THE US AND UK HISTORY

Early exploration and colonizations of America

Following the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492, Spain and Portugal established colonies
in the New World, beginning the European colonization of the Americas. France and England, the
two other major powers of 15th-century Western Europe, employed explorers soon after the return of
Columbus's first voyage. In 1497, King Henry VII of England dispatched an expedition led by John
Cabot to explore the coast of North America, but the lack of precious metals or other riches
discouraged both the Spanish and English from permanently settling in North America during the
early 17th century.
Later explorers such as Martin Frobisher and Henry Hudson sailed to the New World in search of
a Northwest Passage between the Atlantic Ocean and Asia, but were unable to find a viable
route.] Europeans established fisheries in the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, and traded metal,
glass, and cloth for food and fur, beginning the North American fur trade. During mid-1585 Bernard
Drake launched an expedition to Newfoundland which crippled the Spanish and Portuguese fishing
fleets there from which they never recovered. This would have consequences in terms of English
colonial expansion and settlement.
In the Caribbean Sea, English sailors defied Spanish trade restrictions and preyed on Spanish
treasure ships. The English colonization of America had been based on the English colonization of
Ireland, specifically the Munster Plantation, England's first colony, using the same tactics as
the Plantations of Ireland. Many of the early colonists of North America had their start in colonizing
Ireland, including a group known as the West Country Men. When Sir Walter Raleigh landed in
Virginia, he compared the Native Americans to the wild Irish. Both Roanoke and Jamestown had
been based on the Irish plantation model.
In the late sixteenth century, Protestant England became embroiled in a religious
war with Catholic Spain. Seeking to weaken Spain's economic and military power,
English privateers such as Francis Drake and Humphrey Gilbert harassed Spanish shipping.
[11]
Gilbert proposed the colonization of North America on the Spanish model, with the goal of creating
a profitable English empire that could also serve as a base for the privateers. After Gilbert's
death, Walter Raleigh took up the cause of North American colonization, sponsoring an expedition of
500 men to Roanoke Island. In 1584, the colonists established the first permanent English colony in
North America,[12] but the colonists were poorly prepared for life in the New World, and by 1590, the
colonists had disappeared.
There are a variety of theories as to what happened to the colonists there. The most popular theory
is that the colonists left in search of a new area to settle in the Chesapeake, leaving stragglers to
integrate with local Native American tribes.[13] A separate colonization attempt in Newfoundland also
failed.[14] Despite the failure of these early colonies, the English remained interested in the
colonization of North America for economic and military reasons.
EARLY COLONIZATION (1607-1630)
In 1606, King James I of England granted charters to both the Plymouth Company and the London
Company for the purpose of establishing permanent settlements in North America. In 1607, the London
Company established a permanent colony at Jamestown on the Chesapeake Bay, but the Plymouth
Company's Popham Colony proved short-lived. Approximately 30,000 Algonquian peoples lived in the
region at the time.[16] The colonists at Jamestown faced extreme adversity, and by 1617 there were only
351 survivors out of the 1700 colonists who had been transported to Jamestown.[17] After the Virginians
discovered the profitability of growing tobacco, the settlement's population boomed from 400 settlers in
1617 to 1240 settlers in 1622. The London Company was bankrupted in part due to frequent warring
with nearby American Indians, leading the English crown to take direct control of the Colony of Virginia,
as Jamestown and its surrounding environs became known.[18]

In 1609, the Sea Venture, flagship of the English London Company, better known as the Virginia
Company, bearing Admiral Sir George Somers and the new Lieutenant-Governor for Jamestown, Sir
Thomas Gates, was deliberately driven onto the reef off the archipelago of Bermuda to prevent its
foundering during a hurricane on the 25th of July. The 150 passengers and crew built two new ships, the
Deliverance and Patience and most departed Bermuda again for Jamestown on 11 May 1610. Two men
remained behind, and were joined by a third after the Patience returned again, then departed for
England (it had been meant to return to Jamestown after gathering more food in Bermuda), ensuring
that Bermuda remained settled, and in the possession of England and the London Company from 1609
to 1612, when more settlers and the first Lieutenant-Governor arrived from England following the
extension of the Royal Charter of the London Company to officially add Bermuda to the territory of
Virginia.

