16th century Roanoke Colony In 1585, the English began their first settlement in North America, the
Roanoke Colony. Its initial form only lasted until 1586 due to conflict with the local Native Americans. In 1587, around 115 colonists led by Governor
John White settled back at Roanoke. Jamestown, established on May 14, 1607, was the start of the Virginia Colony, and was the colony's capital until 1699.
Edward Maria Wingfield was made the colony's first president, and governed with six council members. The colonists suffered from diseases, famines, and wars with the
Powhatan. Some Powhatan helped the colonists, and without them, the colony likely would have failed. In 1612, Englishman
John Rolfe arrived in Jamestown, and introduced
tobacco farming there. Tobacco made the colony profitable for the Virginia Company. In 1619, Virginia governor
George Yeardley introduced a representative
legislative assembly to the government. The town expanded in the 1620s.
Anglo-Powhatan Wars 's map of Virginia, including
Powhatan villages, made c. 1612 Thirty Powhatan tribes were organized under the
Powhatan Confederacy, led by chief
Powhatan. Chief Powhatan initially thought the English could be good allies and help defend them from other native tribes and the Spanish. Relations worsened when the English demanded the Powhatan give them more land to grow tobacco. In
three wars, the Powhatan lost more land: the first from 1610 to 1614, the second from 1622 to 1626, and the third from 1644 to 1646. The Powhatan were subject to more lifestyle restrictions placed upon them by the English. The third war ended when chief Powhatan's successor,
Opechanacanough, was captured and killed by
Necotowance—who became the new successor. However, Necotowance signed a peace treaty with the English which effectively ended the confederacy. The Powhatan lost more land to the English over the next decades.
Bermuda settlement In 1511, the island of "Bermudas", later named
Bermuda, was present on a Spanish map, possibly having been spotted as early as 1503. In 1609, 150 English people traveling on the
Sea Venture, a Virginia Company ship on course to Jamestown, were shipwrecked on Bermuda by a
hurricane. At the time, the English named it the "Somers Isles" after the travelers' leader,
George Somers. This started a permanent English settlement in Bermuda. Most of them continued onto Jamestown, leaving three people behind on Bermuda until a Virginia Company charter in 1612 brought 60 more people to the island. The Virginia Company governed Bermuda until 1684.
Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony ' landing at
Plymouth Rock In 1620, a hundred European
Pilgrims, men and women, sailed to New England, establishing the permanent
Plymouth Colony in modern
Massachusetts. Forty of them were a part of the
English Separatist Church, a radical faction of
Puritan Protestants; they had moved from England to the Dutch Republic more than a decade prior, and then went to America seeking
religious freedom. The first Pilgrim ship, the
Mayflower, landed at
Plymouth Rock in December. More than half of the colonists died in the first winter, but they ultimately made a thriving, mostly self-sufficient colony. They also made peace treaties with the local Native American tribes, and in autumn 1621, the Pilgrims and
Wampanoag shared a harvest feast which was the origin of the annual American holiday,
Thanksgiving. Three other European ships traveled to Plymouth soon after: the
Fortune in 1621, and
the Anne and the Little James in 1622. All adult males on the Mayflower signed the
Mayflower Compact, which wrote the first set of laws for the colony, which was later named the
Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Province of New Hampshire In the 1620s,
the Crown gave English Captain
John Mason and others a series of grants in the region of modern-day
New Hampshire. On the establishment in 1623 of a
trading and fishing settlement in the region, the modern borders of New Hampshire contained about 3,000 Native Americans. In 1629, a grant established the name New Hampshire for the region between the
Piscataqua River and, to its south, the
Merrimack River. The main English settlements were the towns of
Exeter,
Dover (originally "Bristol"), and
Portsmouth (originally "Piscataqua" and then "Strawberry Bank"). From 1641 to 1679, the Massachusetts Bay Colony administered New Hampshire, until the landowning descendants of John Mason got into a conflict with Massachusetts for territorial and religious reasons. Massachusetts gave up their lands to become its own royal province, the
Province of New Hampshire.
West Indies The English established their first permanent colonies on St Christopher Island (
Saint Kitts) near the
Caribbean, and
Barbados, in the 1620s, expanding to other
Leeward and
Windward Islands,
Jamaica, and the
Bahamas over the following decades. These became very valuable colonies due to sugar production fueled by slave labor, and a linchpin for the
triangular trade and quadrilateral trade with the mainland British colonies to the north, Europe, and Africa.
