You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Hello and thank you for joining the American Revolution.

Today episode 93 the Dave Matthews Band breaks up.

As General Washington prepared for the expected British invasion of New York City in the summer

of 1776, the overwhelming force of British regulars was not his only worry.

New York was filled with Tories.

It may have been the most pro-British of the 13 colonies.

Even before the Continental Army moved to New York,

local Patriots had forced the Royal Government out of New York City,

operating under Isaac Sears, who was an active leader of the Sons of Liberty, Patriots

forced Royal Governor Trian to flee the city in 1775.

He could only rule over the colony from a British Navy ship in the harbor.

The New York Tories could not speak publicly about their views, but there were too many of

them to lock up or banish from the colony.

So, unlike Boston, where the relatively small numbers of Tories had been bottled up in the city,

along with the regulars, the Continental Army in New York found itself surrounded

and intermingling with thousands of people who remain loyal to the King.

Most Tories had left the city itself, but Staten Island and Long Island had plenty of them.

Now much of the Continental Army settled into the city.

For the Continental soldiers who were mostly small town New Englanders, New York City was a bit of a culture

shock.

The city had a pretty large red light district known as the Holy Ground. The name was derived from the fact that Trinity

Church own most of the real estate in the neighborhood, and of course the irony of the name

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