English overseas possessions
The English overseas possessions, also known as the English colonial empire, comprised a variety of overseas territories that were colonised, conquered, or otherwise acquired by the former Kingdom of England during the centuries before the Acts of Union of 1707 between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland created the Kingdom of Great Britain. The many English possessions then became the foundation of the British Empire and its fast-growing naval and mercantile power, which until then had yet to overtake those of the Dutch Republic, the Kingdom of Portugal, and the Crown of Castile.
The first English overseas settlements were established in
In North America,
Origins
The
The first English overseas expansion occurred as early as 1169, when the
The
The
The first English overseas colonies
The first English overseas colonies started in 1556 with the
The first English colonies overseas in America was made in the last quarter of the 16th century, in the
Early claims
Financed by the
At the same time, between 1577 and 1580,
In 1578, while Drake was away on his circumnavigation, Queen Elizabeth granted a patent for overseas exploration to his half-brother Humphrey Gilbert, and that year Gilbert sailed for the West Indies to engage in piracy and to establish a colony in North America. However, the expedition was abandoned before the Atlantic had been crossed. In 1583, Gilbert sailed to Newfoundland, where in a formal ceremony he took possession of the harbour of St John's together with all land within two hundred leagues to the north and south of it, although he left no settlers behind him. He did not survive the return journey to England.[25][26]
The first overseas settlements
On 25 March 1584, Queen Elizabeth I granted
On 31 December 1600, Elizabeth gave a charter to the East India Company, under the name "The Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies".[28] The Company soon established its first trading post in the East Indies, at Bantam on the island of Java, and others, beginning with Surat, on the coasts of what are now India and Bangladesh.
Most of the new English colonies established in North America and the
Between 1640 and 1660, the West Indies were the destination of more than two-thirds of English emigrants to the New World. By 1650, there were 44,000 English people in the Caribbean, compared to 12,000 on the Chesapeake and 23,000 in New England.[31] The most substantial English settlement in that period was at Barbados.
In 1660,
After the Dutch surrender of
Council of Trade and Foreign Plantations
In 1621, following a downturn in overseas trade which had created financial problems for the Exchequer, King James instructed his Privy Council to establish an ad hoc committee of inquiry to look into the causes of the decline. This was called The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of all matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations. Intended to be a temporary creation, the committee, later called a 'Council', became the origin of the Board of Trade which has had an almost continuous existence since 1621. The Committee quickly took a hand in promoting the more profitable enterprises of the English possessions, and in particular the production of tobacco and sugar.[33]
The Americas
List of English possessions in North America
- St John's, Newfoundland, chartered in 1583 by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, was seasonally settled ca. 1520[34] and had settlers who remained all year round by 1620.[35][36]
- Roanoke Colony, in present-day North Carolina, was first founded in 1585 but was abandoned the next year. In 1587 a second attempt was made at establishing a settlement, but the colonists disappeared, leading to the name 'Lost Colony.' One of those lost was Virginia Dare.
- At Cuttyhunk, one of the Elizabeth Islands (named after Queen Elizabeth I) of present-day Massachusetts, a small fort and trading post was established by Bartholomew Gosnoldin 1602, but the island was abandoned after only one month.
- The Virginia Company was chartered in 1606, and in 1624 its concessions became the royal Colony of Virginia.
- Jamestown, Virginia, was founded by the Virginia Company of London in 1607.
- Virginia Company of London in 1609, due to the wrecking of the company's flagship Sea Venture; the company's possession was made official in 1612, when St George's, the oldest continually-inhabited, and the first proper, English town in the New World was established; in 1615 its administration passed to the Somers Isles Company, which was formed by the same shareholders; House of Assembly of Bermudaestablished in 1620; Bermudians' complaints to the Crown led to the revocation of the company's Royal charter in 1684.
- Henricus, also called Henricopolis, Henrico Town, and Henrico, was founded by the London Virginia Company in 1611 as an alternative to the swampy Jamestown, but it was largely destroyed in the Indian massacre of 1622.
- Popham Colony: on 13 August 1607, the Virginia Company of Plymouth settled the Popham Colony along the Kennebec River in present-day Maine. The company had a licence to establish settlements between the 38th parallel (the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay) and the 45th parallel (near the current US border with Canada). However, Popham was abandoned after about a year, and the Company then became inactive.
- The Society of Merchant Venturers of Bristol began to settle Newfoundland:
- Cuper's Cove, founded in 1610, was abandoned in the 1620s
- Bristol's Hope, founded in 1618, was abandoned in the 1630s
- London and Bristol Company (Newfoundland)
- Newfoundland Company all that land on the Avalon Peninsula located south of a line drawn from Caplin Bay (now Calvert) to Placentia Bay. The colony had been abandoned by 1637.
