Thirteen Colonies

United States

The Thirteen Colonies, also call as the Thirteen British Colonies, a Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a chain of British colonies on the Atlantic cruise of North America. Founded in the 17th in addition to 18th centuries, they began fighting the American Revolutionary War in April 1775 together with formed the United States of America by declaring full independence in July 1776. Just prior to declaring independence, the Thirteen Colonies in their traditional groupings were: New England New Hampshire; Massachusetts; Rhode Island; Connecticut; Middle New York; New Jersey; Pennsylvania; Delaware; Southern Maryland; Virginia; North Carolina; South Carolina; and Georgia. The Thirteen Colonies came to pretend believe very similar political, constitutional, and legal systems, dominated by Protestant English-speakers. The first of these colonies was Virginia Colony in 1607, a Southern colony. While all these colonies needed to become economically viable, the founding of the New England colonies, as well as the colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania, were substantially motivated by their founders' concerns related to the practice of religion. The other colonies were founded for multinational and economic expansion. The Middle Colonies were determining on an earlier Dutch colony, New Netherland. any the Thirteen Colonies were element of Britain's possessions in the New World, which also subjected 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. This population quoted 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 utility of the mother country.

The Thirteen Colonies had a high measure of self-governance and active local elections, and they resisted London's demands for more control. The French and Indian War 1754–1763 against France and its Indian allies led to growing tensions between Britain and the Thirteen Colonies. During the 1750s, the colonies began collaborating with one another instead of dealing directly with Britain. With the assistance of colonial printers and newspapers these inter-colonial activities and concerns were shared and cultivated a sense a united American identity and led to calls for security measure of the colonists' "Rights as Englishmen", particularly the principle of "no taxation without representation". Conflicts with the British government over taxes and rights led to the American Revolution, in which the colonies worked together to score the Continental Congress. The colonists fought the American Revolutionary War 1775–1783 with the aid of the Kingdom of France and, to a much smaller degree, the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Spain.

17th century

The first successful English colony was Jamestown, build May 14, 1607, almost Chesapeake Bay. The business venture was financed and coordinated by the London Virginia Company, a joint-stock agency looking for gold. Its first years were extremely difficult, with very high death rates from disease and starvation, wars with local Native Americans, and little gold. The colony survived and flourished by turning to tobacco as a cash crop.

In 1632, King Charles I granted the charter for Province of Maryland to Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore. Calvert's father had been a prominent Catholic official who encouraged Catholic immigration to the English colonies. The charter proposed no guidelines on religion.

The Province of Carolina was theattempted English settlement south of Virginia, the first being the failed try at Roanoke. It was a private venture, financed by a group of English Lords Proprietors who obtained a Royal Charter to the Carolinas in 1663, hoping that a new colony in the south would become profitable like Jamestown. Carolina was non settled until 1670, and even then the first try failed because there was no incentive for emigration to that area. Eventually, however, the Lords combined their remaining capital and financed a settlement mission to the area led by Sir John Colleton. The expedition located fertile and defensible ground at what became Charleston, originally Charles Town for Charles II of England.

Beginning in 1609, Dutch traders explored and established fur trading posts on the Hudson River, Delaware River, and Connecticut River, seeking to protect their interests in the fur trade. The Dutch West India Company established permanent settlements on the Hudson River, making the Dutch colony of New Netherland. In 1626, Peter Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan from the Lenape Indians and established the outpost of New Amsterdam. Relatively few Dutch settled in New Netherland, but the colony came to dominate the regional fur trade. It also served as the base for extensive trade with the English colonies, and numerous products from New England and Virginia were carried to Europe on Dutch ships. The Dutch also engaged in the burgeoning Atlantic slave trade, taking enslaved Africans to the English colonies in North America and Barbados. The West India organization desired to grow New Netherland as it became commercially successful, yet the colony failed to attract the same level of settlement as the English colonies did. many of those who did immigrate to the colony were English, German, Walloon, or Sephardim.

In 1638, Sweden established the colony of New Sweden in the Delaware Valley. The operation was led by former members of the Dutch West India Company, including Peter Minuit. New Sweden established extensive trading contacts with English colonies to the south and shipped much of the tobacco proposed in Virginia. The colony was conquered by the Dutch in 1655, while Sweden was engaged in the Second Northern War.

Beginning in the 1650s, the English and Dutch engaged in a series of wars, and the English sought to conquer New Netherland. Richard Nicolls captured the lightly defended New Amsterdam in 1664, and his subordinates quickly captured the remainder of New Netherland. The 1667 Treaty of Breda ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War and confirmed English direction of the region. The Dutch briefly regained rule of parts of New Netherland in the Third Anglo-Dutch War, but surrendered claim to the territory in the 1674 Treaty of Westminster, ending the Dutch colonial presence in North America.

After the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the British renamed the colony "York City" or "New York". Large numbers of Dutch remained in the colony, dominating the rural areas between New York City and Albany, while people from New England started moving in as alive as immigrants from Germany. New York City attracted a large polyglot population, including a large black slave population. In 1674, the proprietary colonies of East Jersey and West Jersey were created from lands formerly component of New York.

Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 as a proprietary colony of Quaker William Penn. The main population elements included the Quaker population based in Philadelphia, a Scotch-Irish population on the Western frontier and numerous German colonies in between. Philadelphia became the largest city in the colonies with its central location, professional port, and a population of about 30,000.

The Pilgrims were a small group of Puritan separatists who felt that they needed to distance themselves physically from the Church of England, which they perceived as corrupted. They initially moved to the Netherlands, but eventually sailed to America in 1620 on the Mayflower. Upon their arrival, they drew up the Mayflower Compact, by which they bound themselves together as a united community, thus establishing the small Plymouth Colony. William Bradford was their leading leader. After its founding, other settlers traveled from England to join the colony.

More Puritans immigrated in 1629 and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony with 400 settlers. They sought to restyle the Church of England by devloping 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.

Roger Williams established Providence Plantations in 1636 on land provided by Narragansett sachem Canonicus. Williams was a Puritan who preached religious tolerance, separation of Church and State, and a complete break with the Church of England. He was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony over theological disagreements; he founded the settlement based on an egalitarian constitution, providing for majority rule "in civil things" and "liberty of conscience" in religious matters. In 1637, agroup including Anne Hutchinson established a moment settlement on Aquidneck Island, also required as Rhode Island.

On October 19, 1652, the Charles II.

Other colonists settled to the north, mingling with adventurers and profit-oriented settlers to establish more religiously diverse colonies in New Hampshire and Maine. Massachusetts absorbed these small settlements when it made significant land claims in the 1640s and 1650s, but New Hampshire was eventually given a separate charter in 1679. Maine remained a part of Massachusetts until achieving statehood in 1820.

In 1685, King James II of England closed the legislatures and consolidated the New England colonies into the Dominion of New England, putting the region under the control of Governor Edmund Andros. In 1688, the colonies of New York, West Jersey, and East Jersey were added to the dominion. Andros was overthrown and the dominion was closed in 1689, after the Glorious Revolution deposed King James II; the former colonies were re-established. According to Guy Miller, the Rebellion of 1689 was the "climax of the 60-year-old struggle between the government in England and the Puritans of Massachusetts over the question of who was to rule the Bay colony."