English colonies in North America. Countries - former colonies of Great Britain

There are a large number of legends and stories of brave navigators of varying credibility, long before Columbus visited North America. Among them were Chinese monks who had landed in California about the 5th century, and Spanish, Portuguese, Irish missionaries and travelers who allegedly visited the mainland in the 6th, 7th and 9th centuries. The area of North America is 24.7 million square meters. Km. This rich land, naturally, was a welcome catch for many countries.

The most reliable information is the reports of Norwegian navigators who visited the mainland in the 10-14 centuries. But the Norman settlements fell into decay as early as the 14th century, leaving no noticeable traces in the cultural connection between the peoples of the European and American continents. In this sense, North America was rediscovered in the 15th century. Previously, other Europeans did it precisely the British.

The first expeditions of the British

The discovery by the British of America marked the beginning of the voyage of John Cabot (otherwise his name sounds like Giovanni Cabbotto or Gabotto) and Sebastian, his son, who were, strictly speaking, not native Britons, but Italians in the service of England. Having received from the king two caravels, Cabot was obliged to find a sea route leading to China. Apparently, in 1497, he reached the shores of Labrador (where, by the way, he met the Eskimos), and, perhaps, Newfoundland, where he met the painted red ocher Indians.

This was the first meeting of Europeans with the "redskins" of North America in the 15th century. In 1498 the expedition of the Cabot reached the coast of this continent again.

The first practical result of this was the discovery of the richest fish shoals off the shores of the already mentioned Newfoundland. Whole flotillas of fishing vessels from England were pulled here, their number was growing every year.

Beginning of colonization

The colonization of North America began in the 17th century. By this time, the English already had competitors in the face of the Spaniards and the French, who also sought to colonize this continent. The Government of England believed that Canada is the natural possession of Britain in America, since the Canadian coast was discovered by the expedition of Cabot long before the French. Attempts to found the possessions were carried out in the 16th century, but were unsuccessful: the British did not find gold, and neglected farming. Only the beginning of the 17th century the first English colonies appeared. They were agricultural.

Thus, the 17th century was the first stage of the colonization of this continent.

The first permanent English colonies in North America in the 17th century

Capitalism in England developed largely due to the success of foreign trade, as well as the creation of monopoly trading companies in the colonies. For this purpose, two trading firms were set up, with significant funds: London (Varginskaya, or South) and Plymouth (North). They were organized by subscription to the units. Royal letters of England transferred to the disposal of these firms lands that are between 34 and 41 ° north latitude, and also unrestrictedly deep into the country. Britain acted as if this territory belonged to its government, and not to the Indians.

Virginia

Sir Hamilton Gilbert received the first charter authorizing the founding of the American colony. Before staying and starting work, he carried out an exploration expedition to Newfoundland, but on the way back he crashed. Thus, Gilbert's rights passed to Sir Walter Reilly, his relative, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth herself. In 1584 he decided to found a colony south of the Chesapeake Bay and named it Virginia (in honor of the "queen-virgin") (from the Latin virgo - girl). The English map of America, thus, was replenished with one more possession. The following year, another group of colonizers went to settle in the current state of North Carolina, on the island of Roanoke. At the end of the year, they returned to their home country, because the chosen location was dangerous to health. Among these colonists was John White, a famous artist. He brought a lot of sketches from the life of algoikins - local Indians. The fate of another group, which arrived in 1587 in Virginia, is unknown.

A Virginia commercial company in the early 17th century implemented a project to create a colony, proposed by Walter Reilly. From this enterprise, large incomes were expected. At its own expense, the company delivered immigrants who had to work for four to five years of their debt.

The place for the colony founded in 1607 was chosen by Jemstown, but the choice was unsuccessful. The place was unhealthy, with a lot of mosquitoes, marshy. In addition, the British soon became enemies of the Indians. Skirmishes with them and diseases in a few months have claimed the lives of about two-thirds of the colonists.

