Category: British America

Categories: Great Britain | British History | US History | Colonial America


Part of the United Kingdom Project

This category refers to the lands on the American continent that formed, initially, up to 1708, English and Scottish America, and then after the Acts of the Union, became British America.

First occupied, under English rule, in 1607, British America was managed from Westminster, the capital of Great Britain, and officially know as British America and the British West Indies.

Although generally peaceful the region was caught up in the major European Wars of the day, in particular those between Britain and France and between Britain and Spain. There were two chief armed rebellions (in Virginia in 1676 and in New York in 1689–91) but both were short-lived failures. Wars between the French and the British in what became United States and Wars between Britain and Spain in the Caribbean were recurrent.

1700 - 1714; War of the Spanish Succession. The death of Charles II of Spain in 1700 and his bequeathal of Spain and its colonial empire to Philip of Anjou, a grandson of the King of France, raised British fears of the unification of France, Spain and their colonies. In 1701, then England, Portugal, and the Dutch Republic sided with the Holy Roman Empire against Spain and France in the War of the Spanish Succession. The conflict lasted until 1714, until France and Spain finally lost. At the concluding Treaty of Utrecht, Spain lost its empire in Europe, and, although it kept its empire in the Americas and the Philippines, it was irreversibly weakened as a great power. The new British Empire, based upon what until 1707 had been the English overseas possessions, was enlarged: from France, Great Britain gained Newfoundland and Acadia, and from Spain it gained Gibraltar and Minorca. The North American Theatre became known as Queen Anne's War.

1755 - 1764 ; Seven Years' War. Is often regarded as the first global war and engagements were fought in every region of the globe. The conflict in India is termed the Third Carnatic War, while the fighting between Prussia and Austria is called the Third Silesian War. In the English-speaking British colonies in North America that became the United States it is known as the French and Indian War, whereas Canada knows it as the Seven Years' War. The war between Britain and Spain from 1761-1763 was called the Anglo-Spanish War. The war was successful for Great Britain, which gained the bulk of New France in North America, Spanish Florida, some individual Caribbean islands in the West Indies, the colony of Senegal on the West African coast, and superiority over the French trading outposts on the Indian subcontinent.

1775 - 1783; American Revolutionary War. Started following resentment, primarily because of a failure to distribute land gained as a result of the Seven Years' War to local recipients, towards the British Parliament's ability to tax colonists in North America without their consent, and allowing the French in Canada to retain their institutions, it flared into a violent insurrection. Starting in 1775, the American Revolutionary War began, as the Americans trapped some of the British Army in Boston and suppressed the Loyalists who supported the Crown. In 1776 the Americans declared the independence of the United States of America. In 1777 and again in 1781, the American forces captured two main British armies. As a result of the furore raised in Great Britain, King George III lost control of Parliament. Parliament gained control over the ability to wage war and forced the Treaty of Paris by which Great Britain relinquished the Thirteen Colonies that had rebelled against the Crown and recognised the United States. Other colonies in British North America, (Canada, Nova Scotia, St John's Island and Newfoundland) did not join, where some of these areas were unsuccessfully invaded during the Revolution in an attempt to coerce their inclusion in the new republic.


1812- 1814; War of 1812 Restriction of U.S trade by Great Britain along with the Royal Navy’s impressment of American seamen combined with America’s desire to expand its territory. The United States failed in it's attempt to take over Canada and other British North American lands.

See also Category: British North America.

For Scots in the Settlement and Development of The United States see the work by MacDougall.

See also: Wikipedia

Subcategories (17)


Person Profiles (3)

abt 1724 Stratford, Fairfield, Connecticut Colony - abt 1814
21 Feb 1737 Overwharton Parish, Stafford, Virginia - abt 1820 photo
25 Feb 1757 Connecticut Colony - 25 Feb 1826




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