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 open to settlement after the Proclamation of 1763.

The Thirteen Colonies were British colonies in North America founded between 1607 (Virginia), and 1732 (Georgia). Although Britain held a dozen additional colonies in North America and the West Indies, the colonies referred to as the "thirteen" are those that rebelled against British rule in 1775. (Seven other British colonies did not join the rebellion.) The 13 formed a national government under the Second Continental Congress, called themselves "The United Colonies," and formally proclaimed their independence as the United States of America on July 4, 1776--which political scientists call, "The First New Nation."

The Colonies

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

• 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
  • 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, Virginia 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

North American colonies 1763-76

• 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 late 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

Bibliography

• Adams, James Truslow. The Founding of New England. (1921). online
• 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
• Greene, Evarts Boutelle. Provincial America, 1690-1740. 1905. online
• Lipset, Seymour Martin. The First New Nation (The United States in Historical and Comparative Perspective) (1967)
• Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (1985) online edition
• Miller, John C. Triumph of Freedom, 1775-1783 (1948) online edition
• Osgood, Herbert L. The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century. 4 vol Columbia University Press, 1904-07. online
• Taylor, Alan. American Colonies (2001)
• Vickers, Daniel, ed. A Companion to Colonial America. Blackwell, 2003. 576 pp.