Thirteen Colonies

Main article: Colonial history of the United States

The Thirteen Colonies were British colonies from New Hampshire to Georgia that declared independence in July 1776 as the United States of America. The colonies were founded between 1607 (Virginia), and 1733 (Georgia); other colonies of the British Empire (in the West Indies and modern Canada) remained loyal to the crown.

The original thirteen states (in chronological order of their ratification of the United States Constitution: Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island). The borders of these colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence were not entirely the same as those of the modern states, and contained territory that would later be part of another five states: Vermont, Tennessee, Maine, and West Virginia.

The colonies

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  British colonies in North America, circa 1750. 1: Newfoundland; 2: Nova Scotia; 3: The Thirteen Colonies; 4: Bermuda; 5: Bahamas; 6: British Honduras; 7: Jamaica; 8: British Leeward Islands and Barbados
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  North American colonies 1763-76, illustrating and territorial claims
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  In 1775, the British claimed authority over the red and pink areas on this map and Spain claimed the orange. The red area is the area of settlement; most lived within 50 miles of the ocean.
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  State land claims based on colonial charters, and later cessions to the U.S. government, 1782-1802

Contemporaneous documents usually list the thirteen revolutionary colonies of British North America in geographical order, from the north to the south.

New England Colonies

• 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 and Providence Plantations
• Connecticut Colony, later Connecticut

Middle Colonies

• Province of New York, later New York and Vermont
• 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

(Virginia and Maryland comprised the 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 in 1685 by a decree from King James II that consolidated Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Province of New York, East Jersey, and West Jersey into a single larger colony. The experiment was discontinued with the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, and the nine former colonies re-established their separate identities in 1689.

Province of 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.

Saybrook Colony

Founded in 1635 and merged with Connecticut Colony in 1644.

New Haven

Settled in late 1637. New Haven was absorbed by Connecticut Colony with the issuance of the Connecticut Charter in 1662, partly as royal punishment by King Charles II for harboring the regicide judges who sentenced King Charles I to death.

East and 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 two colonies, North Carolina and South Carolina in 1712. Both colonies became royal colonies in 1729.

Population

(Note: the population figures do not account for the native tribes outisde the jurisdiction of the colonies; they do include slaves and indentured servants.)

Year	Population
1625	1,980
1641	50,000
1688	200,000
1702	270,000
1715	434,600
1749	1,046,000
1754	1,485,634
1765	2,240,000
1775	2,418,000

At the time of the Revolutionary War, approximately 85 percent of the white population was of English, Irish, Welsh, and Scottish descent. People of German origin represented 8.8 percent of the white population, and those of Dutch origin represented 3.5 percent of the colonists. Church membership was widespread, with over 98% of the members in protestant denominations; there were Catholic settlements in Maryland, and small Jewish communities in Charleston, Newport and New York City. The populations continued to grow at a rapid rate throughout the 18th century primarily because of high birth rates, relatively low death rates, and fluctuating flows of immigrants from Britain and Germany. Over 90% were farmers, with several small cities that were also seaports linking the colonial economy to the larger British Empire.

See also

• Colonial American military history
• New Sweden
• New Netherland
• Colonial America
• Colonial government in the Thirteen Colonies
• British colonization of the Americas

References

• 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
• Greene, Evarts Boutelle et al., American Population before the Federal Census of 1790, 1993, ISBN 0806313773
• Greene, Evarts Boutelle. Provincial America, 1690-1740. 1905. online
• Osgood, Herbert L. The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century. 4 vol Columbia University Press, 1904-07. online
• Vickers, Daniel, ed. A Companion to Colonial America. Blackwell, 2003. 576 pp.