Every Independence Day we celebrate the founding of the world’s most powerful — and for some, inspirational — nation. Yet for several months after July 4, 1776, the self-proclaimed United States of America looked set to go down in history as a nation that never was. That August, in the biggest battle of the Revolution, the British trounced the Continental Army on Long Island, nearly forcing an American surrender.

As Washington’s beleaguered soldiers retreated through New Jersey, thousands of Americans loyal to King George III surged into New York City — where they would remain under British protection for the rest of the war. These loyalists had no desire “to dissolve the political bands” with Britain, as the Declaration of Independence demanded. Instead, as they explained in a petition to British authorities, they “steadily and uniformly opposed” this “most unnatural, unprovoked Rebellion, that ever disgraced the annals of Time.” While the rebels sought to sever the connection between Britain and the colonies, the loyalists “most ardently wish[ed] for a restoration of that union between them.” Where the rebels challenged the king, the loyalists staunchly upheld royal authority: they had “borne true Allegiance to His Majesty, and the most warm and affectionate attachment to his Person and Government.”

During three days in November 1776, this petition sat in Scott’s Tavern, on Wall Street, to be signed by anyone who wished. A frank declaration of dependence, it completely lacks the revolutionary genius and rhetorical grace of our hallowed July 4 document. Yet in all, more than 700 people put their names to the parchment — 12 times the number who signed the Declaration of Independence. Among the signatories were pillars of New York society: wealthy merchants like Hugh Wallace, who commanded vast tracts of land and capital; members of some of New York’s most prominent families, the DeLanceys, the Livingstons and the Philipses; and the clergymen Charles Inglis and Samuel Seabury, who published articulate rebuttals to rebel pamphlets like Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.” But most of the names belonged to the ordinary people who made New York run: tavern keepers and carpenters; farmers from the Hudson Valley or New Jersey; men like the baker James Orchard, who supplied bread for British troops; the Greenwich blacksmith James Stewart, who joined the British Army; and the hairdresser and perfumer James Deas.

Loyalists are the American Revolution’s guilty secret: rarely spoken of, hauntingly present. At least one in five Americans is believed to have remained loyal to Britain during the war. They expressed their opinions passively and actively: refusing to forswear allegiance to the king, signing petitions or joining loyalist military regiments — as nearly 20,000 men did — to defend their vision of British America. In retaliation, they faced harassment from their peers, most vividly (if rarely) by tarring and feathering. Some would suffer for their loyalty in open battle; others faced sanctions from state legislatures, which could strip them of their land and possessions, imprison them or formally banish them.