
The thirteen colonies of British North America that eventually formed the United States of America can be loosely grouped into four regions: New England, the Middle Colonies, the Chesapeake, and the Lower South.
Why did British establish colonies in North America?
- Colonialism is commonly described as a practice of gaining economic and political control over another country.
- Vikings are considered to be the first Europeans that formed colonies in the Americas.
- The main reasons for the colonization of the Americas are political, economic, religious, and social.
What were the British colonies in North America?
The Thirteen Colonies were British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States. The colonies were: Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts Bay, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode ...
What are the 13 colonies in North America?
the Kingdom of Spain. Just before declaring independence, the Thirteen Colonies consisted of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
What are countries establishes colonies in North America?
Southern colonies
- Colony of Virginia, established in 1607 as a proprietary colony; chartered as a royal colony in 1624.
- Province of Maryland, established 1632 as a proprietary colony.
- Province of North Carolina, previously part of the Carolina province (see below) until 1712; chartered as a royal colony in 1729.

What are three British North American colonies?
The British North America Act received Royal Assent on 29th March 1867 and went into effect 1st July 1867. The Act united the three separate territories of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into a single dominion called Canada.
What type of colony were British North American colonies?
British colonies in North America included settlements in regions like New England and the Chesapeake Bay. Each colony was granted a type of charter, or contract, from the King of England, which allowed its people to remain in the area.
What were the 7 British colonies?
British North America. In 1860, British North America was made up of scattered colonies (Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Vancouver Island and British Columbia.
What are the 4 British colonies?
Origins of the British Empire By 1670 there were British American colonies in New England, Virginia, and Maryland and settlements in the Bermudas, Honduras, Antigua, Barbados, and Nova Scotia.
What was the first British colony in North America?
Jamestown, VirginiaIn 1607, 104 English men and boys arrived in North America to start a settlement. On May 13 they picked Jamestown, Virginia for their settlement, which was named after their King, James I. The settlement became the first permanent English settlement in North America.
Why did the British colonize North America?
The opportunity to make money was one of the primary motivators for the colonization of the New World. The Virginia Company of London established the Jamestown colony to make a profit for its investors. Europe's period of exploration and colonization was fueled largely by necessity.
Was USA a British colony?
The Thirteen British Colonies in North America were the first to break away from the monarchy through a successful revolution. These colonies were the beginning of the current nation United States of America.
Is Canada still a British colony?
The Constitution Act, 1982 patriated the British North America Act, 1867 to Canada , thus ending any Canadian dependence on the Parliament of Westminster and further defining its complete independence.
What are the 13 colonies in order?
They were Virginia, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. By 1750 nearly 2 million Europeans lived in the American colonies.
How many colonies did England have in North America?
13 coloniesIn the 1600s and 1700s, Europeans came to North America looking for religious freedom, economic opportunities, and political liberty. They created 13 colonies on the East Coast of the continent. Later, when the colonists won independence, these colonies became the 13 original states.
How many British colonies are there?
Prior to the American Revolution the 13 colonies were governed separately, these were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
How many countries did the British colonized?
Today, Queen Elizabeth is the former head of state for 16 Commonwealth countries outside the UK. These include Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Australia, Belize, Barbados, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu.
What type of colony were British North American colonies quizlet?
Royal Colony: These were the most common type of colony. They were essentially run by the King of England. Charter Colonies were run by joint-stock companies that were charted by the King.
When did the British colonize North America?
1607The first permanent British colony was established in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Approximately 30,000 Algonquian peoples lived in the region at the time. Over the next several centuries more colonies were established in North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.
How did the British colonize America?
Colonization efforts began in the late 16th century with failed attempts by England to establish permanent colonies in the North. The first permanent English colony was established in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.
What are the differences between the northern and Southern colonies?
Northern colonies were founded by pilgrims who wanted religious freedom, whereas southern colonies were founded to grant colonists opportunities for land ownership. Their differences in political, social, and economic issues shaped our country into what we are today.
What are the American colonies?
The American colonies were the British colonies that were established during the 17th and early 18th centuries in what is now a part of the eastern...
Who established the American colonies?
In 1606 King James I of England granted a charter to the Virginia Company of London to colonize the American coast anywhere between parallels 34° a...