Between the late 1610s and the American Revolution, the British shipped an estimated 50,000 to
120,000 convicts to their American colonies.[20]

Meanwhile, the Plymouth Council for New England sponsored several colonization projects, including a
colony established by a group of English Puritans, known today as the Pilgrims.[21] The Puritans
embraced an intensely emotional form of Calvinist Protestantism and sought independence from the
Church of England.[22] In 1620, the Mayflower transported the Pilgrims across the Atlantic, and the
Pilgrims established Plymouth Colony in Cape Cod. The Pilgrims endured an extremely hard first winter,
with roughly fifty of the one hundred colonists dying. In 1621, Plymouth Colony was able to establish an
alliance with the nearby Wampanoag tribe, which helped the Plymouth Colony adopt effective
agricultural practices and engaged in the trade of fur and other materials.[23] Farther north, the English
also established Newfoundland Colony in 1610, which primarily focused on cod fishing.[24]

The Caribbean would provide some of England's most important and lucrative colonies,[25] but not
before several attempts at colonization failed. An attempt to establish a colony in Guiana in 1604 lasted
only two years and failed in its main objective to find gold deposits.[26] Colonies in St Lucia (1605) and
Grenada (1609) also rapidly folded.[27] Encouraged by the success of Virginia, in 1627 King Charles I
granted a charter to the Barbados Company for the settlement of the uninhabited Caribbean island of
Barbados. Early settlers failed in their attempts to cultivate tobacco, but found great success in growing
sugar.[25]

The Americans break away, 1763–1783

The British subjects of North America believed the unwritten British constitution
protected their rights and that the governmental system, with the House of
Commons, the House of Lords, and the monarch sharing power found an ideal
balance among democracy, oligarchy, and tyranny .However, the British were
saddled with huge debts following the French and Indian War. As much of the
British debt had been generated by the defense of the colonies, British leaders
felt that the colonies should contribute more funds, and they began imposing
taxes such as the Sugar Act of 1764.[95] Increased British control of the Thirteen
Colonies upset the colonists and upended the notion many colonists held: that
they were equal partners in the British Empire.[96] Meanwhile, seeking to avoid
another expensive war with Native Americans, Britain issued the Royal
Proclamation of 1763, which restricted settlement west of the Appalachian
Mountains. However it was effectively replaced five years later thanks to the
Treaty of Fort Stanwix.[97] The Thirteen Colonies became increasingly divided
between Patriots opposed to Parliamentary taxation without representation,
Loyalists who supported the king. In the British colonies nearest to the Thirteen
Colonies, however, protests were muted, as most colonists accepted the new
taxes. These provinces had smaller populations, were largely dependent on the
British military, and had less of a tradition of self-rule.[98]

At the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the Patriots repulsed a
British force charged with seizing militia arsenals.[99] The Second Continental
Congress assembled in May 1775 and sought to coordinate armed resistance to
Britain. It established an impromptu government that recruited soldiers and
printed its own money. Announcing a permanent break with Britain, the
delegates adopted a Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776 for the United
States of America.[100] The French formed a military alliance with the United
States in 1778 following the British defeat at the Battle of Saratoga. Spain joined
France in order to regain Gibraltar from Britain.[101] A combined Franco-
American operation trapped a British invasion army at Yorktown, Virginia, forcing
them to surrender in October 1781.[102] The surrender shocked Britain. The king
wanted to keep fighting but he lost control of Parliament and peace negotiations
began.[103] In the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Britain ceded all of its North American
territory south of the Great Lakes, except for the two Florida colonies, which were
ceded to Spain.

Figure 1The declaration of Independance of USA