British North American Colonies
The British presence in North America began in the late sixteenth century, when English explorers, settlers, and merchants began to establish colonies along the Atlantic seaboard. By the mid-eighteenth century, the British Empire in North America included the thirteen colonies that would become the United States, the French territories of Canada that had been conquered during the Seven Years’ War, and various smaller settlements. The American Revolution of 1775–1783 transformed the political map of the continent, but British North America continued as a major part of the empire in the form of Canada.
This article examines the British North American colonies, from their establishment in the early seventeenth century to the achievement of Canadian Confederation in 1867. The articles linked throughout explore specific events, regions, and themes in greater depth.
The Thirteen Colonies
The thirteen colonies of eastern North America were the first major English-speaking settlements in the New World. Established over more than a century, from the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to the establishment of Georgia in 1733, the thirteen colonies formed a string of British possessions along the Atlantic coast, from Massachusetts in the north to Georgia in the south.
The thirteen colonies can be divided into three broad regions. The New England colonies (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire) were founded largely by religious dissenters from the Church of England, particularly the Puritans. The middle colonies (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware) were more ethnically and religiously diverse, including large populations of Dutch, German, and Scots-Irish settlers. The southern colonies (Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia) were characterized by tobacco, rice, and indigo plantations, often worked by enslaved Africans.
The economic life of the thirteen colonies was dominated by agriculture, but the region was also an important market for British manufactured goods and a major supplier of raw materials, including tobacco, rice, indigo, and (in the eighteenth century) naval stores. The British Navigation Acts attempted to bind the colonies more tightly to the imperial economy by regulating trade and ensuring that colonial commodities reached Britain before being re-exported to other countries. The American Revolution from the British perspective explores the political tensions that developed between Britain and the colonies.
The American Revolution
The American Revolution (1775–1783) was the first major colonial revolt against British rule and the most significant territorial loss in the history of the empire. The causes of the revolution were complex, including disputes over taxation, the lack of colonial representation in Parliament, the British military presence in North America after the Seven Years’ War, and the ideological appeal of republican ideas.
The war began with the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, and the Declaration of Independence was issued in July 1776. The British military effort was hampered by logistical difficulties, political disagreements, and the entry of France, Spain, and the Netherlands into the war. The decisive American victory at Yorktown in October 1781 effectively ended major combat, and the 1783 Treaty of Paris recognized the independence of the United States.
The American Revolution from the British perspective examines the war’s causes, course, and consequences — including why the most powerful empire in the world failed to suppress a colonial rebellion it had every structural advantage to win. The loss of the thirteen colonies was a profound shock to the British political class and led directly to the strategic reorientation that produced the Second British Empire.
The Conquest of Canada
The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), often described as the first true world war, gave Britain control of most of France’s North American empire. The British conquest of New France, completed by the capitulation of Montreal in 1760, brought the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton under British rule. The 1763 Treaty of Paris confirmed these gains.
The integration of French Canada into the British Empire was a major political and constitutional challenge. The British North America Act of 1774, known as the Quebec Act, recognized the rights of French Canadians to practice their Catholic religion and to use French civil law, while reserving English criminal law and the procedures of the English legal system. The Act also extended the boundaries of Quebec to include the Ohio Valley, a decision that contributed to American resentment and was one of the “Intolerable Acts” that helped to precipitate the American Revolution.
The history of British Canada traces the development of Canada from the Quebec Act to Confederation. The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided Quebec into Upper Canada (predominantly English-speaking, in present-day Ontario) and Lower Canada (predominantly French-speaking, in present-day Quebec). The War of 1812 between Britain and the United States produced a wave of British and Canadian patriotism and reinforced the political distinctiveness of Canada.
The Path to Canadian Confederation
The decades following the War of 1812 saw the gradual achievement of responsible government in the Canadian colonies. The 1837–1838 rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada, led by William Lyon Mackenzie and Louis-Joseph Papineau respectively, prompted the British government to dispatch Lord Durham to investigate. The Durham Report of 1839 recommended the union of Upper and Lower Canada, the establishment of responsible government, and the gradual assimilation of French Canadians into English-speaking culture. The recommendations were implemented in part, with the union of the two Canadas in 1841 and the gradual introduction of responsible government in the 1840s.
By the 1860s, the political integration of the British North American colonies was being driven by several factors: the threat of American expansionism in the wake of the Civil War, the desire for economic union, and the completion of the inter-colonial railway. The British North America Act of 1867, passed by the British Parliament, united the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick into the Dominion of Canada. The Dominion was structured as a federation, with a strong central government and provincial governments responsible for local matters.
The history of British Canada traces the full arc from the Quebec Act and the rebellions of 1837–1838 through the Durham Report and responsible government to Confederation.
Newfoundland, the Maritimes, and the West
The Atlantic provinces of Canada — Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island — had distinct political trajectories. Nova Scotia was one of the earliest British North American colonies, having changed hands between France and Britain several times before being firmly secured by the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. The colony was the site of the founding of Halifax in 1749 and the expulsion of the Acadians in 1755. New Brunswick was separated from Nova Scotia in 1784 in the wake of American Loyalist immigration. Prince Edward Island was separated from Nova Scotia in 1769 and did not join Confederation until 1873.
Newfoundland had a particularly distinctive history. The island had been visited by English fishermen since the late fifteenth century, and it was formally claimed for England by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583. Newfoundland was governed as a fishing station rather than a settlement colony for most of its early history, and the resident population was small. Responsible government was achieved in 1855, and Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949.
The western provinces of Canada — Manitoba (1870), British Columbia (1871), Saskatchewan and Alberta (1905) — were added to the Dominion over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The history of British Canada examines the western expansion and its consequences for indigenous peoples and for the national character of the Dominion.
The British North America Act and the Canadian Constitution
The British North America Act of 1867 was the constitutional foundation of the Canadian state. The act established a federal union of four provinces, with a strong central government modeled on the British parliamentary system. The act was passed by the British Parliament at the request of the Canadian political class, and it represented a significant step in the evolution of Canada from colony to dominion.
The British North America Act was renamed the Constitution Act, 1867, in 1982, when Canada also achieved full constitutional independence from Britain through the Canada Act of 1982. Until that point, the act could only be amended by the British Parliament, and Canada’s highest court of appeal was the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.
Full constitutional independence came only with the Canada Act of 1982, which gave Canada the right to amend its own constitution without reference to the British Parliament — ending the last formal constitutional link to Britain. The American Revolution from the British perspective explores the political tensions that preceded the loss of the thirteen colonies and the long shadow that loss cast over British imperial thinking for the next century.