The Thirteen Colonies were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America founded in the 17th and 18th centuries. The American Enlightenment led these colonies to the American Revolutionary War. They declared independence as the United States of America in July 1776, which was achieved by 1783 under the Treaty of Paris.
The governments of the Thirteen Colonies of British America developed in the 17th and 18th centuries under the influence of the British constitution. After the Thirteen Colonies had become the United States, the experience under colonial rule would inform and shape the new state constitutions and, ultimately, the United States Constitution.
The Province of New Hampshire was a colony of England and later a British province in New England. The name was first given in 1629 to the territory between the Merrimack and Piscataqua rivers on the eastern coast of North America, and was named after the county of Hampshire in southern England by Captain John Mason, its first named proprietor. In 1776 the province established an independent state and government, the State of New Hampshire, and joined with twelve other colonies to form the United States.
The Province of New Jersey was one of the Middle Colonies of Colonial America and became the U.S. state of New Jersey in 1776. The province had originally been settled by Europeans as part of New Netherland but came under English rule after the surrender of Fort Amsterdam in 1664, becoming a proprietary colony. The English renamed the province after the island of Jersey in the English Channel. The Dutch Republic reasserted control for a brief period in 1673–1674. After that it consisted of two political divisions, East Jersey and West Jersey, until they were united as a royal colony in 1702. The original boundaries of the province were slightly larger than the current state, extending into a part of the present state of New York, until the border was finalized in 1773.
The Province of Georgia was one of the Southern colonies in British America. It was the last of the thirteen original American colonies established by Great Britain in what later became the United States. In the original grant, a narrow strip of the province extended to the Pacific Ocean.
The Southern Colonies within British America consisted of the Province of Maryland, the Colony of Virginia, the Province of Carolina, and the Province of Georgia. In 1763, the newly created colonies of East Florida and West Florida would be added to the Southern Colonies by Great Britain until the Spanish Empire took back Florida. These colonies were the historical core of what would become the Southern United States, or "Dixie". They were located south of the Middle Colonies, albeit Virginia and Maryland were also called the Chesapeake Colonies.
The Southern Colonies were overwhelmingly rural, which made slavery and indentured servitude highly used. During a series of civil unrest, Bacon's Rebellion shaped the way that servitude and slavery worked in the South. After a series of attacks on the Susquehannock, attacks that were ensued after the group of natives burnt one of Bacon's farms, Bacon's arrest, along with other arrest warrants, were issued by Governor Berkely, for attacking the natives without his permission. Bacon avoided detainment, though, and then burnt Jamestown, in opposition of the governor previously denying him land in fear of native attacks, however Bacon hadn't believe his policies were entirely conventional, saying that they didn't ensure protection to the English settlers, as well as the exclusion of Bacon from Berkeley's social clubs and friend groups. The rebellion dissolved sometime in 1676, following Charles II's initial sending of troops to restore order in the colony. This rebellion influenced the view of the Africans, helping create a completely African servitude and workforce in the Chesapeake Colonies, alleviating primarily White servitude, a working-class that could be repugnant at times through disobedience and mischief. This also helped racial superiority in White regions, helping the poor White and wealthy White people, respectively, feel almost equal. It diminished alliances between White and Black people, happened in Bacon's Rebellion.
The colonies developed prosperous economies based on the cultivation of cash crops, such as tobacco, indigo, and rice. An effect of the cultivation of these crops was the presence of slavery in significantly higher proportions than in other parts of British America.
The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies in rebellion against Great Britain and became the U.S. state of Maryland. Its first settlement and capital was St. Mary's City, in the southern end of St. Mary's County, which is a peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay and is also bordered by four tidal rivers.
Delaware Colony in the North American Middle Colonies consisted of land on the west bank of the Delaware River Bay. In the early 17th century, the area was inhabited by Lenape and possibly Assateague Native American Indian tribes. The first European settlers were Swedes, who established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina in present-day Wilmington, Delaware, in 1638. The Dutch captured the colony in 1655 and annexed it to New Netherland to the north. Great Britain subsequently took control of it from the Dutch in 1664. In 1682, William Penn, the Quaker proprietor of the Province of Pennsylvania to the north leased the three lower counties on the Delaware River from James, the Duke of York, who went on to become King James II.
The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as the Pennsylvania Colony, was a British North American colony founded by William Penn, who received the land through a grant from Charles II of England in 1681. The name Pennsylvania was derived from "Penn's Woods", referring to William's father Admiral Sir William Penn.
The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was one of the original Thirteen Colonies established on the east coast of America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean. It was founded by Roger Williams. It was an English colony from 1636 until 1707, and then a colony of Great Britain until the American Revolution in 1776, when it became the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
The Province of North Carolina, originally known as Albemarle Province, was a province of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712 to 1776.(p. 80) It was one of the five Southern colonies and one of the thirteen American colonies. The monarch of Great Britain was represented by the Governor of North Carolina, until the colonies declared independence on July 4, 1776.
The Province of Carolina was a province of the Kingdom of England (1663–1707) and later the Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1712) that existed in North America and the Caribbean from 1663 until partitioned into North and South on January 24, 1712. It consisted of all or parts of present-day Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and the Bahamas.
A proprietary colony was a type of colonial administration in English America during the 17th century, and in the East Indies up to the 1850s. In the English overseas possessions, all land belonged to the Crown, which held ultimate authority over their management. All English colonial territories were partitioned by the Crown via royal charters into one of three types: proprietary, royal, or covenant. Under the proprietary system, individuals or companies were granted commercial charters by the Crown to establish overseas colonies. These proprietors were then granted the authority to select the governors and other officials in the colony.
A lord proprietor is a person granted a royal charter for the establishment and government of an English colony in the 17th century. The plural of the term is "lords proprietors" or "lords proprietary".
The colonial period of South Carolina saw the exploration and colonization of the region by European colonists during the early modern period, eventually resulting in the establishment of the Province of Carolina by English settlers in 1663, which was then divided to create the Province of South Carolina in 1712. European settlement in the region of modern-day South Carolina began on a large scale after 1651, when frontiersmen from the English colony of Virginia began to settle in the northern half of the region, while the southern half saw the immigration of plantation owners from Barbados, who established slave plantations which cultivated cash crops such as tobacco, cotton, rice and indigo.
A charter is a document that gives colonies the legal rights to exist. Charters can bestow certain rights on a town, city, university, or other institution.
Lieutenant-General Francis Nicholson was a British Army general and colonial official who served as the governor of South Carolina from 1721 to 1725. He previously was the Governor of Nova Scotia from 1712 to 1715, the Governor of Virginia from 1698 to 1705, the Governor of Maryland from 1694 to 1698, the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia from 1690 to 1692, and the Lieutenant Governor of the Dominion of New England from 1688 to 1689.
The Revolution of 1719 was a bloodless military coup in the Province of South Carolina which resulted in the overthrow of the Lords Proprietors and the installation of Colonel James Moore, Jr. as the colony's de facto ruler. The Revolution of 1719 led to the permanent end of proprietary rule in South Carolina and its recreation as a crown colony.