Enslaved Africans and indentured European servants produced by the labor of enslaved Africans in Virginia From the 16th to 19th centuries, in the
Atlantic slave trade, European powers, the
Dutch Republic, England, France, Portugal, and Spain, transported 10 to 12 million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to perform forced labor in the Americas. In 1619, a group of twenty Africans were landed in Virginia, the first
African-Americans in the colony. They were either slaves, those forced to work against their will and without pay; or
indentured servants, those indebted to an employer for a limited time—the latter includes those who consented to the work or not. Both were true in this instance, as the group was forced to work without pay but were later freed. Some Europeans were also indentured servants in English America.
Pequot War tribal territories (green) in southern
New England c. 1600; modern U.S. state boundaries are overlaid The
Pequot War from 1636 to 1638 was between the
Pequot people and English colonists with their Native American allies in New England. In the 1620s, the Pequot used "diplomacy, coercion, intermarriage, and warfare" to dominate the other natives in the
Long Island—
Connecticut River complex, in order to control the local
fur and
wampum trades. They also allied with the Dutch. The other native tribes sided with the English colonists as they became more powerful and established the Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut colonies. The Pequot War's immediate cause was the murder of two English traders, Captain John Stone and
John Oldham, allegedly by the Pequots' allies, the Western
Niantic people. In 1636, Massachusetts Bay Colony governor
Henry Vane sent
John Endecott on an expedition to
Block Island to demand the Western Niantic to surrender the traders' murderers. There, Endecott burned the Western Niantic people's villages, and then moved to a Pequot village where he did the same. The Pequot raided English settlements in retaliation. The tribes which were dominated by the Pequot sided with the English as the Pequot tribe was destroyed. Of the around 3,000 Pequot who lived in the region before the war, only 200 were alive after it. Many of these deaths occurred on May 26, 1637, in the
Mystic massacre, when an English militia, along with members of the
Narragansett and
Mohegan tribes, set fire to the
Pequot Fort near the
Mystic River, killing 700 Pequot people.
Colonial administration A state department in
London known as the
Southern Department governed all the colonies beginning in 1660 along with a committee of the
Privy Council, called the
Board of Trade and Plantations. In 1768, Parliament created a specific
state department for America, but it was disbanded in 1782 when the
Home Office took responsibility for the remaining possessions of
British North America in
Eastern Canada,
the Floridas, and the
West Indies.
Province of New York , a 1660 map of
New York City, then confined to
Manhattan. The wide street at top became
Broadway, and the city wall at right became
Wall Street.|250x250pxIn 1624, the
Dutch West India Company, a
chartered company of the
Dutch Republic, founded the colony of
New Netherland, which included the territory of modern
New York City, as well as parts of
New Jersey,
Long Island, and
Connecticut. The colony's capital was
New Amsterdam, which became New York City.
Province of Pennsylvania In 1681, a charter signed by Charles II of England gave all unoccupied lands in the region of the former New Netherland colony to
William Penn; the king was paying off a debt owed to Penn's father, Admiral
William Penn. The charter was named after Admiral Penn, and included a word for "woodlands", "sylvania": the
Province of Pennsylvania. The son William Penn was a
Quaker—someone from the Society of Friends in England—and planned to make the colony a home to fellow Quakers. Before Penn left for the colony, his cousin
William Markham established Penn's claim to, and the borders of, the area of modern-day
Philadelphia.
King Philip's War King Philip's War, in New England from 1675 to 1676, was between some Native American tribes (the Narragansett,
Nashaway,
Nipmuc,
Podunk, and Wampanoag peoples, as well as the
Wabanaki Confederacy) and English colonists with their own native allies (the Mohawk, Mohegan, and Pequot). Opposition to the English was led by Wampanoag chief
Metacom. The war started with the murder of
John Sassamon, a native who was Metacom's advisor and English language interpreter; before his murder, he was accused by Metacom of spying for the English. The murder escalated tensions between the natives and English over land disputes. In June 1675, the Plymouth Colony executed three Wampanoag who were found guilty of murdering Sassamon. King Philip's War took place in modern Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and
Rhode Island. The English and their allies won, and most of their opposition was killed in the war or sold into slavery or indentured servitude.
King William's War The
Nine Years War from 1689 to 1697 was a conflict in Europe between France and an alliance of England and the Dutch Republic. They fought—as members of either the House of
Bourbon or
Habsburg—over the future successor to Spanish king
Charles II, who had no children yet. Its North American theater, taking place simultaneously, was
King William's War. Canadian and New England colonists fought on behalf of the French and English sides, each with different Native American allies. Both sides had military successes. The 1697
Peace of Rijswijk treaties which ended the war in Europe and North America left the Spanish succession dispute and the North American territorial disputes unsolved.
