The Thirteen Colonies were a cluster of British colonies located along the Atlantic seaboard of North America. Founded for a variety of reasons – economic, political, and religious – the colonies emerged with their own distinct governments, colonial charters, and cultures, but were bound together through their shared language, history, religion (Protestantism), and allegiance to the British Crown. During the American Revolution (1765-1789), these colonies banded together to cast off British rule and emerged as a new nation, the United States of America.
Traditionally, the Thirteen Colonies have been grouped into three categories, divided by geography as well as by culture. The New England Colonies, comprising the northeasternmost part of the map, were founded primarily by Puritans seeking religious freedom, and included the colonies of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The Middle Colonies, including New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, were known for their diverse economies and equally diverse populations and were sometimes called the 'breadbasket colonies'. The last category was the Southern Colonies, which were founded as agrarian societies based around cash crops like tobacco and rice and included Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
Foundations: Chesapeake & New England
In the late 16th century, emboldened by its recent colonial successes in Ireland, the Kingdom of England turned its attention to the New World. By then, the English were about a century behind other European powers, like Spain, Portugal, and France, which had already established both permanent and temporary colonies in the Americas. Having taken note of the riches flowing across the Atlantic and filling the coffers of these countries – as well as the pockets of the men who funded such colonial enterprises – a group of prominent English noblemen pooled their resources to fund a colonial expedition of their own in the 1580s. Their first attempt, the Roanoke Colony, was a disastrous failure. Located off the coast of modern-day North Carolina, the colony was founded on infertile soil and was beset by hostile Native American neighbors. By 1590, it had been inexplicably abandoned, the fate of its settlers unknown to this day. The failure of Roanoke stalled all English attempts at New World colonization for the next decade and a half. Then, in 1606, King James I of England (reign 1603-1625) granted charters to two companies, the Plymouth Company and the Virginia Company of London, to found colonies in North America.
In 1607, the Plymouth Company founded the Popham Colony in modern-day Maine, which lasted about a year before failing. For a while, it seemed as if the colony established that same year by the Virginia Company – Jamestown – would suffer the same fate. Situated along Chesapeake Bay, the Jamestown colony of Virginia struggled to persist as starvation, disease, and Native American warfare killed off its settlers in large numbers. During the brutal winter of 1609-10, a period known as 'the Starving Time', as many as 350 of the estimated 500 Jamestown colonists died, and the survivors were reduced to eating rats, dogs, horses, and, eventually, the bodies of the dead. This dismal situation was reversed in 1611 when one newcomer, John Rolfe (1585-1622), experimented with a new strain of tobacco seed he had brought from Bermuda. The seed took well to the fertile Chesapeake soil, and before long, tobacco had become the cash crop of Virginia. By 1624, the colony was producing 200,000 pounds of the plant, a number that soared to 3 million pounds by 1638; by then, Virginia had outstripped the West Indies as the main exporter of tobacco to Europe. This enterprise was incredibly lucrative, leading to the foundation of a second Chesapeake tobacco colony, Maryland, in 1632.
As the Chesapeake colonies began to flourish, a new set of colonies was developing in the north. Driven out of England by religious persecution from the Anglican Church, 102 Puritan religious separatists – better known today as the 'Pilgrims' – anchored off the coast of Massachusetts in November 1620, aboard the ship Mayflower. Initially bound for the fertile lands north of Virginia, they had been blown off course and instead found themselves in a colder climate with stony soil and dense forests. In the bitter winter that followed the establishment of the Plymouth Colony, nearly half of these settlers died. Then, in the spring of 1621, the surviving colonists were saved by the intervention of Native Americans like Squanto (1585-1622) and Samoset (1590-1653), who taught them how to plant corn, beans, and squash, a trifecta of crops referred to by the indigenous people as the 'three sisters'. This newfound agricultural knowledge allowed Plymouth to survive and, before long, to expand. In 1630, a large wave of Puritan settlers, called the 'Great Migration', came over from England. Led by John Winthrop (1588-1649), these newcomers established the Massachusetts Bay Colony, hoping to build a society based on strict Puritan values. Eventually, the original Plymouth Colony would be absorbed into Massachusetts.
Growth & Populations
By midcentury, both the Chesapeake and New England colonies had begun to prosper, which, in turn, led to their expansion. In the case of the former, 120,000 emigrants came over from England during the 17th century, seduced by the promise of riches offered by the lucrative tobacco trade. Most of these fortune seekers were poor, young men who could not afford the £6 price of the transatlantic crossing. They came over instead as indentured servants, promising to work for a contracted period of time (usually seven years) in exchange for passage to Virginia as well as 'freedom dues', like money or land, once their indenture expired. Although indentured servants were not slaves, their freedoms were limited during their service, and they were often overworked and exposed to harsh conditions. They also had to worry about the balmy Chesapeake climate, which harbored diseases like typhoid, malaria, and dysentery that their English immune systems were not used to. A large percentage of indentured servants died before their indentures were up. But those who survived received farms of their own, and their children were born with better immunity to the climate. Gradually, the Chesapeake colonies expanded until, by 1700, their free population numbered 85,000.