- Renews, founded in 1615, abandoned in 1619[37]
- Plymouth Council for New England
- Plymouth Colony, founded 1620, merged with Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691
- Ferryland, Newfoundland, granted to George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore in 1620, first settlers in August 1621[38]
- Province of Maine, granted 1622, sold to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1677
- South Falkland, Newfoundland, founded 1623 by Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland
- Province of New Hampshire, later New Hampshire settled in 1623, see also New Hampshire Grants
- Cape Ann was an unsuccessful fishing colony settled in 1624 by the Dorchester Company.
- Salem Colony, settled in 1628, merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony the next year
- Massachusetts Bay Colony, later part of Massachusetts, founded in 1629
- New Scotland, in present Nova Scotia, 1629–1632
- Connecticut Colony, later part of Connecticut, founded in 1633
- Province of Maryland, later Maryland, founded in 1634
- Province of New Albion, chartered in 1634, but had failed by 1649–1650.
- Saybrook Colony, founded in 1635, merged with Connecticut in 1644
- Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, first settled in 1636
- New Haven Colony, founded 1638, merged with Connecticut in 1665
- East Hampton, New York
- The indentured servants.[39]
- Province of New York, captured from the Dutch in 1664
- Province of New Jersey, also captured in 1664
- Was divided into West Jersey and East Jersey after 1674, each held by its own company of Proprietors.
- Fort Rupert at the mouth of the Rupert River. Prince Rupert became the first governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, which was established in 1670.
- Province of Pennsylvania, later Pennsylvania, founded in 1681 as an English colony, although first settled by the Dutch and the Swedes
- Delaware Colony, later Delaware, separated from Pennsylvania in 1704
- Province of Carolina, settled 1653 at the Albemarle Settlements, chartered 1663 as a single territory but soon functioning in practice as two separate colonies:
- Province of North Carolina, later North Carolina; first settled at Roanoke in 1586, permanently settled 1653, became a separate British colony in 1710.
- Province of South Carolina, later South Carolina; first permanently settled in 1670, became a separate British colony in 1710.
- One possession established after 1707 as a British colonyrather than English:
- Province of Georgia, later Georgia; first settled in 1732.
List of English possessions in the West Indies
- Barbados, first visited by an English ship, the Olive Blossom, in 1605,[40] was not settled by England until 1625,[41] soon becoming the third major English settlement in the Americas after Jamestown, Virginia, and the Plymouth Colony.
- Saint Kitts was settled by the English in 1623, followed by the French in 1625. The English and French united to massacre the local Kalinago, pre-empting a Kalinago plan to massacre the Europeans, and then partitioned the island, with the English in the middle and the French at either end. In 1629 a Spanish force seized St Kitts, but the English settlement was rebuilt following the peace between England and Spain in 1630. The island then alternated between English and French control during the 17th and 18th centuries until it became permanently associated with Britain since 1783.
- Nevis, settled 1628
- Providence Island colony, settled by the Providence Island Company in 1629 and captured by Spain in 1641.
- Montserrat, settled 1632
- Antigua, settled in 1632 by a group of English colonists from Saint Kitts
- The Bahamas were mostly deserted from 1513 to 1648, when the Eleutheran Adventurers left Bermuda to settle on the island of Eleuthera.
- Anguilla, first colonized by English settlers from St Kitts in 1650; the French gained the island in 1666, but under the Treaty of Breda of 1667 it was returned to England
- Jamaica, formerly a Spanish possession known as Santiago, it was conquered by the English in 1655.
- Barbuda, first settled by the Spanish and French, was colonized by the English in 1666.
- The Cayman Islands were visited by Sir Francis Drake in 1586, who named them. They were largely uninhabited until the 17th century, when they were informally settled by pirates, refugees from the Spanish Inquisition, shipwrecked sailors, and deserters from Oliver Cromwell's army in Jamaica. England gained control of the islands, together with Jamaica, under the Treaty of Madrid of 1670.
List of English possessions in Central and South America
- Straits of Magellan, were claimed for England by Sir Francis Drake in August 1578.[22]However, no settlements were made and it is no longer possible to identify the islands with certainty.
- Guiana: an attempt in 1604 to establish a colony failed in its main objective to find gold and lasted only two years.[42]
- Mosquito Coast: the Providence Island Company occupied a small part of this area in the 17th century.
- Falkland Islands: Claimed for England by mariner John Strong in 1690, who made the first recorded landing on the islands.