What pushed the American colonies toward independence?
After the French and Indian War the British government determined that the colonies should help pay for the cost of the war and the postwar garriso...
When did the American colonies declare independence?
On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, “unanimously” by the votes of 12 colonies (with New York abstaining) res...
What was the British North America?
Over its duration, British North America comprised the British Empire 's colonial territories in North America from 1783 to 1907, not including the Caribbean. These territories include those forming modern-day Canada, as well as all or large parts of six Midwestern U.S. states ( Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the northeastern part of Minnesota ), which were formed out of the Northwest Territory, and large parts of Maine, which had originally been within the French territory of Acadia .
Where did the English colonize North America?
English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland, then further south at Roanoke and Jamestown, Virginia, and more substantially with the founding of the Thirteen Colonies along the Atlantic Coast of North America. The British Empire 's colonial territories in North America were greatly expanded in connection with ...
What are the 13 colonies?
the Thirteen Colonies (each one administered separately, soon to become the United States):#N#Connecticut Colony#N#Delaware Colony#N#Province of Georgia#N#Province of Maryland#N#Province of Massachusetts Bay#N#Province of New Hampshire#N#Province of New Jersey#N#Province of New York#N#Province of North Carolina#N#Province of Pennsylvania#N#Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations#N#Province of South Carolina#N#Colony of Virginia 1 Connecticut Colony 2 Delaware Colony 3 Province of Georgia 4 Province of Maryland 5 Province of Massachusetts Bay 6 Province of New Hampshire 7 Province of New Jersey 8 Province of New York 9 Province of North Carolina 10 Province of Pennsylvania 11 Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations 12 Province of South Carolina 13 Colony of Virginia
Where was the headquarters of the Newfoundland and Bermuda?
The headquarters was initially in Bermuda during the winter and Halifax during the summer, but Bermuda, became the year-round headquarters of the Station in 1821, when the area of command became the North America and Newfoundland Station.
What were the divisions in 1775?
Political divisions. British North America in 1775; the Thirteen Colonies are shown in red. In 1775, on the eve of the American Revolution, British America included territories in the Western Hemisphere northeast of New Spain, apart from the islands and claims of the British West Indies.
What was the name of the war between the British and the French?
The British Empire 's colonial territories in North America were greatly expanded in connection with the Treaty of Paris (1763), which formally concluded the Seven Years' War, referred to by the English colonies in North America as the French and Indian War, and by the French colonies as La Guerre de la Conquête.
What was the name of the colonial territories in North America before the Declaration of Independence?
The term British America was used to refer to the British Empire 's colonial territories in North America prior to the United States Declaration of Independence, most famously in the 1774 address of Thomas Jefferson to the First Continental Congress entitled: A Summary View of the Rights of British America.
What were the British colonies tied to?
By the mid-eighteenth century, the British North American colonies were well-established settlements, closely tied into Atlantic and Caribbean trading networks.
What was the theme of the American Revolution?
The American Revolution. Theme: The American revolution. The European countries of Spain, France and Britain all had important interests in North America, not least because these colonies promised future wealth and were strategically important to the sugar, tobacco and coffee islands of the Caribbean. By the mid-eighteenth century, the British ...
How many colonies did the British have?
The thirteen colonies of British North America that eventually formed the United States of America can be loosely grouped into four regions: New England, the Middle Colonies, the Chesapeake, and the Lower South. Each of these regions started differently, and they followed divergent paths of development over the course of more than a century of British settlement; yet they shared enough in common to join together against British rule in 1776.
What were the Lower South Colonies?
The Lower South colonies consisted of the Carolinas, first settled in 1670, and Georgia, not settled until 1733. Since the climate of the Carolinas was known to be conducive to plantation-style agriculture and many of the proprietors were also directors of the Royal African Company, slaves followed hard on the heels of the first white settlers. Finding large numbers of white settlers proved difficult, and the earliest migrants to Carolina were English and Scottish dissenters and a large group of Barbadian Anglicans who brought their slaves with them. The tidal waters around Charles-Town were ideally suited to rice cultivation, the techniques of which were most likely taught to planters by Africans, and large plantations growing the staple quickly became the norm. The numbers of workers required for rice cultivation were large, and as early as 1708 the coastal regions of Carolina had a black majority population.