New England, too, saw significant growth during this period. Its settlers, however, were less concerned with earthly riches than with the betterment of their souls – most of them, therefore, were manufacturers, shopkeepers, or farmers of the middling class, who could pay their own passage across the ocean. The cooler northern climate gave them healthier and longer lifespans than the Chesapeake colonists, allowing their population to grow at a faster rate and spawning a cluster of new colonies. The colony of Connecticut was founded by Puritan zealots who thought that the Massachusetts government had not gone far enough in their devotion. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the colony of Rhode Island was founded as a haven for all religions by Roger Williams (1603-1683) after he had been banished from Massachusetts by its theocratic magistrates. The final New England colony, New Hampshire, emerged as a fishing and trading hub. The New Englanders were an industrious people who prospered through small-scale farming, fishing, and trade, with Boston becoming a major port town. By 1700, the region boasted a population of 91,000, outstripping the other English colonies.
Middle & Southern Colonies
In 1664, England acquired the Dutch colonies situated along the Hudson River, which were reorganized as the Province of New York. Named after the Duke of York – the future King James II of England (reign 1685-1688) – the province had been occupied by Dutch traders as well as powerful landowners called patroons, who were allowed to stay due to the wealth that they generated. New York also attracted large groups of German, Scandinavian, French Huguenot (Protestant), and Flemish settlers, giving it one of the most diverse populations in British America.
That same year, the Province of New Jersey was founded, although it was initially split into two parts; East Jersey was settled by Scottish Protestants, while West Jersey was home to English Quakers. It was not until 1702 that the two Jersies were united under one colonial government. In 1680, the king granted 45,000 square miles (116,550 km²) of land along the Delaware River to William Penn (1644-1718), a Quaker who owned large tracts of land in Ireland. Penn set up his colony, Pennsylvania, as a haven for his fellow Quakers and administered it himself. He advocated for religious tolerance and representative government and was known for fostering good relations with the Lenape Native Americans. In 1702, the semi-autonomous Delaware Colony split off from Pennsylvania. These four Middle Colonies produced grains like wheat and rye, earning them the nickname 'breadbasket colonies'. They also became the center of American shipbuilding and textile manufacturing, while New York City and Philadelphia turned into major trade hubs.
To the south, the colony of Carolina was founded in 1663 by a group of wealthy English planters from Barbados. Having found that Caribbean island too crowded, they decided to settle the fertile lands below the Chesapeake, initially farming commodities like corn, lumber, and pork. It was not until the 1690s that the Carolinians stumbled upon their own cash crop, rice. Afterward, the prosperity of Carolina skyrocketed, and slaves were imported from the West Indies to labor on the rice plantations; more than perhaps any other colony, Carolina was founded on the back of slave labor. In 1729, political differences between the Carolinian ruling class led the colony to split into North Carolina and South Carolina. In 1732, Georgia was established to serve as a sort of buffer zone between the Carolinas and the hostile Spanish settlements in Florida. It was founded by James Oglethorpe (1696-1785), who hoped to turn it into a slave-free utopia based on religious freedom and social equality. Oglethorpe's vision quickly broke down, as Georgia colonists wished to emulate the success of the Carolinas, which they argued could only be done with slave labor; in 1751, Georgia decided to allow slavery and began to emulate the plantation-based society of the Carolinas.
Governments
Generally, each of the Thirteen Colonies fell into one of three administrative categories: charter colony, royal colony, or proprietary colony. Charter colonies – aka, corporate colonies – were established by joint-stock companies that had been granted royal charters by the Crown. These companies, such as the Virginia Company, were allowed a large degree of autonomy in the way they ran their colonies, and were allowed to select colonial governors, make laws, and incentivize settlement. Royal colonies, as the name suggests, were administered by officials appointed by the Crown; Virginia, for example, became the first royal colony after the Virginia Company went bankrupt in 1624. Finally, proprietary colonies were run by private individuals or groups of individuals called 'proprietors', who had been granted the land by the Crown and could administer it as they saw fit. Proprietary colonies included Maryland, which had been granted to Lord Baltimore, and Pennsylvania, the property of the Penn family.