Salem witch trials The
Salem witch trials were a widely controversial event in Massachusetts in 1692 and 1693. It started in spring 1692 near
Salem, Massachusetts, when three girls who claimed to be
possessed by the devil accused several local women of
witchcraft.
Mass hysteria over alleged witchcraft spread throughout the colony. As witchcraft was illegal, a special court convened in Salem to hear the legal cases against alleged witches. More than 150 people were accused, and 27 of them died in relation to the trials, most of them sentenced to death by hanging.
18th century Queen Anne's War The
War of the Spanish Succession from 1701 to 1714 was a worldwide conflict that centered around the successor to Charles II of Spain, who died in 1700 with no children.
Philip V, grandson of French king
Louis XIV, ascended to the Spanish throne, provoking their rivals, the English and Dutch.
Yamasee War The
Yamasee War from 1715 to 1716 was between the British in southeastern
South Carolina, and the
Yamasee Native Americans with allies of other native tribes. The Yamasee resented the colonists for "settlers’ encroachment upon their land [and] unresolved grievances arising from the fur trade". The war started on April 15, 1715, when 90 white people—traders and their families—were killed by a group of Yamasee. Except for the
Cherokee and
Muscogee, all the nearby native tribes aided Yamasee raids of plantations and trading posts. New Englanders gave the South Carolinians troops and military supplies, weakening the native war effort. Some of the natives escaped to Florida, joining the
Seminole people.
War of Jenkins' Ear In the 1730s, Britain and Spain tried to find a diplomatic solution to their centuries-long dispute over colonial Georgia and the surrounding lands. These negotiations failed, only leading to more animosity between them. The two empires fought in the
War of Jenkins' Ear from 1739 to 1748, which was subsumed into the
War of the Austrian Succession from 1740 to 1748. In 1738, as the British public was spiteful towards Spain for their attacks on British ships, British Captain
Robert Jenkins appeared before the
House of Commons and showed them an
amputated ear he alleged was cut off in 1731 by Spanish
coast guards in the West Indies. Members of Parliament who were in opposition to
British prime minister Robert Walpole seized on the political popularity of declaring war on Spain. In the following years, British General
James Oglethorpe captured many Spanish forts in Florida, British colonists in Georgia allied with the Native Americans to defend the colony from the Spanish, and the British kept their control over the region. The British formally declared war in 1756. The first great British victory was at the
Siege of Louisbourg, at the eastern end of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in July 1758. In July, the British won the
Battle of Fort Frontenac on the western end. In November, the British
captured Fort Duquesne and replaced it with
Fort Pitt. The British closed in on the French in Quebec, and defeated them at the
Battle of the Plains of Abraham in September 1759. The French lost their remaining foothold in Canada,
Montreal, during the
Montreal campaign of September 1760. Spain joined the war as an ally of France, and the British began attacking Spanish and French territories in other parts of the world. (1760–1761)
Tacky's Revolt In 1760 and 1761, in
Tacky's Revolt, African slaves in the British colony of
Jamaica rebelled against their colonial slave-owners. Historian
Vincent Brown writes: "[Tacky's Revolt] was part of four wars at once: it was an extension of wars on the African continent; it was a
race war between black slaves and white slave holders; it was a struggle among black people over the terms of communal belonging, effective control of local territory, and establishment of their own political legacies; and it was, most immediately, one of the hardest-fought battles [of the] Seven Years’ War." The Caribbean's control by the British was key to winning the Seven Year's War, so in response to the uprising, "the full resources of transatlantic empire [came] to bear against the rebels", bringing a local conflict into the global war before ending it quickly.