What was the purpose of the colonists in Maryland?
In 1632 Maryland was created out of northern Virginia, and although the colonists shared with those farther south a desire to make money from tobacco, many were Catholic. The proprietor of Maryland, Lord Baltimore (Cecil Calvert, 1605?–1675), was a leading English Catholic and saw Maryland, like the Puritans saw New England and Penn saw Pennsylvania, as a religious refuge for those who shared his faith. Consequently, many of those in positions of authority and influence in Maryland were Catholic, something that caused friction among residents who were not Catholic. As a result, Lord Baltimore approved the passage of the Toleration Act of 1649, guaranteeing religious freedoms to the population.
Why did the Pilgrims and Puritans leave New England?
While religiously distinct from each other, the Pilgrims and Puritans had each left England because of religious persecution from conservative Anglicans, and each hoped to find a safe haven where they could worship without restrictions. The strictly moral societies founded in New England were intended to shine as beacons to the rest of the world, showing how life should be lived. The everyday lives of settlers revolved around religious worship and moral behavior, and while normal economic activities were understood to be necessary they were not intended to be the main focus of settlers' lives.
Why did the English settle in the Chesapeake Bay?
From the initial settlement at Jamestown the English spread very slowly around the tidewater of Chesapeake Bay, partly because of hostile local Native-American tribes, but also because the young men who constituted most of the settlers in Virginia before 1618 were not interested in forming stable communities. Instead, from 1612 onward they grew tobacco, which they knew would bring riches, but which also brought instability. The tobacco plant exhausted the soil and therefore virgin land was constantly needed to continue production. The quest for more land to bring under cultivation brought the English into further conflict with local tribes, and it was partly responsible for provoking the devastating Indian attacks of 1622 and 1644.
Why were the Middle Colonies called the Restoration Colonies?
The Middle Colonies of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were all "Restoration Colonies," so-called because they came under English control after the Restoration of Charles II (1630–1685). New York was conquered from the Dutch in 1664, and although many Dutch settlers remained, large numbers of English and Scottish migrants arrived to alter the ethnic makeup of the colony. Pennsylvania probably bore more resemblance to the New England colonies than the rest of the Middle Colonies because it was founded by Quaker William Penn (1644–1718) as a religious haven. However, in contrast to most New England colonies, Penn adopted a policy of religious toleration, and his colony quickly attracted migrants from all over western Europe, particularly from Germany. The climate of Pennsylvania made it ideal farming country, and corn became its main staple product.
Why did the trustees of Georgia want to colonize South Carolina?
The trustees of Georgia initially intended their colony to be both a buffer between South Carolina and Spanish Florida and a haven for persecuted European Protestants, and believing that slavery would not be conducive to either of these aims, they prohibited it in 1735. However, the colony languished economically, failing to keep settlers who could see the wealth on offer in neighboring South Carolina, and eventually the trustees were forced to back down and permit slavery from 1750. Georgia quickly became a plantation colony like South Carolina.
What Was A Characteristic Shared By All Of The English Colonial Governments?
There were several similarities between colonial governments and modern-day British colonial governments, which were governed by English common law, were run by the King of England, had three governmental branches, and were governed by a governor, a governor’s council, and an elected assembly.
Which Geographic Characteristics Did Most Of The English Colonies Share?
The English colonies in North America were all founded in the seventeenth century, and they share many geographic characteristics. Most of the colonies were located along the Atlantic coast, with easy access to the ocean for trade and transportation. The climate was moderate, and the land was fertile, making agriculture a viable option.
Defining Characteristics Of The Middle Colonies
The Middle Colonies were made up of the states of Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, and New Jersey. The middle region had a warmer climate, fertile soil, flat land, swift rivers, and wide valleys, making it ideal for growing crops and farming. Wealthy farmers concentrated on cash crops while raising livestock.
Similarities Between New England And Middle Colonies
In addition to trading with the Middle East, major items such as iron and furs flourished in the British colonies. Both the Middle and New England colonies used self-government as a means of government. For example, only male church members were allowed to vote in new England during these colonial governments.
Human Characteristics Of New England Colonies
The New England colonies were founded in the early 1600s by English settlers who were looking for religious freedom. These settlers brought with them many of the customs and beliefs of England, which shaped the culture of the New England colonies.