Each colony was overseen by a governor with executive authority, who was appointed either by the Crown or the colony's proprietor. Depending on the time and place, a colonial governor could be quite powerful; Edmund Andros (1637-1714), for example, caused controversy when he governed New York without a legislature, and exerted authoritarian control as governor of the short-lived Dominion of New England (1686-1689). Governors had the power to veto legislative bills, as well as summon or dissolve legislatures. They were supported by the Governor's Council, an advisory body comprised of prominent colonial citizens that also acted as the upper chamber of the colonial legislature. The lower chamber, the representative assembly, was made up of officials elected by the colony's propertied citizens, who met at least once a year. Virginia's House of Burgesses, established in 1619, was the first of these assemblies and served as a model for the other colonies. The colonists prized self-governance and often looked to these representative assemblies to protect their rights, especially in the initial years of the Revolution. In some instances, these assemblies wielded more power than the colonial governors, leading to power struggles.
Indian Warfare & Slavery
As the colonies continued to grow, they inevitably came into conflict with the indigenous peoples upon whose lands they were encroaching. From the earliest days of Jamestown, English colonists waged war with the Native Americans; fighting over the same land and limited resources, this warfare assumed a particularly brutal character since both sides were struggling for survival. The burning of villages, destruction of crops, and massacre of families became commonplace, leading to a cycle of tit-for-tat violence. One of the bloodiest of these conflicts was King Philip's War (1675-1678), in which a coalition of Native American nations under Metacomet (aka King Philip) tried to resist the growing power of New England. Thousands of people were killed in the conflict, and New England was devastated. The war ended after the death of Metacomet, when his followers were either killed, enslaved, or expelled by the English. Other Native American nations allied with the English colonies, hoping to use their power to crush their own indigenous rivals. The Iroquois Confederacy famously formed an alliance with New York, known as the 'Covenant Chain', against their Algonquin enemies.
Just as colonial growth led to war with the Native Americans, so too, did it lead to the rise of chattel slavery. The first African slaves set foot on Virginian soil in 1619, and the institution gradually spread into all Thirteen Colonies in the decades that followed. While wealthy New Englanders certainly owned slaves, the institution was much more prominent in the Southern Colonies, where slave labor eventually became preferable to indentured servitude. At first, planters treated their slaves like indentured servants, permitting them to manage their own property and, occasionally, even freeing them after a certain number of years. But as slavery took root and the enslaved population multiplied, slaveholders became increasingly terrified of prospective slave revolts; as a result, they imposed greater restrictions on their slaves, whom they treated with a greater degree of brutality. In 1700, an estimated 27,000 Africans were enslaved across British North America. By 1775, on the eve of the American Revolution, that number had skyrocketed to 460,000, about one-fifth of the entire colonial population. The institution was, therefore, deeply ingrained in American society and would not be expunged until the American Civil War (1861-1865).
Mercantilism & Salutary Neglect
The economic relationship between Great Britain and its colonies was defined by mercantilism. As practiced by Britain, mercantilism referred to the idea that a nation's wealth was measured by the accumulation of gold and silver in its reserves, as well as a favorable balance of trade. To achieve this, Britain used its colonies as a source of raw material and as a market for finished goods; for example, the colonists would send tobacco or timber to Britain, which would be processed and sold back to them. In 1660, Parliament passed the Navigation Acts, which restricted colonial trade with foreign merchants, promoting English shipping and encouraging a mercantilist relationship. This certainly caused resentment among colonial merchants that would simmer until the Revolution. Most colonists were placated, however, by Parliament's policy of salutary neglect; that is, Parliament was content to allow the colonies to administer themselves so long as they remained profitable to the mother country. The century before the Revolution was characterized by salutary neglect and mercantilist trade policies, a deal seen by many as mutually beneficial.
Road to Unification
Throughout the 17th century, the colonies regarded themselves as separate polities, bound to one another only through their shared allegiance to the British Crown. But this would change in the four great colonial wars of the late 17th and 18th centuries, which included King William's War (1689-1697), Queen Anne's War (1702-1713), King George's War (1744-1748), and the French and Indian War (1754-1763). These wars gave the colonists a common enemy – France – and bound them together through their military service to the Crown. Indeed, it was during the last of these conflicts that Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) produced his famous 'Join or Die' political cartoon, urging the colonies to band together against the French enemy. The colonists, of course, were also bound by a common identity; even though many of them had been in the New World for generations, they still considered themselves Britons who were entitled to all the constitutional 'rights of Englishmen'.
The most important of these 'rights' was that of self-governance; this appeared to be violated in the aftermath of the French and Indian War, when Parliament imposed a series of taxes on the colonies. This outraged many colonists, including firebrands like Samuel Adams (1722-1803), who argued that since no Americans were represented in Parliament, it had no constitutional authority to tax them; any attempt to do so was tantamount to 'tributary slavery'. Parliament disagreed, claiming the colonists were virtually represented in the same manner as those Englishmen who owned no property and could not vote. As this struggle continued throughout the 1760s, the colonies banded closer together in opposition to the 'tyrannical' policies of Parliament. In 1774, when Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party, the colonies stood in solidarity with their New England cousin and formed the First Continental Congress to coordinate a resistance. It was this unification that led to the American Revolution and, ultimately, the transformation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States.