English possessions in India and the East Indies
- Bantam: The English started to sail to the East Indies about the year 1600, which was the date of the foundation in the City of London of the East India Company ("the Governour and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies") and in 1602 a permanent "factory" was established at Bantam on the island of Java.[43]At first, the factory was headed by a Chief Factor, from 1617 by a President, from 1630 by Agents, and from 1634 to 1652 by Presidents again. The factory then declined.
- Bombay.
- Machilipatnam: a trading factory was established here on the Coromandel Coast of India in 1611, at first reporting to Bantam.[44]
- James I as sovereign of the island. After four years of siege by the Dutch and the death of Courthope in 1620, the English left. According to the Treaty of Westminster of 1654, Run should have been returned to England, but was not. After the Second Anglo-Dutch War, England and the United Provinces agreed to the status quo, under which the English kept Manhattan, which the Duke of York had occupied in 1664, while in return Run was formally abandoned to the Dutch. In 1665 the English traders were expelled.
- Fort St George, at Madras (Chennai), was the first English fortress in India, founded in 1639. George Townwas the accompanying civilian settlement.
- Wadala.[46] These islands were leased to the East India Company in 1668. The population quickly rose from 10,000 in 1661, to 60,000 in 1675.[47] In 1687, the East India Company transferred its headquarters from Surat to Bombay, and the city eventually became the headquarters of the Bombay Presidency.[48]
- Bencoolen was an East India Company pepper-trading centre with a garrison on the coast of the island of Sumatra, established in 1685.
- Calcutta on the Hooghly River in Bengal was settled by the East India Company in 1690.
English possessions in Africa
- The slaves. In 1684, the Royal African Companytook over the administration.
- English Tangier: this was another English possession gained by King Charles II in 1661 as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza. While it was strategically important, Tangier proved very expensive to garrison and defend and was abandoned in 1684.[32]
- South Atlantic, was settled by the English East India Company in 1659 under a charter of Oliver Cromwell granted in 1657. (The associated islands of Ascension and Tristan da Cunhawere not settled until the 19th century.)
English possessions in Europe
- Duchy of Normandy: Normandy became associated with the English crown in 1066 when the Duke of Normandy William the Conqueror became King of England. The mainland duchy was conquered by Philip II of France in 1204 and English claims finally relinquished in the Treaty of Paris in 1259. The Channel Islands remained English.
- County of Maine: Anjou and Maine merged with the English crown when the Count of Anjou became Henry II of Englandin 1154. They were lost to the French in 1204.
- Duchy of Aquitaine: Aquitaine, a fief of the Kingdom of France, passed to the English through the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to the future Henry II of England in 1152. The duchy was declared forfeit by Philip VI of France in 1337, beginning the Hundred Years' War, but Edward III of England was recognised as sovereign Lord of Aquitaine by the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360. The French reconquest of Aquitaine began in 1451 and was complete with the Battle of Castillon in 1453.
- Edward IV of Englandagreed not to pursue his claim further. English and later British monarchs continued to use the title of King or Queen of France until 1801.
- Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559. English claims were finally abandoned by the Treaty of Troyesin 1564.
- Henry VIII of England following the Battle of the Spurs in 1513. It was returned to France in 1519 under the terms of the Treaty of London.
- Le Havre: English troops occupied Le Havre under the Treaty of Hampton Court in 1562. The town was reconquered by the French the following year.
- Cautionary Towns: English possession of Flushing and Brill was confirmed by the Treaty of Nonsuch in 1585. The towns were sold to the Dutch Republic in 1616.
- Dunkirk: French and English forces captured Dunkirk from the Spanish in 1658, and the town was granted to England by the Treaty of the Pyrenees the next year. Dunkirk was sold back to France in 1662.
- Gibraltar: In 1704, Gibraltar was captured for England by an Anglo-Dutch fleet, becoming the country's first European overseas possession since the sale of Dunkirk to France in 1662. The Naval operation was commanded by George Rooke. Gibraltar later became a strategic naval base for the Royal Navy and was officially ceded to Great Britain in 1713. It remains a British possession.