American Colonies
After the American Revolution, the new United States had to decide how to govern itself. The Articles of Confederation, ratified in 1781, created a loose confederation of states. Under the Articles, the central government was weak and unable to enforce its laws. The states were sovereign and had all the power.
Why Were British Soldiers Housed In Colonial Homes?
The American Revolution was fought between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the thirteen colonies that became the United States of America. After the colonists declared independence, the British occupied several major cities, including Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. In 1778, the British began using colonial homes as barracks for their troops.
When Were British Troops Sent To The Colonies?
The first British troops were sent to the colonies in the 1600s. They were sent to help protect the colonists from attacks by Native Americans and to help maintain order. British troops remained in the colonies throughout the 1700s and into the early 1800s.
Where Did The British Troops End Up
The British troops ended up in Boston, where they remained for the rest of the war.
Colonial Troops
In the American colonies, British troops were not the only soldiers fighting for the crown. There were also colonial troops, who were made up of American colonists who were loyal to the British monarchy.
Who were the first English settlers to the New England colonies?
The first English emigrants to what would become the New England colonies were a small group of Puritan separatists, later called the Pilgrims , who arrived in Plymouth in 1620 to found Plymouth Colony.
What are the 13 colonies?
That story is incomplete–by the time Englishmen had begun to establish colonies in earnest, there were plenty of French, Spanish, Dutch and even Russian colonial outposts on the American continent–but the story of those 13 colonies (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia ) is an important one. It was those colonies that came together to form the United States.
What colony did Puritans form?
As the Massachusetts settlements expanded, they generated new colonies in New England. Puritans who thought that Massachusetts was not pious enough formed the colonies of Connecticut and New Haven (the two combined in 1665). Meanwhile, Puritans who thought that Massachusetts was too restrictive formed the colony of Rhode Island, where everyone–including Jewish people–enjoyed complete “liberty in religious concernments.” To the north of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a handful of adventurous settlers formed the colony of New Hampshire.
What did the Jamestown colonists learn?
It was not until 1616, when Virginia’s settlers learned how to grow tobacco, that it seemed the colony might survive. The first enslaved African arrived in Virginia in 1619.
How many ships did the London Company send to Virginia?
Mysteriously, by 1590 the Roanoke colony had vanished entirely. Historians still do not know what became of its inhabitants. In 1606, just a few months after James I issued its charter, the London Company sent 144 men to Virginia on three ships: the Godspeed, the Discovery and the Susan Constant.
What was the name of the colony that was named after William Penn?
Penn’s North American holdings became the colony of “Penn’s Woods,” or Pennsylvania.
What was the Declaration of Independence?
The Declaration of Independence, issued on July 4, 1776, enumerated the reasons the Founding Fathers felt compelled to break from the rule of King George III and parliament to start a new nation. In September of that year, the Continental Congress declared the “United Colonies” of America to be the “ United States of America .”.
What is the name of the group of colonies that formed the United States?
Thirteen Colonies. The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies or the Thirteen American Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centuries, they declared independence in 1776 and together formed the United States of America .
What are the Middle Colonies?
(Present U.S. states in gray.) The English colonies of New York (NY), New Jersey (NJ), Pennsylvania (PA) and Delaware (DE) are referred to as the 'middle colonies'.
How many people were in the colonies in the 18th century?
The colonial population grew from about 2,000 to 2.4 million between 1625 and 1775, displacing Native Americans. This population included people subject to a system of slavery which was legal in all of the colonies prior to the American Revolutionary War. In the 18th century, the British government operated its colonies under a policy of mercantilism, in which the central government administered its possessions for the economic benefit of the mother country.
How many colonies were there in the New World?
All thirteen colonies were part of Britain's possessions in the New World, which also included territory in Canada, Florida, and the Caribbean . The colonial population grew from about 2,000 to 2.4 million between 1625 and 1775, displacing Native Americans.
How many Puritans settled in Massachusetts?
