Early British Attempts to Colonize

The first serious attempts to establish English colonies overseas were made in the last quarter of the 16th century, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Financed by the Muscovy Company, Martin Frobisher set sail in 1576, seeking the Northwest Passage. In August of 1576, he landed at Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island. In 1578, he reached the shores of Greenland and made an unsuccessful attempt at founding a settlement in Frobisher Bay. At the same time, between 1577 and 1580, Sir Francis Drake was circumnavigating the globe. In 1579, he landed somewhere on the western coast of North America, claiming the area for Elizabeth as "New Albion."

The Founding of Roanoke

In 1584, Queen Elizabeth I granted Sir Walter Raleigh a charter for the colonization of an area of North America which was to be called Virginia. Raleigh and Elizabeth intended that the venture should provide riches from the New World and a base from which to send privateers on raids against the treasure fleets of Spain. He called his new privately-funded colony, Roanoke, and founded it on an island off the coast of present-day North Carolina, where it would be relatively isolated from existing settlements in North America. 

The colony was small, consisting of only 117 people, who suffered a poor relationship with the local American Indians, the Croatans, and struggled to survive in their new land. Their governor, John White, returned to England in late 1587 to secure more people and supplies; by the time he returned in 1590, the entire colony had vanished. The only trace the colonists left behind was the word "Croatoan" carved into a fence surrounding the village. Governor White never knew whether the colonists had decamped for nearby Croatoan Island (now Hatteras) or whether some disaster had befallen them all. Roanoke is still called “the Lost Colony” today.

The Beginning of the Thirteen Colonies

England made its first successful efforts at the start of the 17th century. Most of the new English colonies established in North America and the West Indies, whether successful or otherwise, were proprietary colonies. Proprietors were appointed to found and govern settlements under mercantile charters granted to joint stock companies. Soon, there was a rapid increase of English colonial activity, driven by the pursuit of new land, trade, and religious freedom. 

The Thirteen Colonies were the colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America, starting with Virginia in 1607, and ending with Georgia in 1733. The colonies were Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts Bay, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Each colony developed its own system of self-government. 

Jamestown

In 1606, James I sold a charter containing lands between present-day South Carolina and the U.S.-Canada border to two competing groups of investors. The Plymouth Company was given the northern portions, and the London Company was given the southern portions. The Northern Plymouth settlement in Maine faltered and was abandoned. However, the London Virginia Company created the first successful English overseas settlements at Jamestown in 1607. Its first years were extremely difficult, with very high death rates from disease and starvation, wars with local American Indians, and little gold. The colony survived and flourished by developing tobacco as a cash crop for the colony; it served as a beginning for the colonial state of Virginia.

London Company and Plymouth Company Grants

This map illustrates the 1606 grants by James I to the London and Plymouth companies. The overlapping area (shown in yellow) along the northeastern coast of the United States was granted to both companies on the stipulation that neither found a settlement within 100 miles (160 km) of each other. The location of the Jamestown Settlement ("J") is shown just south of the overlapping area, 60 miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. 

Massachusetts Bay Colony

The Puritans (a much larger group than the Pilgrims) established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629 with 400 settlers. They fled England, and in America, they attempted to create a "nation of saints" or a "City upon a Hill"—an intensely religious community designed to be an example for all of Europe. Other colonists who disagreed with the Puritans in Massachusetts settled to the north, mingling with adventurers and profit-oriented settlers to establish more religiously diverse colonies in New Hampshire and Maine.

Unlike the cash crop-oriented plantations of the Chesapeake region, the Puritan economy was based on the efforts of self-supporting farmsteads who traded only for goods they could not produce themselves. Along with agriculture, fishing, and logging, New England became an important mercantile and shipbuilding center, serving as the hub for trading between the southern colonies and Europe.

The Middle Colonies and Colonial South

The Middle Colonies, consisting of the present-day states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, were characterized by a large degree of religious, political, economic, and ethnic diversity. In 1664, England took over the Dutch colony of New Netherland, including New Amsterdam, and renamed it the Province of New York. Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 as a proprietary colony of the Quaker, William Penn.

The colonial South included the plantation colonies of the Chesapeake region—Virginia and Maryland—and the lower South colonies of Carolina and Georgia. Carolina was not settled until 1670. The original settlers in South Carolina established a lucrative trade in provisions, deerskins, and American Indian captives with the Caribbean Islands. The settlers came mainly from the English colony of Barbados and brought African slaves with them.

Population Growth 

By 1640, 20,000 settlers had arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Between the late 1610s and the American Revolution, the British shipped an estimated 50,000 convicts to its American colonies; the first convicts in the colonies arrived before the Mayflower. After 1700, most immigrants to Colonial America arrived as indentured servants—young unmarried men and women seeking a new life in a much richer environment. Philadelphia became the center of the colonies; by the end of the colonial period, 30,000 people lived there, having come from diverse nations and practicing numerous trades.

By 1776, about 85% of the white population in the British colonies was of English, Irish, Scottish, or Welsh descent, with 9% of German origin and 4% Dutch. These populations continued to grow at a rapid rate throughout the 18th century, primarily because of high birth rates and relatively low death rates. Immigration was a minor factor from 1774 to 1830. Over 90% of people were farmers. Several small cities that were also seaports linked the colonial economy to the larger British Empire.