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Initial Contacts with the English
English connections with the North American continent are somewhat longer than most people realise. It is not clear when West Country fishermen discovered the extremely rich fishing grounds off of the North American continent but it did not take them long to exploit the resource once it was known about. John Cabot, in the service of Henry VII had set out to try and find the fabled North West Passage to India and the Orient. He was only to find Newfoundland and the barren windswept lands to the N -
Permanent Settlements
In 1604, peace was signed between England and Spain. At a stroke, English energies, capital and ambition were released and could be fully directed at the North American continent. In 1606 America was divided into two by the English. The whole Atlantic sea-board was referred to as Virginia, North Virginia (soon to be New England) was reserved as a monopoly for merchants and fishermen from Plymouth in South West England. South Virginia, was set aside as a monopoly for investors and settlers from L -
Return to the Crown
The direction of government was to take a sudden and unexpected change in 1660, when King Charles II was reinstated and crowned. While most of the colonies prudently adjusted to the change in government, Massachusetts fell into decades of dispute and discontent over the matter.
Unexpectedly, the new King was to prove himself more interested in colonial affairs than any of his predecessors. He renewed the Navigation Acts which gave the colonies a monopoly for their tobacco and exports to England -
Defence and Dissension
Relationships with Indians were tense at the best of times. The settlers insatiable demand for land was a constant threat to relations, but any differences could usually be settled by negotiation. There were exceptions to this, in both Virginia and Massachusetts there were serious struggles in the 1670s, but essentially, the Indians were not too concerned with losing rights to land, as long as there was more land further West for them to use in its place. In fact, invariably, the warring nature -
Economics of Empire
The thirteen colonies in the Eighteenth century were probably the places with the highest standard of living in the world. Cheap land and abundant natural resources allowed settlers opportunities they could only dream of back in Britain.
Surprisingly, the colonies traded little with each other. Most of the goods and services they required were produced back in Britain. This lack of colony trade enabled each of the colonies to remain quite distinctive from one other - socially and economically. -
Defence and Dissension 2
Between 1739 and 1763 fully fledged wars broke out all along the frontier; stretching from Canada to New Orleans. American colonists were keen to join the regular British Army in a series of battles along the wilderness frontier. It was the world wide fighting of the Seven Years War (1756 - 63) that finally put the nail in French ambitions in North America. General Wolfe's capture of Quebec in 1759 was to lay all the French possessions at the mercy of the British. The French duly withdrew from -
Great Britain in the Seven Years' War
The Kingdom of Great Britain was one of the major participants in the Seven Years' War which lasted between 1756 and 1763. Britain emerged from the war as the world's leading colonial power having gained a number of new territories at the Treaty of Paris in 1763 and established itself as the world's pre-eminent naval power.
The war started poorly for Britain, suffering several defeats to France in North America during 1754-55 and losing Minorca in 1756. The same year Britain's major ally Austri -
French and British go to War
British forces under General Wolfe defeated the French under General Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham, outside Quebec. Both generals died in the battle. The British went on to seize Montreal, the Great Lakes area, and the Ohio River valley. The French were forced to make peace. By the Treaty of Paris, the French transferred Canada and the lands east of the Mississippi to England. Spain, ally of the French, transferred Spanish Florida to British control. In return, the French gave their Louisia -
Revolution
In 1765, the British government imposed a stamp duty on all official documents in the colonies. The idea was to help pay for the rising defence costs of the colonies - the majority of which was still being borne by the British government. The 13 disparate colonies suddenly found a common voice in their antipathy towards this taxation. They argued that they did not need to pay direct taxation for defence as they already contributed to their defensive costs by submitting to the Navigation Acts. Th -
Revolution 2
Britain's response deeply concerned all of the other colonies; heavy fines were imposed and the port was to remain closed until the tea had been paid for. Many colonists deduced that their rights could not be safe guarded against the whims of a British government and they prepared themselves for war as they declared themselves independent in 1776. It was not easy to conduct a war three thousand miles away against an extremely prosperous people, even if only a third of them were actively hostil
