William Tryon

1729–1788

William Tryon was a British soldier and colonial governor who served in North Carolina and New York. In North Carolina he confronted the Regulator movement and defeated it at Alamance in 1771; during the American Revolution he supported Loyalist operations and conducted destructive coastal raids. His career illustrates the increasingly coercive response of imperial government to colonial resistance.

Tryon appears in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, particularly in novels dealing with the Regulators and the approach of the American Revolution such as The Fiery Cross. Through his dealings with settlers and militia leaders, the fiction places him at the centre of the growing conflict between colonial administration and backcountry communities.

Historical context

Historical periods linked to William Tryon

American Revolutionary Era 1763–1783 CE

Series

Series featuring William Tryon (1 series)

Outlander in Order

by Diana Gabaldon 9 books 4.6

The Outlander series follows twentieth-century physician Claire Randall after she travels through time to eighteenth-century Scotland and forms a life with Highlander Jamie Fraser. The novels move through the Jacobite rising, its aftermath, the Caribbean, colonial North America and the American Revolution, combining family saga, historical adventure, romance…

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