Thirteen Colonies

In 1775, the British claimed authority over the red and pink areas on this map and Spain ruled the orange. The red area is the area of the 13 colonies after the Proclamation of 1763. (Map produced by U.S. Dept. of Interior)

The Thirteen Colonies were British colonies in North America founded between 1607, with the settlement of Virginia, and 1732, with the settlement of Georgia. Although Britain held additional colonies in North America and the West Indies, the colonies referred to as the "thirteen" are those that called themselves the "United Colonies," set up the Continental Congress, rebelled against Great Britain in 1775, and formally proclaimed their independence as the United States of America on July 4, 1776.

The Colonies

Contemporaneous documents tended to list the colonies of British North America (of which there were 20 at the time of the rebellion) in geographical order, roughly from north to south. The thirteen colonies were listed as follows (the division into three regions is largely a later construct of historians, though New England was always considered to be a distinct region):

• New England:
  • Province of New Hampshire, later New Hampshire
  • Province of Massachusetts Bay, later Massachusetts and Maine
  • Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, later Rhode Island
  • Connecticut Colony, later Connecticut.
• Middle Colonies:
  • Province of New York, later New York and Vermont^[1]
  • Province of New Jersey, later New Jersey
  • Province of Pennsylvania, later Pennsylvania
  • Delaware Colony (before 1776, the Lower Counties on Delaware), later Delaware
• Southern Colonies (depending on the subject under discussion, Virgina and Maryland may be separated as Chesapeake Colonies):
  • Province of Maryland, later Maryland
  • Colony and Dominion of Virginia, later Virginia, Kentucky and West Virginia
  • Province of North Carolina, later North Carolina and Tennessee
  • Province of South Carolina, later South Carolina
  • Province of Georgia, later Georgia

Other divisions prior to 1730

• Dominion of New England - Created by King James II with the consolidation of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, East Jersey, and West Jersey into a single "super-colony" in 1685. The experiment was discontined with the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, and the nine former colonies re-established their separate identies in 1689.
• Maine - Settled in 1622. (An earlier attempt to settle the Popham Colony on Sagadahoc Island, Maine in 1607 was abandoned after only one year.) Massachusetts Bay colony encroached into Maine during the English Civil War, but, with the Restoration, autonomy was returned to Maine in 1664. Maine was officially merged into Massachusetts Bay Colony with the issuance of the Massachusetts Bay charter of 1691.
• Plymouth Colony - Settled in 1620 by the Pilgrims. Plymouth was absorbed by Massachusetts Bay Colony with the issuance of the Massachusetts Bay charter of 1691.
• New Haven - Settled in 1637. New Haven was absorbed by Connecticut Colony with the issuance of the Connecticut Charter in 1662.
• East Jersey - New Jersey was divided into two separate colonies in 1674. The Jerseys were reunited in 1702.
• West Jersey - New Jersey was divided into two separate colonies in 1674. The Jerseys were reunited in 1702.
• Province of Carolina - Founded in 1663. Carolina colony was divided into North Carolina and South Carolina in 1712. (Both colonies became royal colonies in 1729.)

See also

• British North America
• Colonial America
• Colonial government in America
• History of the United States (1776-1789): Independence and the American Revolution
• American Revolution
• History of the United States
• British colonization of the Americas

Notes

1. ^ The present State of Vermont was disputed between the colonies of New York and New Hampshire. From 1777 to 1791, it existed as the de facto independent Vermont Republic.

Bibliography

• Charles M. Andrews. The Colonial Period of American History 4 vol (1934-38).
• Blanco, Richard. The American Revolution: An Encyclopedia 2 vol (1993)
• Cooke, Jacob Ernest et al., ed. Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies. Scribner's, 1993. 3 vol; 2397 pp.
• Gipson, Lawrence. The British Empire Before the American Revolution (15 volumes) (1936-1970), Pulitzer Prize; highly detailed discussion of every British colony in the New World
• Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (1985)
• Miller, John C. Triumph of Freedom, 1775-1783 (1948)
• Taylor, Alan. American Colonies (2001)
• Vickers, Daniel, ed. A Companion to Colonial America. Blackwell, 2003. 576 pp.

External links

• British North American Colonies to 1783 - Military History & Institutions
• The Avalon Project at Yale Law School: Colonial Charters, Grants and Related Documents
• 13 Originals: Founding the American Colonies, a page that gives a brief history of all the colonies.
• Classics of American Colonial History, scholarly books and articles published before 1923.

Categories

Find

Find