Ideas

Illustration by Paul Spella. Source: Paul Popper / Popperfoto / Getty.

The Black Loyalists

Thousands of African Americans fought for the British—then fled the United States to avoid a return to enslavement.

Photograph by Rythum Vinoben for The Atlantic. Document courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library.

The American Experiment

At 250, the Revolution’s goals remain noble and indispensable.

Illustration by Lola Dupre. Source: Piemags / Alamy.

The Myth of Mad King George

He was denounced by rebel propagandists as a tyrant and remembered by Americans as a reactionary dolt. Who was he really?