Life was organized in a military way. The colonists were gathered twice a day together and sent out to work in the field, each evening they went back to dinner and for prayer in Jemstown. John Rolf, who took the "princess" Pocahontas, the daughter of the leader of the local tribe of the Poles, married himself, since 1613 began to grow tobacco. Since then, this product has long been an important income item for the colonists and the Virginian company. The latter, encouraging immigration, gave them land allotments. Spent the cost of the road from England to America, the poor also received an allotment, for which they paid fixed payments.

Maryland and Virginia

Later, in 1624, when Virginia (the territory of North America) began to be considered a royal colony, and control of it passed into the hands of the governor appointed by the king, this duty became a kind of land tax. Even more immigration of the poor. So, if in 1640 the population of the colony was 8 thousand inhabitants, then in 1700 there were already 70 thousand of them. In Maryland, another British colony founded in 1634, immediately after the foundation, Lord Baltimore endowed colonists, large entrepreneurs and planters with land. The modern map of America preserved the names of these and other colonies of that time as states.

Both Maryland and Virginia specialized in the production of tobacco and therefore depended heavily on British imported goods. In the large plantations of these colonies, the main labor force was the poor who were taken out of England. "Bonded servants," as they were called, throughout the 17th century, constituted the bulk of immigrants to Maryland and Virginia.

Settlers

Their work very soon, however, was replaced by the slave labor of the Negroes, from the first half of the 17th century being supplied to the southern English colonies in North America. The first large batch of them was delivered in 1619 to Virginia.

Among the colonists from the 17th century there were also free settlers. The "pilgrims' fathers" went to the Plymouth northern colony, English Puritans, some of whom were sectarians who fled England from religious persecution. In November 1620, a ship with pilgrims moored to Cape Codu cape. Half of them died in the first winter, as the settlers, mostly urban residents, could neither cultivate the land, nor hunt, nor fish. Only with the help of the Indians, who taught the arrivals to grow corn, the rest of them eventually survived and even was able to pay the debts for the journey. Founded by sectarians from Plymouth, the colony was called New Plymouth.

Massachusetts

The Puritans, who were oppressed during the reign of the Stuarts, founded the Massachusetts colony in North America in 1628. The Puritan Church had great power in this colony. The local resident only got the right to vote if he belonged to the church and had a good preacher's recommendation. Only one fifth of the male population had the right to vote under this procedure.

Later, during the English Revolution, the map of the British colonies expanded. There were new possessions. In the English colonies in North America began to arrive, "cavaliers" - emigrant aristocrats, who did not want to put up with the established revolutionary regime in the country. They settled, mainly in Virginia, the southern colony.

Caroline

The eight courtiers of King Charles II in 1663 received a gift of land located south of Virginia, and founded here a colony of Carolina (which later divided into North and South). Enriched the landowners of Virginia, the culture of tobacco has spread here. However, in some areas, such as the Shenandoah Valley in the west of Maryland, as well as in the wetlands of South Carolina south of Virginia, there were no conditions for cultivating this crop. Here rice was bred, as well as in Georgia.

Carolina's courtiers wanted to get rich by cultivating rice, sugar cane, flax, hemp, silk, indigo, that is, goods that are scarce in England and imported from other states. Here in 1696 the Madagascar variety of rice was imported. Its cultivation has since become the main occupation of local residents for a hundred years. Rice was bred on the seashore and riverine marshes. Hard work was placed on the shoulders of Negro slaves, which accounted for about half of the population in 1700. In the current state of South Carolina, that is, in the southern part of the colony, slavery was established even more firmly than in Virginia. Large slave-owners-planters had in Charleston, the cultural and administrative center of the colony, rich houses. The heirs of its first owners in 1719 sold their crown to the Crown.

North Carolina, where most of the refugees from Virginia (who were sheltered from excessive taxes and debts by small farmers) and Quakers, lived in a different way. There were very few Negro slaves and large plantations. In 1726, North Carolina became an English colony.

In all possessions the population was replenished, mainly by settlers from Scotland, England and Ireland.

New York

Much more colorful was the population of another colony: New York (the former Dutch possession of the New Netherlands) with New Amsterdam (the present city of New York). After she was captured by the British, she went to the Duke of York, brother of Charles II, the English king. By that time, there were no more than 10 thousand inhabitants who spoke 18 languages. The Dutch influence was great, although the natives of this country did not constitute the majority. Traces of it still remain: American language includes Dutch words, and the architectural style of the Netherlands has left its imprint on the current appearance of American towns and cities, of which modern North America is composed. Photo of New York in 1851 see below.

