Timeline
Here is a timeline of the British colonization of the Americas:
1585 - Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina is settled by the first English colonists in America, but the colony fails [1]
1587 - A second attempt is made to settle Roanoke Island, but the colony mysteriously disappears by 1590 [1]
1607 - Jamestown is established as the first permanent British settlement in North America [1][17]
1620 - The Pilgrims found the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts [1][17]
1623 - The English occupy part of Saint Christopher (Saint Kitts), their first Caribbean colony [11][15]
1625 - The English occupy Barbados in the Caribbean [11][15]
1632 - Maryland is established as a proprietary colony [7]
1655 - Jamaica is captured from the Spanish, becoming an English colony [11][15]
1660s-1690s - The Carolinas, Pennsylvania, and Delaware are established as colonies [1][17]
1670 - Charles Town (Charleston) is founded in South Carolina [7]
1732 - Georgia is chartered as the last of the 13 original British colonies [7][17]
1776 - The 13 colonies declare independence from Great Britain [13][17]
1783 - Britain recognizes U.S. independence in the Treaty of Paris, ending the American Revolutionary War [1][13]
1807-1838 - Slavery is abolished in the British colonies, including those in the Caribbean [11][15]
1962-1983 - Most of the British colonies in the Caribbean gain independence, though some remain UK territories [14][15]
So in summary, British colonization of the Americas began in the late 16th century, first in North America and then expanding to the Caribbean in the 17th century. By the late 18th century, 13 colonies had been established along the Atlantic coast, which gained independence in 1776 to form the United States. Britain’s Caribbean colonies were slower to decolonize, with most gaining independence in the 1960s-1980s after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in the early-mid 19th century.
- Citations:
[1] https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191736896.timeline.0001
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_North_America
[3] https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/British_Colonial_America
[4] https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/resource-library-thirteen-british—colonies/
[5] https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/british-north-america
[6] https://bensguide.gpo.gov/m-from-colonial-rule
[7] https://www.learner.org/series/a-biography-of-america/english-settlement/timeline-colonial-settlement/
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_colonization_of_the_Americas
[9] https://study.com/academy/lesson/british-west-indies-islands-location-quiz.html
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Colonial_America
[11] https://www.britannica.com/place/West-Indies-island-group-Atlantic-Ocean/Colonialism
[12] https://academic.oup.com/book/1389/chapter-abstract/140719412?redirectedFrom=fulltext
[13] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/lesson-plans/Intermediate_establishing_independence_handouts.pdf
[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_West_Indies
[15] https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/british-colonial-rule/the-toll-of-slavery-and-exploitation-under-british-colonial-rule-in-the-caribbean/
[16] https://microform.digital/boa/collections/73/caribbean-colonial-statistics-from-the-british-empire-1824-1950
[17] https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/colonial-settlement-1600-1763/
[18] https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/colonial-settlement-1600-1763/overview/
[19] https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?psid=3574&smtid=2
Colonies
Based on the provided search results, the 13 original British colonies in North America can be divided into three regions:
The New England Colonies:
- Massachusetts
- Connecticut
- Rhode Island
- New Hampshire
These colonies had rocky soil and cold climates, making large-scale agriculture difficult. They focused on fishing, lumber, shipbuilding, and trade. Puritans seeking religious freedom were the primary settlers [13][17].
The Middle Colonies:
- New York
- New Jersey
- Pennsylvania
- Delaware
Located between New England and the Southern colonies, they had fertile soil and a milder climate well-suited for farming grains and other crops. They were more ethnically and religiously diverse, with Quakers, Dutch, Germans, Scots-Irish and others settling there for economic opportunity and religious tolerance [1][5][8][9].
The Southern Colonies:
- Maryland
- Virginia
- North Carolina
- South Carolina
- Georgia
With warm climates and fertile soil, these colonies developed plantation-based economies growing cash crops like tobacco, rice, and indigo using slave labor. Wealthy plantation owners came to dominate society and politics [2][4][11][18].
So in summary, the geography and climate shaped the economic, social and political development of each colonial region in distinct ways, with the Middle Colonies characterized by diversity and trade, New England by religious communities and maritime industries, and the Southern Colonies by slave-based plantation agriculture.
- Citations:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Colonies
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Colonies
[3] https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/middle-colonies-colonial-america/
[4] https://ca01000317.schoolwires.net/cms/lib/CA01000317/Centricity/Domain/146/Southern%20Colonies.pdf
[5] https://ca01000317.schoolwires.net/cms/lib/CA01000317/Centricity/Domain/146/Middle%20Colonies.pdf
[6] https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-1994/the-colonial-period/the-southern-colonies.php
[7] https://kids.britannica.com/students/article/Southern-colonies/632341
[8] https://sites.uml.edu/historicaltutoring/topics/the-middle-colonies/
[9] https://www.ushistory.org/us/4.asp
[10] https://web-clear.unt.edu/course_projects/HIST2610/content/01_Unit_One/04_lesson_four/03_northern_colonies.htm
[11] https://www.ushistory.org/us/5.asp
[12] https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/colonial-america/colonial-north-america/v/the-middle-colonies
[13] https://ca01000317.schoolwires.net/cms/lib/CA01000317/Centricity/Domain/146/New%20England%20Colonies.pdf
[14] https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/colonial-america/colonial-north-america/a/lesson-summary-new-england-and-middle-colonies
[15] https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/new-england-colonies-and-native-americans/
[16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Colonies
[17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Colonies
[18] https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/glimpse-everyday-life-southern-colonies-1763-1774
[19] https://www.britannica.com/place/United-States/The-New-England-colonies
Economics and Population Growth
Between immigration, the importation of slaves, and natural population growth, the colonial population in British North America grew immensely in the 18th century. According to historian Alan Taylor, the population of the Thirteen Colonies (the British North American colonies which would eventually form the United States) stood at 1.5 million in 1750. More than ninety percent of the colonists lived as farmers, though cities like Philadelphia, New York, and Boston flourished. With the defeat of the Dutch and the imposition of the Navigation Acts, the British colonies in North America became part of the global British trading network. The colonists traded foodstuffs, wood, tobacco, and various other resources for Asian tea, West Indian coffee, and West Indian sugar, among other items. Native Americans far from the Atlantic coast supplied the Atlantic market with beaver fur and deerskins, and sought to preserve their independence by maintaining a balance of power between the French and English. By 1770, the economic output of the Thirteen Colonies made up forty percent of the gross domestic product of the British Empire.
Slavery
During the 17th century, the sugar colonies adopted the system of sugar plantations successfully used by the Portuguese in Brazil, which depended on slave labour. The English government valued the economic importance of these islands over that of New England. Until the abolition of its slave trade in 1807, Britain was responsible for the transportation of 3.5 million African slaves to the Americas, a third of all slaves transported across the Atlantic. Many of the slaves were captured by the Royal African Company in West Africa, though others came from Madagascar. These slaves soon came to form the majority of the population in Caribbean colonies like Barbados and Jamaica, where strict slave codes were established partly to deter slave rebellions.
Improved economic conditions and an easing of religious persecution in Europe made it increasingly difficult to recruit labor to the colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries. Partly due to this shortage of free labor, the population of slaves in British North America grew dramatically between 1680 and 1750; the growth was driven by a mixture of forced immigration and the reproduction of slaves. In the Southern Colonies, which relied most heavily on slave labor, the slaves supported vast plantation economies lorded over by increasingly wealthy elites. By 1775, slaves made up one-fifth of the population of the Thirteen Colonies but less than ten percent of the population of the Middle Colonies and New England Colonies.