The Treaty of Paris (1763) and Pontiac's War The British ultimately won the Seven Years War. Britain, France, and Spain formally ended the Seven Years War with the
Treaty of Paris of 1763. France and Spain gave Britain Canada and Florida, respectively. France gave Louisiana to Spain, but kept its
sugar-producing islands in the West Indies. Britain left the war with twice as much
national debt, as their war effort was paid with large amounts of borrowed money from British and Dutch bankers. When the British inherited the French lands of the 1763 Treaty of Paris, they also received France and Spain's diplomatic situations with the Native Americans of Spain, Canada, and the
Great Lakes region. The British had to decide if the natives would be subject to the British Empire or allowed some autonomy. Their decision is represented by the words of
Jeffrey Amherst, the governor general in North America, who said the Native Americans are "the Vilest Race of Beings that Ever Infested the Earth", and "the only true method of treating those [people] is to keep them in a proper subjection." The British severed ties with the native nations. British settlers increased in native lands, while British troops were stationed in the Great Lakes region and restrictions were put on trade between the colonists and natives. (1763–1765) The Native Americans, predicting "the English have a mind to cut them off the face of the earth", rebelled in
Pontiac's War from 1763 to 1765. Fourteen native tribes—who spoke
Algonquian,
Iroquoian,
Muskogean, or
Siouan languages—started fighting the British in the Great Lakes region. Intense fighting went on for two years, and ended in a stalemate. Ultimately, the Crown was forced to give the natives more autonomy; this increased colonial resentment against the monarchy, fueling revolutionary sentiment. The
Townshend Acts of June and July 1767 were the Crown asserting its authority over the colonies: colonist citizens and officials were illicitly smuggling British goods, so Parliament made
customs commissioners to oversee the trade, stop smuggling, and tax the goods. The colonists stopped buying the goods and harassed the commissioners. The Crown then had troops occupy
Boston. The Crown withdrew its soldiers from Boston, and rescinded the Townshend Acts. However, in 1773, they enacted the
Tea Act to help the struggling
British East India Company. The company could now sell tea in the colonies at a cheaper price than local tea merchants, who imported from Dutch traders—hurting local merchants' business. Colonists were again angered, wanting to trade with which ever country they wanted and not be forced to buy English tea. The
Sons of Liberty, a group of radical Patriot agitators, responded with the
Boston Tea Party, disguising themselves as Mohawk to board British ships in the
Boston Harbor, and dumping 92,000 pounds of tea into the water. Parliament, many members of which had large shares in the British East India Company, wanted to punish the colonists.
American Revolutionary War At the start of the
American Revolutionary War in 1775, the British Empire included 23 colonies and territories on the North American continent. On April 18, 1775, British troops in Boston began marching to
Concord, Massachusetts, to seize an arms cache owned by American militiamen. The militia was
warned of this, and they intercepted the British at the
Battles of Lexington and Concord the next day, starting the war. British troops and their
Loyalist colonist allies fought against
Patriot rebel colonists. The Second Continental Congress voted to form the
Continental Army, headed by George Washington, to lead the Patriot war effort. The
Battle of Bunker Hill in Boston on June 17 ended in a British victory, but motivated Patriots. The American victory at Saratoga influenced France, still Britain's rival, to openly join the war on the American side, after secretly aiding them for a year. The French openly declared war on Britain in June 1778. The Spanish and Dutch, also enemies with Britain, began helping the Americans. In autumn 1781, a British army under
Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis were forced by Franco-Americans troops into
Yorktown, Virginia, near Chesapeake Bay. On October 19, 1781, Cornwallis' army
surrendered to the French and Americans. The remaining British troops were relegated to the Carolinas and Georgia; they did not engage in "decisive action" with the Americans, and in late 1782, the Crown pulled them out of the colonies, effectively ending conflict. The
Treaty of Paris was deliberated in 1783 between American statesmen Benjamin Franklin,
John Adams, and
John Jay; and representatives of King
George III. The two countries formally ended the war, and Britain recognized the U.S. government as legitimate. Britain ceded the territory of the former thirteen colonies, as well as most British territory to the east of the
Mississippi River and the vast Northwest Territory, which spanned the modern states of
Ohio,
Michigan,
Indiana,
Illinois,
Wisconsin, and partially,
Wisconsin. Britain made peace treaties with France, the Dutch Republic, and Spain later in 1783.
After the Treaty of Paris (1783) After 1783, Britain ceded
East and
West Florida to the Kingdom of Spain, which in turn ceded them to the United States in 1821. The Atlantic archipelago of the
Bahamas had been administratively grouped with the North American continent, but with the loss of the Floridas was grouped with the British colonies of the Caribbean as the British West Indies. Most of the remaining colonies to the north (including the continental colonies and the archipelago of Bermuda, the nearest landfall from which was North Carolina, but the nearest other British territory from which became Nova Scotia) formed the Dominion of
Canada in 1867, with the colony of Newfoundland (which had become the
Dominion of Newfoundland in 1907, leaving Bermuda as the only remaining British colony in British North America, before reverting to a colony in 1934) joining the independent
Commonwealth realm of
Canada in 1949, and Bermuda, elevated (by the independence of the thirteen colonies that became the United States) to the role of an
Imperial fortress and the most important British naval and military base in the Western Hemisphere (due to its location, south of
Nova Scotia, and north of the
British Virgin Islands, and handily placed for naval and amphibious operations against its nearest neighbor, the nascent United States, during the 19th century), remains as a
British Overseas Territory today. ==North American colonies in 1775==