Transformation into British Empire
The Treaty of Union of 1706, which with effect from 1707 combined England and Scotland into a new sovereign state called
List of English possessions which are still British Overseas Territories
- Anguilla
- Bermuda
- Gibraltar
- Cayman Islands
- Montserrat
- Saint Helena, as part of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
- Turks and Caicos
Timeline
- 1607 Jamestown, Virginia
- 1609 Bermuda
- 1612 Surat, India
- 1620 East coast of Newfoundland (island) and Plymouth, Massachusetts
- 1625 Barbados and Saint Kitts, Caribbean
- 1628 Nevis
- 1630 Boston, North America and Mosquito Coast, Central America
- 1632 Antigua and Montserrat, Caribbean
- 1638 Belize (British Honduras)
- 1639 Chennai (Madras), India
- 1648 The Bahamas
- 1650 Anguilla
- 1660 Jamaica and Cayman Islands, Caribbean
- 1661 Mumbai, India and Dog Island, Gambia
- 1663 Saint Lucia
- 1664 New Netherland, North America
- 1666 Barbuda
- 1670 Turks and Caicos Islands and Rupert's Land
- 1672 British Virgin Islands
- 1673 Fort James, Ghana
- 1682 Philadelphia
- 1690 Kolkata (Calcutta), India
- 1704 Gibraltar
See also
- Angevin Empire
- Concessions and leases in international relations
- First wave of European colonization
- Historiography of the British Empire
- North Sea Empire
- Plantations of Ireland
- Scottish colonization of the Americas
- Thirteen Colonies
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Further reading
- Adams, James Truslow, The Founding of New England (1921), to 1690
- Andrews, Charles M., The Colonial Period of American History (1934–1938), the standard political overview to 1700
- Andrews, Charles M., Colonial Self-Government, 1652–1689 (1904) full text online
- Bayly, C. A., ed., Atlas of the British Empire (1989), survey by scholars, heavily illustrated
- Black, Jeremy, The British Seaborne Empire (2004)
- Coelho, Philip R. P., "The Profitability of Imperialism: The British Experience in the West Indies 1768–1772", Explorations in Economic History, July 1973, Vol. 10 Issue 3, pp. 253–280.
- Crouch, Nathaniel. The English Empire in America: or a Prospect of His Majesties Dominions in the West-Indies (London, 1685).
- Dalziel, Nigel, The Penguin Historical Atlas of the British Empire (2006), 144 pp
- Doyle, John Andrew, English Colonies in America: Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas (1882) online edition
- Doyle, John Andrew, English Colonies in America: The Puritan colonies (1889) online edition
- Doyle, John Andrew, The English in America: The colonies under the House of Hanover (1907) online edition
- Ferguson, Niall, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (2002)
- Fishkin, Rebecca Love, English Colonies in America (2008)
- Foley, Arthur, The Early English Colonies (Sadler Phillips, 2010)
- Gipson, Lawrence. The British Empire Before the American Revolution (1936–1970), comprehensive scholarly overview
- Morris, Richard B., "The Spacious Empire of Lawrence Henry Gipson", William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 24, No. 2 (Apr., 1967), pp. 169–189 JSTOR 1920835
- Morris, Richard B., "The Spacious Empire of Lawrence Henry Gipson", William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 24, No. 2 (Apr., 1967), pp. 169–189
- Green, William A., "Caribbean Historiography, 1600–1900: The Recent Tide", Journal of Interdisciplinary History Vol. 7, No. 3 (Winter, 1977), pp. 509–530. JSTOR 202579
- Greene, Jack P., Peripheries & Center: Constitutional Development in the Extended Polities of the British Empire & the United States, 1607–1788 (1986), 274 pages.
- James, Lawrence, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (1997)
- Jernegan, Marcus Wilson, The American Colonies, 1492–1750 (1959)
- Koot, Christian J., Empire at the Periphery: British Colonists, Anglo-Dutch Trade, and the Development of the British Atlantic, 1621–1713 (2011)
- Knorr, Klaus E., British Colonial Theories 1570–1850 (1944)
- Louis, William, Roger (general editor), The Oxford History of the British Empire, (1998–1999), vol. 1 "The Origins of Empire" ed. Nicholas Canny (1998)
- McDermott, James, Martin Frobisher: Elizabethan privateer (Yale University Press, 2001).
- Marshall, P. J., ed., The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire (1996)
- O'Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson, Empire Divided: The American Revolution & the British Caribbean (2000) 357pp
- Parker, Lewis K., English Colonies in the Americas (2003)
- Payne, Edward John, Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America (vol. 1, 1893; vol. 2, 1900)
- Payne, Edward John, History of the New World called America (vol. 1, 1892; vol. 2, 1899)
- Quinn, David B., Set Fair for Roanoke: voyages and colonies, 1584–1606 (1985)
- Rose, J. Holland, A. P. Newton and E. A. Benians, gen. eds., The Cambridge History of the British Empire, (1929–1961); vol 1: "The Old Empire from the Beginnings to 1783"
- Sheridan, Richard B., "The Plantation Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, 1625–1775", Caribbean Studies Vol. 9, No. 3 (Oct., 1969), pp. 5–25. JSTOR 25612146
- Sitwell, Sidney Mary, Growth of the English Colonies (new ed. 2010)
- Thomas, Robert Paul, "The Sugar Colonies of the Old Empire: Profit or Loss for Great Britain" in Economic History Review April 1968, Vol. 21 Issue 1, pp. 30–45.