Thomas Brown (loyalist)

Thomas "Burnfoot" Brown (May 27, 1750 – August 3, 1825) was a British Loyalist, during the American Revolution. Intending to become a quiet colonial landowner, he lived, instead a turbulent and combative career. During the American Revolutionary War, he played a key role, for the Loyalist cause, in the Province of Georgia. Following, the overthrow of British rule and the Patriot victory in the Revolution, Brown was exiled first, to British East Florida and later, to St. Vincent's Island, in the Caribbean.

Thomas Brown was born in Whitby, Yorkshire, England on 27 May 1750 into a prosperous merchant family; his father Jonas owned a successful shipping company. In 1774, aged 25, Thomas recruited colonists from Whitby and the Orkney Islands, and emigrated with them to the Province of Georgia. He established the community of Brownsborough northeast of present-day Augusta and anticipated a life as a gentleman planter.

Brown's American venture did indeed prosper, but he soon found himself embroiled in the coming revolution. On 2 August 1775 a crowd of Sons of Liberty confronted him at his house. Brown requested the liberty to hold his own opinions, saying that he could "never enter into an Engagement to take up arms against the Country which gave him being", and finally met their demands with pistol and sword. Taken prisoner with a fractured skull, he was tied to a tree where he was roasted by fire, scalped, tarred, and feathered. This mistreatment resulted in the loss of two toes and lifelong headaches.

The enraged Brown assumed leadership of backcountry Georgia loyalists, and developed a plan to support Augusta area Tories with Indian allies from the West and a landing of British soldiers from the East. He helped bring the plan about by living with the Creeks in 1776 and 1777, gaining their confidence, and establishing a network spreading from Florida to the Carolinas. In 1779 he was appointed Superintendent of Creek and Cherokee Indians and continued his efforts to engage them in the conflict.

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