II.

The First British Empire

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Britain established its first empire, which was centered in the Caribbean and in North America. It began with the establishment of tobacco plantations in the West Indies and religious colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America. England established a presence in India during the 17th century with the activities of the East India Company. Although this presence became larger and more entrenched during the 17th and 18th centuries, India did not come under direct British rule until 1858.

An important factor in the first empire was mercantilism, an economic policy based on protected trade monopolies and governmental control of manufacturing. Under this system, colonies were established mainly to increase the wealth of the home country. They were either used as sources of raw materials or as markets for products of the home country. The intention was to keep the amount of the home country’s exports higher than the amount of its imports; since the home country would be selling more than it was buying, its capital reserves would grow. Because this system required strict governmental control, the English began to regulate the affairs of its colonies closely. In 1651 the English parliament passed the Navigation Act, which stipulated that imports into English harbors and colonies could only be carried in English ships or those of the producing country.

A.

17th Century

A.1.

North America

The first permanent English settlement in North America was established in 1607 at Jamestown, Virginia. In 1620 the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts Bay and founded Plymouth Colony, the first permanent English settlement in New England. The colonists set up a Puritan community, forming the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1628. Other religious colonies were established in Rhode Island (1636), where the colony was based on the principle of religious toleration; Connecticut (1639), based on Congregationalist religious beliefs; and Maryland (1634), a haven for Roman Catholics.

These colonies stayed close to the coastline, never penetrating far inland, and in fact each was linked more closely to England than to the other colonies. However, because of the distances involved, effective government from England was impossible, so colonial governors were authorized to form assemblies elected from among the colonists to act as a legislative body and advise the executive.

English presence was gradually extended further down the eastern coastline. In 1664 New Amsterdam was seized from the Netherlands and renamed New York. The Dutch inhabitants were the first large, established community overseas to be brought forcefully under English rule. In 1681 William Penn, under a royal grant, formed the colony of Pennsylvania.

After 1688 wars with France led to further English expansion. Colonies in New England grew steadily, and the Hudson’s Bay Company was established near Hudson Bay to participate in the fur trade. This growing English presence intensified friction in the 1690s with New France, based in the nearby St. Lawrence Valley. As a result of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), in which England (by now Great Britain) and its allies fought against France and Spain, British forces captured the French American possessions of Acadia and Newfoundland. The Spanish islands of Gibraltar and Minorca were seized in the same conflict, giving Britain for the first time a territorial presence in the Mediterranean Sea. The Peace of Utrecht (1713) resolved the war, and officially ceded the conquered lands to the British. It also extended British rights to supply slaves and other trade goods to the Spanish Americas, and as a result, established Britain’s status as an overseas power approximately equal to its main European competitors.

A.2.

The West Indies

The first British foothold in the West Indies was Saint Christopher (later Saint Kitts), acquired in 1623. The English plantations established in the West Indies were worked initially by white indentured servants from England. The West Indian tobacco boom gradually petered out and was replaced by sugar production, which required a larger labor force that was provided by slaves from Africa. This began the transformation of the islands into a plantation economy based on slavery.

In 1655 the English conquered the Spanish colony of Jamaica—the first English colony taken by force. During the 1660s, semilegitimate English privateers (private vessels commissioned by a government to attack possessions or trade of a rival country) raided Spanish trade and settlements. In 1670 England and Spain signed the Treaty of Madrid, in which Spain finally acknowledged English possessions in the Caribbean. The sugar economy expanded, and the Royal Africa Company was formed in 1672 to bring large numbers of African slaves to the Caribbean. The plantation owners obtained labor, but at the cost of anxiety about their own security; by the 1670s slaves had become the largest proportion of the population in the English islands.

B.

18th Century

During the early 1700s, public interest in overseas affairs faded. During his long premiership (1721-1742), Sir Robert Walpole adopted a policy of laissez-faire, in which the government did not interfere in economic affairs. Nevertheless, significant developments occurred. The Transportation Act of 1718 subsidized the transportation of convicted criminals from Britain to North America. Georgia, originally a refuge for debtors, became the 13th American colony in 1732, while the New England seaboard began to fill out and extend further into the interior, where it threatened to bump up against French settlement. Sugar emerged as the chief import into Britain, fueling the West Indian plantation economy, and with it the flow of 70,000 slaves annually across the Atlantic.

B.1.

The Seven Years’ War

During the Seven Years’ War in Europe (1756-1763), Britain made large imperial gains at the expense of France. The North American segment of the Seven Years’ War was known as the French and Indian War. It was launched by the British against French possessions in North America in 1754, and in 1758 the British captured the French fortress of Louisbourg, which gave them access to French territory in the St. Lawrence Valley. In the following year Québec was captured, marking the end of the French presence in Canada. In the Caribbean, British forces captured many of the French possessions, including the large sugar-producing islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe.

At the Treaty of Paris in 1763, which ended both the Seven Years’ War and the French and Indian War, the British handed Guadeloupe and Martinique back to France, but retained control of Canada. This was especially important to the British in guaranteeing the security of the New England colonies.

B.2.

The American Revolution

For the British, an expanded empire meant new responsibilities and new costs. The British government wanted to tap American revenues to pay for American necessities, and consequently increased taxation with the Stamp Act (1765). Although the British considered the act to be perfectly fair, many American colonists saw it as a violation of their rights. After riots in the colonies, the Stamp Act was repealed, but other taxes soon replaced it, setting off a controversy in which the colonies united against Britain in the Continental Congress. A skirmish at Concord, Massachusetts, in April 1775 deteriorated into general fighting, and in July 1776 the Congress issued the Declaration of Independence. During the American Revolution that followed, the Congress controlled most of the land area, but the British were secure in their stronghold in New York until their position was weakened by a defeat at Saratoga (1777), which encouraged France to intervene on behalf of the rebellious colonists. British resistance ended when General Charles Cornwallis surrendered with his army at Yorktown, Virginia, in October 1781.

This defeat marked not only the end of the American war, but also the end of the First British Empire. Yet because France had not been able to challenge British supremacy at sea, Britain’s losses did not extend beyond the American colonies themselves. At the same time, the British presence in Canada was reinforced by the establishment of the colony of New Brunswick, resulting from the migration northwards of over 30,000 citizens of the American colonies who were still loyal to Britain.