More Puritans immigrated in 1629 and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony with 400 settlers. They sought to reform the Church of England by creating a new, ideologically pure church in the New World. By 1640, 20,000 had arrived; many died soon after arrival, but the others found a healthy climate and an ample food supply. The Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies together spawned other Puritan colonies in New England, including the New Haven, Saybrook, and Connecticut colonies. During the 17th century, the New Haven and Saybrook colonies were absorbed by Connecticut.
When were the 13 colonies established?
The Thirteen Colonies were complete with the establishment of the Province of Georgia in 1732, although the term "Thirteen Colonies" became current only in the context of the American Revolution.
Where were the thirteen colonies located?
The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies or the Thirteen American Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centuries, they began fighting the American Revolutionary War in April 1775 and formed the United States of America by declaring full independence in July 1776.
Which two colonies were part of the British colonies?
Despite the turmoil in Britain, colonial settlement grew considerably throughout the seventeenth century, and several new settlements joined the two original colonies of Virginia and Massachusetts.
What were the new worlds of the American colonies?
Whether they came as servants, enslaved laborers, free farmers, religious refugees, or powerful planters, the men and women of the American colonies created new worlds. Native Americans saw fledgling settlements grow into unstoppable beachheads of vast new populations that increasingly monopolized resources and remade the land into something else entirely. Meanwhile, as colonial societies developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, fluid labor arrangements and racial categories solidified into the race-based, chattel slavery that increasingly defined the economy of the British Empire. The North American mainland originally occupied a small and marginal place in that broad empire, as even the output of its most prosperous colonies paled before the tremendous wealth of Caribbean sugar islands. And yet the colonial backwaters on the North American mainland, ignored by many imperial officials, were nevertheless deeply tied into these larger Atlantic networks. A new and increasingly complex Atlantic World connected the continents of Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
How many Africans landed in North America?
About 450,000 Africans landed in British North America, a relatively small portion of the eleven to twelve million victims of the trade. 9 As a proportion of the enslaved population, there were more enslaved women in North America than in other colonial enslaved populations.
How many slaves did the Brookes ship carry?
The slave ship Brookes was allowed to carry up to 454 enslaved people, allotting 6 feet (1.8 m) by 1 foot 4 inches (0.41 m) to each man; 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) by 1 foot 4 inches (0.41 m) to each woman, and 5 feet (1.5 m) by 1 foot 2 inches (0.36 m) to each child, but one slave trader alleged that before 1788, the ship carried as many as 609 enslaved Africans. Stowage of the British slave ship Brookes under the regulated slave trade act of 1788, 1789. Wikimedia.
What was the effect of the English Revolution on the colonies?
The English Revolution of the 1640s forced settlers in America to reconsider their place within the empire. Older colonies like Virginia and proprietary colonies like Maryland sympathized with the Crown. Newer colonies like Massachusetts Bay, populated by religious dissenters taking part in the Great Migration of the 1630s, tended to favor Parliament. Yet during the war the colonies remained neutral, fearing that support for either side could involve them in war. Even Massachusetts Bay, which nurtured ties to radical Protestants in Parliament, remained neutral.
What was the colony of Massachusetts in 1642?
In 1642, no permanent British North American colony was more than thirty-five years old. The Crown and various proprietors controlled most of the colonies, but settlers from Barbados to Maine enjoyed a great deal of independence. This was especially true in Massachusetts Bay, where Puritan settlers governed themselves according to the colony’s 1629 charter. Trade in tobacco and naval stores tied the colonies to England economically, as did religion and political culture, but in general the English government left the colonies to their own devices.
What continents were connected by the colonial backwaters?
A new and increasingly complex Atlantic World connected the continents of Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
What crops did the Southern colonies export?
In contrast to the middle and New England colonies, the Southern colonies chose to export labor-intensive crops: tobacco in Chesapeake (Virginia and Maryland) and rice and indigo in South Carolina , which were believed to be very profitable.
What was the contradiction that colonists started protesting against?
Once colonists started protesting against their own enslavement, it was hard to deny the fundamental contradiction that slavery established.
Where did slaves live?
