EARLY COLONIAL HISTORY AND AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

Britain was not the only European country that acquired territory in North America. Spain, France and the Netherlands also made significant inroads. Spain's interests continued until the early nineteenth century when they were passed to Mexico. Place names today, for example Los Angeles, San Francisco, Louisiana, New Orleans, Baton Rouge and, in Canada, Québec, Montréal and Trois-Rivières, give an indication of their colonial roots. The Dutch had New Amsterdam, which became the present New York City. With the exception of Canada, the interests of Spain and France in those places would later be acquired by the United States through war, diplomacy or outright purchase. Britain's possessions in America, the 13 colonies, were confined to the East Coast where the settlers gave their towns the names of familiar English towns, for example Boston, Cambridge, Portsmouth and Rochester. The 13 colonies eventually broke away from Britain and declared their independence in 1776 to form the United States.

Queen Elizabeth I of England died in 1603 and was succeeded by her Scottish cousin James VI of Scotland who also took the title James I of England, thereby uniting the crowns of the two nations. These were the heady days of exploration beginning to open up the New World, and after moving to England James did not allow the dust settle in his new role. On 10 April 1606, in one of his earliest acts, he granted royal charters to two companies – the London Company and the Plymouth Company – for the purpose of founding colonies in Virginia. The charters allocated territory to each. The London Company was quick off the mark and in 1607 established the first permanent British settlement at a site that it named, somewhat sycophantically, Jamestown. The Plymouth Company made an unsuccessful attempt to establish a colony in Maine. However, in 1620, after several years of inactivity, it received a new charter and a new name, the Council for New England. By then, other settlers from Britain had set sail, the best known being the Puritans, the so-called Pilgrim Fathers, who arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the Mayflower in 1620. By 1624, Virginia had outlived the original purpose of the London Company, which was dissolved, and became a full-fledged crown colony. The British presence in America increased dramatically, and by 1733 there were 13 colonies, all on the East Coast. In order of founding these were Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Rhode Island, Delaware, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, NewJersey, South Carolina and Georgia.

Distance from London, long delays in receiving and sending communications and hazardous sea voyages for administrators and military personnel all contributed to the necessity of having devolved colonial administrations run by local politicians and officials. So, in many respects, the American colonies ran their affairs relatively independently while still being ruled from London and under the Westminster Parliament's jurisdiction. But they still needed to make their voices heard in London, so they appointed Colonial Agents to represent their interests to the British government in England. They were usually merchants or politicians and could be either individuals sent out from the colonies on a temporary basis to reside in London or Englishmen who had never been to America. After the end of the seventeenth century the colonial governments realised that their interests would be better served with permanent representatives in London to serve as their lobbyists. Some, like Benjamin Franklin, represented more than one colony This arrangement ended after independence. However, by 1763 the seeds of revolt and a campaign for independence from Britain were already evident. A remarkable, for the time, feature was the extent of debate and counterargument within the colonies about rule from London that was expressed in written publications, for example in newspapers 'of which by 1775 there were thirty-eight in the mainland colonies. [...] Above all, there were pamphlets [...] [and it] was in this form [...] that much of the most important and characteristic writing of the American Revolution appeared.'

Taxation is never a popular measure, and it became the major source of resentment for the colonists because it did not give them representation in the Parliament in London. As taxpayers, they felt that they ought to be represented, hence their popular slogan 'No taxation without representation.' The American colonies were regarded solely as an easy source of income for British governments, particularly to meet the ever-increasing costs of maintaining the locally based military establishments. The colonists' resentment was understandable, because the legislation passed by the British government, beginning with the Navigation Acts (1651-1696), the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Act (1765), the Townshend Act (1767) and the Tea Act (1773), most certainly favoured the economic and trade interests of Britain and not those of the colonies. During the first half of 1774 the Coercive Acts, known in America as the Intolerable Acts, were passed. These were designed to punish Massachusetts for the so-called Boston Tea Party in 1773 when in an act of defiance against duties imposed on tea under the Tea Act of that year crowds boarded ships in Boston and dumped their cargoes of tea into the harbour. The Coercive Acts covered a wide range of topics, such as the government and administration of justice in Massachusetts, stopping the port of Boston from trading until compensation had been paid for the dumped tea, powers relating to the quartering of troops and almost as an afterthought the regulation of government in Québec. This raft of legislation was the last straw to the colonists. In September 1774, representatives of 12 of the colonies met together in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress. Despite the strength of...