British America

Native Americans potentially have evidence of settlement in modern Illinois in as early as 5000 BCE, and in the Ohio River Valley in as early as 350 BCE. In the Hopewellian period from 200 BCE to 500 CE, numerous Native American tribes formed around what would later be New England due to ideal agricultural conditions. Major groups of this area include the Algonquians, Hurons, Mohicans, and Susquehannocks.

Around 1570 CE, in modern New York state, five native tribes—the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca peoples—formed a confederation ruled through participatory democracy, known as the Iroquois Confederacy. It was highly efficient at governing the region, and played an important part in the politics of later British and French colonies.^[2]

Around the start of the second millennium CE, two settlements on the modern Canadian island of Newfoundland were established by Norse viking explorers, which were soon abandoned and the next known European settlement in North America occurred some 500 years later.^[3]

In 1526, Spain founded the San Miguel de Gauldape colony in either modern Georgia or the Carolinas. It lasted for a few months.^[4] In 1534, France explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence, starting fur trade with the natives, and eventually what became their colony New France.^[5] In 1559, Spain founded a settlement at modern Pensacola, Florida, which was abandoned by 1561. In 1570, Spanish Jesuits founded the Ajacán Mission at Chesapeake Bay in modern Virginia, but they were killed by the local Powhatan people. In 1589 or 1599, a French colony was founded at Sable Island in Nova Scotia, but the colony had failed by 1603; another French colony at Saint Croix Island in modern Maine also existed from 1604 to 1607.^[4] In 1604, near the Gulf of St. Lawrence, France started a new colony later named Quebec.^[5]

In 1585, the British 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.^[6] In 1587, around 115 colonists led by Governor John White settled back at Roanoke.^[7][6] White went back on a ship to England to get supplies for the colony, but his return was delayed by English's conflict with the Spanish Armada. In August 1590, White returned back to the colony, which had been abandoned. Left behind was an inscription on a post that said "CROATOAN" and a carving into a tree that said "CRO".^[6] Where the colonists went to in those years is considered a mystery. However, "Croatoan" was the name of an island south of Roanoke where Native Americans lived.^[7]

A number of English colonies were established in America between 1607 and 1670 by individuals and companies whose investors expected to reap rewards from their speculation. They were granted commercial charters by Kings James I, Charles I, and Charles II, and by the British Parliament. Later, most colonies were founded, or converted to, royal colonies. In 1607, the London Company (fully titled the Virginia Company of London, but better known as the "Virginia Company") founded the first permanent settlement on the James River at Jamestown, Virginia upstream from Chesapeake Bay. English settlement in the Somers Isles (or Islands of Bermuda), 640 miles off Cape Hatteras, began in 1609 with the wreck of the Sea Venture, leaving the Virginia Company in de facto possession of Bermuda. The company's charter was extended in 1612 to officially encompass the archipelago, and settlers were despatched to join the three men remaining there from the Sea Venture (and plans were begun for an under-company that would become the Somers Isles Company).^[8]

In the Caribbean, the British West Indies and other European sugar colonies were at the center for the Atlantic slave trade.^[9][10][11]

 

This was followed, in 1620, with the Pilgrims establishing the Plymouth settlement in New England. English Catholics settled the Province of Maryland in 1634, under Cecilus Calvert, second Lord Baltimore.^[12][13]

The Anglo-Powhatan Wars were fought between the British colonists at Virginia and the local Powhatan people between 1610 and 1646.^[14][15]

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.^[16]

 

In 1664, the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam at modern New York City became under control of the British, who renamed it to New York.^[17]

King Philip's War was fought from 1675 to 1676 between in New England between the local natives and English colonists with their native allies.^[18][19]

British America gained large amounts of territory with the Treaty of Paris of 1763, which ended the French and Indian War in America and the Seven Years' War in Europe.^[20][21][22]

At the start of the American Revolutionary War in 1775, the British Empire included 23 colonies and territories on the North American continent.^[23][24]

The Treaty of Paris of 1783 ended the Revolutionary War, and Britain lost much of this territory to the newly formed United States.^[25]

Following the 1783 recognition of the independence of the colonies that would form the United States of America, 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, 1,236 km (768 mi) south of Nova Scotia, and 1,538 km (956 mi) north of the British Virgin Islands, and handily placed for naval and amphibious operations against its nearest neighbour, the nascent United States, during the 19th century), remains as a British Overseas Territory today.

