers an in-depth, long-term look at what many scholars consider the most fiercely contested region of the entire conflict, analyzing the effects of violence on Loyalist communities in great detail.
He reveals the brutal reality of the war and examines its enduring psychological and social legacies, providing readers with a nuanced understanding of the Revolution’s human cost.
Caught up in this crucible, O’Keefe shows suffering became central to how Loyalists came to define themselves and their ordeal, as the dark side of the nation’s birth fundamentally and permanently reshaped American civil society.
Kieran J. O’Keefe is an Assistant Professor of History at Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas. He completed his Ph.D. at The George Washington University, his M.A. at the University of Vermont, and his B.A. at Mount Saint Mary College.
This is O’Keefe’s first book; you can read some of his earlier work at New York Almanack here.
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