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.
More about: Thirteen ColoniesDefinition
Timeline
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1619House of Burgesses is convened; first English representational government in the Americas.
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1619First African slaves arrive in Jamestown; possibly treated as indentured servants.
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1620 - 1691Plymouth Colony established in modern-day Massachusetts, North America; foundational colony of the later United States.
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1620 - 1621The passengers and crew of the Mayflower sail from Europe to North America and establish the Plymouth Colony in modern-day Massachusetts, United States of America.
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1628 - 1630Establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony led by Puritans seeking to evangelize the native population of North America.
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1630 - c. 1740Puritans exert almost complete control over governmental policies in New England and influence other colonies on the eastern coast of North America.
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1632Maryland Colony founded.
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1636Roger Williams establishes the colony of Providence Plantation (later known as Providence, Rhode Island).
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1636Connecticut Colony founded.
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1638New Haven Colony founded.
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1641Massachusetts Bay Colony passes first law defining and legalizing slavery in the colonies.
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c. 1660 - c. 1677Slave laws passed in Virginia; racial slavery institutionalized in the English colonies.
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1663Province of Carolina founded (later known as North and South Carolina).
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1664Provinces of New York, New Jersey, Delaware founded.
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1675 - 1678King Philip's War in which thousands are killed as the Native Americans try to defend their land and way of life from increasing European colonization of the Americas.
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1681Pennsylvania founded.
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1691Plymouth Colony is absorbed into the Massachusetts Bay Colony under the latter's new charter.
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1699Jamestown is abandoned in favor of Williamsburg as colonial capital of Virginia.
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1733Province of Georgia founded.
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c. 1763Spain's Florida colony taken by the English after the French and Indian War.
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31 May 1765The Virginia House of Burgesses passes the Virginia Resolves, asserting the colonists' rights as Englishmen and denying Parliament's authority to tax them.
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16 Dec 1773A party of colonial Bostonians, some dressed as Mohawks, dump 342 crates of tea into Boston Harbor, in the Boston Tea Party.
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Mar 1774 - Jun 1774British Parliament passes the Intolerable Acts to punish the Thirteen Colonies for the Boston Tea Party.
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19 Apr 1775The Battles of Lexington and Concord kick off the American War of Independence.
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4 Jul 1776The Second Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence; the United States of America is established.