Although the largest percentages of slaves were found in the South, slavery did exist in the middle and Northern colonies. The overall percentage of slaves in New England was only 2-3%, but in cities such as Boston and Newport, 20-25% percent of the population consisted of enslaved laborers. Other large cities, such as Philadelphia and New York, also supported significant enslaved populations. Although enslaved people in cities and towns were not needed as agricultural workers, they were employed in a variety of other capacities: domestic servants, artisans, craftsmen, sailors, dock workers, laundresses, and coachmen. Particularly in urban areas, owners often hired out their skilled enslaved workers and collected their wages. Others were used as household servants and demonstrated high social status. Whatever the case, slaves were considered property that could be bought and sold. Slaves thus constituted a portion of the owners' overall wealth. Although Southern slaveholders had a deeper investment in slaves than Northerners, many Northerners, too, had significant portions of their wealth tied up in their ownership of enslaved people.
How did the North and South deal with slavery?
They freed, or manumitted, their slaves. Yet each state decided for itself how to handle the issue. Northern states passed laws, or enacted judicial rulings , that either eliminated slavery immediately or put slavery on the road to gradual extinction. The story was different in the South. Because Southern states had a much deeper economic investment in slavery, they resisted any efforts to eliminate slavery within their boundaries. Although some (but not all) of the Southern states allowed individual owners to manumit their slaves if they chose, no Southern state passed legislation that ended slavery completely, either immediately or gradually. This divergence in approach was significant, as it began the time during which slavery would disappear from the North and become uniquely associated with the South. This moment was arguably the fork in the road that ultimately led the country to the sectional divisions that culminated in the coming of the Civil War.
How many images are there of the Atlantic slave trade?
The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record. This website contains over 1,200 images of various aspects of the slave trade, including contemporaneous drawings of the capture in Africa, the Middle Passage, and life in the Americas. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.
What is the book "The American Revolution" about?
This is a classic work that discusses changing American attitudes toward Africans and African Americans over time. The book includes a discussion of slavery in the colonial North as well as the South, and explores the effects of the American Revolution on slavery.
Was the North American mainland a major slave trade destination?
The North American mainland was a relatively minor destination in the global slave-trading network.

Overview
British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland, then further south at Roanoke and Jamestown, Virginia, and more substantially with the founding of the Thirteen Colonies along the Atlantic Coast of North America.
The British Empire's colonial territories in North America were greatly expanded in connection wi…
Political divisions
When the Kingdom of England began its efforts to settle in North America in the late 16th Century, it ignored Spain's long-asserted claim of sovereignty over the entire continent (Spain's similar claim to all of South America had been refuted when the Pope had divided that continent between it and Portugal in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas). Spain's area of settlement was limited to only very sout…
British North America colonies
Following the 1776 declaration of independence of the colonies that were to form the United States (which was to be recognised by the British Government in 1783), the areas that remained under British sovereignty were administered by the Home Office, which had been formed on 27 March 1782, and which also controlled the military until this was transferred to the War Office in 1794. The Home Office referred to the remaining North American continental colonies and the ar…
Administration
Besides the local colonial governments in each colony, British North America was administered directly via London.
From 1783 through 1801, the British Empire, including British North America, was administered by the Home Office and by the Home Secretary, then from 1801 to 1854 by the War Office (which became the War and Colonial Office) and Secretary of State for War and Colonies (as the Secret…
See also
• Atlantic history
• British America
• British West Indies
• British North America Acts
• British colonization of the Americas
Sources
• Maton, William F (1998). "British Columbia Terms of Union". The Solon Law Archive. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
• Maton, William F. (8 December 1995). "Prince Edward Island Terms of Union". Solon.org. Retrieved 18 April 2013.
• Cruikshank, Ernest (1964). "The County of Norfolk in the War of 1812". In Zaslow, Morris (ed.). The Defended Border. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada. ISBN 0 …
• Maton, William F (1998). "British Columbia Terms of Union". The Solon Law Archive. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
• Maton, William F. (8 December 1995). "Prince Edward Island Terms of Union". Solon.org. Retrieved 18 April 2013.
• Cruikshank, Ernest (1964). "The County of Norfolk in the War of 1812". In Zaslow, Morris (ed.). The Defended Border. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada. ISBN 0-7705-1242-9.
Further reading
• Bailyn, Bernard. The Peopling of British North America: An Introduction (1988) excerpt and text search
• Cooke, Jacob E. Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies (3 vol 1993)
• Foster, Stephen, ed. British North America in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion) (2014) excerpt and text search; 11 essays by scholars