The growth of colonization

Colonization of North America by the British was very large-scale. This continent was represented by the land promised to the European poor. Here they planned to escape from religious persecution, harassment of large landowners and debts.

Recruits were recruited to America by various entrepreneurs, even they organized real raids on them. The agents at the taverns drank people. They were drunk as they were recruited to the ships and taken to the English colonies in North America.

One by one the English possessions appeared. Rapidly increased and their population. The agrarian revolution in Britain, which contributed to the mass deprivation of the peasants' allotments, drove out of England a lot of poor people who wanted to get a new land in the colonies.

On the mainland in 1625 there were only 1980 colonists, and in 1641 - already 50 thousand people from England, not to mention other residents. In another 50 years the population increased to 200 thousand. In 1760, it amounted to 1.955 million residents, of which 310 were Negro slaves. Five years later, the number of colonists increased almost two-fold.

War with the Indians

For a long time, the colonists waged a war of destruction against the Indians, taking away their land. Only in a few years, from 1706 to 1722, the tribes of Virginia were exterminated almost completely, despite the "related" ties linking their mighty leader with the English.

In New England, in the north, the Puritans used other means: they bought land from the Indians with the help of "trade deals." Later this gave rise to historians to assert that the ancestors of the Americans did not seize the lands of the Indians and did not encroach upon their freedom, but concluded treaties with them. For a string of beads, for a handful of gunpowder, etc., you could "buy" a huge piece of land. And the Indians, who did not know about the existence of private property, usually did not know about the contents of the concluded deal. In the recognition of legal validity, the colonialists were driven from the lands of former owners, and if they did not agree to leave, they exterminated them. Particularly violent were religious fanatics from Massachusetts. As the church preached, the beating of the Indians was pleasing to God. So many of the indigenous people died .

Pennsylvania

Some exception in this cruel policy of the destruction of the indigenous Indians was Pennsylvania, founded in 1682 by the rich Quaker William Penn, the son of the English admiral, for his followers in his native country, like-minded people. They tried to maintain friendly relations with local residents. However, when in 1744-1748 and 1755-1763 there were wars between the French and English colonies, the Indians who formed an alliance with the first were involved in it and were forced out of Pennsylvania (North America). Photo of modern Pittsburgh, located on the territory of the former colony, see below.

Colonization in the 19th century

The colonization of North America continued in the 19th century. In the first third of it, significant changes occurred in the economic and social development of the British possessions in North America. Modern Canada includes former English colonies.

In the 19th century, about half a million immigrants entered Canada, the British ownership of the same name, and the general population of the colonies exceeded 1 million people. The basis of the economy was sawmilling , farming and shipbuilding. There were manufactories. But the basis of production in the colonies was still a small craft. The English products imported into the colony choked local production. So social contradictions also have become aggravated. Colonial officials, speculators and business dealers appropriated lands destined for the local population. These and other contradictions led to the uprising in Upper and Lower Canada in 1837-1838. They were suppressed, and their leaders were publicly executed.

After the suppression of the insurrections, the British colonial administration decided to continue assimilation of the Franco-Canadians, and in 1841 issued the Union Act, according to which the Upper and Lower Canada, former colonies of Great Britain, were united under the name Canada. This law was an act of colonial violence and gross arbitrariness.

Colonies of Great Britain in the 19th century

Great Britain at that time had extensive overseas possessions. In the middle of the 19th century, the area of North America belonging to England consisted of the following colonies: Nova Scotia, Canada, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and British Columbia, located on the Pacific coast and separated from the rest of the possessions by thousands of kilometers.

In the 60-ies, Britain set a course for the unification of its colonies. In 1867, the "Dominion Canada" was formed, uniting the former colonies of Great Britain into one state. It included provinces English-speaking Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, as well as French-speaking Quebec. The Constitution of Canada was adopted in the same year.

Countries - former colonies of Great Britain, were thus united under one flag.