The Thirteen Colonies that became the original states of the United States were:

New England Colonies

• Province of Massachusetts Bay
• Province of New Hampshire
• Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations^[26][27]
• Connecticut Colony

Middle Colonies

• Province of New York
• Province of New Jersey
• Province of Pennsylvania
• Delaware Colony

Southern Colonies

• Province of Maryland
• Colony of Virginia
• Province of North Carolina
• Province of South Carolina
• Province of Georgia

Colonies and territories that became part of British North America (and from 1867 the Dominion of Canada):

• Province of Quebec northeast of the Great Lakes (including Labrador until 1791)
• Nova Scotia (including New Brunswick until 1784)
• Island of St. John
• Rupert's Land
• North-Western Territory
• British Arctic Territories

Colonies that became part of British North America (but which would be left out of the 1867 Confederation of Canada):

• Bermuda
• Newfoundland Colony

Colonies and territories that were ceded to Spain or the United States in 1783:

• Province of East Florida (Spanish 1783–1823, U.S. after 1823)
• Province of West Florida (Spanish 1783–1823, U.S. after 1823)
• Indian Reserve (U.S. after 1783)
• Province of Quebec southwest of the Great Lakes (U.S. after 1783)

Divisions of the British Leeward Islands

• Saint Christopher (de facto capital)
• Antigua
• Barbuda
• British Virgin Islands
• Montserrat
• Nevis
• Anguilla

Island of Jamaica and its dependencies

• Island of Jamaica
• Settlement of Belize in British Honduras
• Mosquito Coast
• Bay Islands
• Cayman Islands
• Old Providence Island Colony

Other possessions in the British Windward Islands

• Island of Barbados
• Island of Grenada
• Island of St. Vincent
• Island of Tobago (detached from Grenada in 1768)
• Island of Dominica (detached from Grenada in 1770)

 

The Home Office was formed on 27 March 1782, responsible for the administration of all British territory, within and without the British Isles, taking over the administration of the British colonies, including those of British North America, from the Board of Trade. Dissatisfaction with the then Home Secretary (who oversaw the Home Office), William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, during two decades of war with the French Republic led to colonial business being transferred to the War Office in 1801, which became the War and Colonial Office, with the Secretary of State for War was renamed the Secretary of State for War and Colonies. From 1824, the British Empire was divided by the War and Colonial Office into four administrative departments, including NORTH AMERICA, the WEST INDIES, MEDITERRANEAN AND AFRICA, and EASTERN COLONIES, of which North America included:^[28]

North America

• Upper Canada, Lower Canada
• New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island
• Bermuda, Newfoundland

The Colonial Office and War Office, and the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Secretary of State for War, were separated in 1854.^[29][30] The War Office, from then until the 1867 confederation of the Dominion of Canada, split the military administration of the British colonial and foreign stations into nine districts: North America And North Atlantic; West Indies; Mediterranean; West Coast Of Africa And South Atlantic; South Africa; Egypt And The Sudan; INDIAN OCEAN; Australia; and China. North America And North Atlantic included the following stations (or garrisons):^[31]

North America and North Atlantic

• New Westminster (British Columbia)
• Newfoundland
• Quebec
• Halifax
• Kingston, Canada West
• Bermuda

The Colonial Office, by 1862, oversaw eight Colonies in British North America,^[32] including:

North American Colonies, 1862

• Canada
• Nova Scotia
• New Brunswick
• Prince Edward Island
• Newfoundland
• Bermuda
• Vancouver Island
• British Colombia

By 1867, administration of the South Atlantic Ocean archipelago of the Falkland Islands, which had been colonised in 1833, had been added to the remit of the North American Department of the Colonial Office.^[33]

North American Department of the Colonial Office, 1867

• Canada
• Nova Scotia
• New Brunswick
• Prince Edward Island
• Newfoundland
• Bermuda
• Vancouver Island
• British Colombia
• Falkland Islands

Following the 1867 confederation, Bermuda and Newfoundland remained as the only British colonies in North America (although the Falkland Islands also continued to be administered by the North American Department of the Colonial Office).^[34] The reduction of the territory administered by the British Government would result in re-organisation of the Colonial Office. In 1901, the departments of the Colonial Office included: North American and Australasian; West Indian; Eastern; South African; and West African (two departments).^[35] In 1907, the Colony of Newfoundland became the Dominion of Newfoundland, leaving the Imperial fortress of Bermuda as the sole remaining British North American colony. By 1908, the Colonial Office included only two departments (one overseeing dominion and protectorate business, the other colonial): Dominions Department (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Newfoundland, Transvaal, Orange River Colony, Australian States, Fiji, Western Pacific, Basutoland, Bechuanaland Protectorate, Swaziland, Rhodesia); Crown Colonies Department. The Crown Colonies Department was made up of four territorial divisions: Eastern Division; West Indian Division; East African and Mediterranean Division; and the West African Division. Of these, the West Indian Division now included all of the remaining British colonies in the Western Hemisphere, from Bermuda to the Falkland Islands.^[36]

• Evolution of the British Empire
• British colonization of the Americas
• Colonial history of the United States
• Former colonies and territories in Canada
• British colonization of Australia
• British colonization of New Zealand
• British North America Acts
• British overseas territories