Thirteen Colonies
The British colonies along North America’s Atlantic coast that declared independence in 1776 and became the original United States.
English colonization of the Americas: England’s establishment of settlements and territorial claims in the Americas from the sixteenth century onward. It began the Atlantic settlement that eventually produced the thirteen colonies.
New England Colonies: The British colonies of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island in northeastern North America. Their towns, churches, and maritime trades formed one distinctive regional group.
Navigation Acts: A series of English and British laws regulating colonial trade and shipping to benefit the empire. Their enforcement exposed the colonies to imperial control over commerce.
Massachusetts Bay Colony: An English colony founded in 1630 that became the political and economic center of New England. Its leaders and ports played central roles in resistance to British rule.
American Revolutionary War: The armed conflict from 1775 to 1783 in which Britain and its allies fought the rebellious American colonies and their supporters. Victory secured the independence proclaimed by the colonies.
Jamestown: The English settlement founded in Virginia in 1607, the first permanent English colony in North America. Its survival established a durable English foothold south of New England.
Middle Colonies: The British colonies of Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania in the mid-Atlantic region. Their ethnic and religious diversity distinguished them from neighboring colonial regions.
French and Indian War: The North American theater of the Seven Years’ War, fought from 1754 to 1763 between Britain and France and their allies. Its costs and territorial settlement helped provoke new British taxes and colonial resistance.
Virginia Colony: An English colony founded at Jamestown in 1607 that became a major tobacco-producing colony. Its plantation economy and political institutions strongly shaped the southern colonies.
Articles of Confederation: The first constitution of the United States, in force from 1781 until it was superseded in 1789. The former colonies first organized their union under this deliberately limited national government.