New World (English Colonies)

The New World form the 13 colonies that a century later would become the United States of America. Please note that at current this is considered English territory. While the colonies do not have seats in Parliament, its citizens are English and are subject to English law and English taxes. There are no peerage estates in the New World, but peers (or their sons) may have moved to the New World to make their fortune. Both the New World and the West Indies know slavery, as well as the phenomena of Freed Slaves.

Colony of Virginia

Established permanently and officially, in 1607, and named for Queen Elizabeth. It extended from the 34th through 48th parallel, and from the east coast ostensibly to the west. This land mass was reduced with the creation of the Maryland Colony, in 1632, and the establishment and subsequent expansion of the Province of Carolina, in 1663-65.

Charles II nicknamed it "The Old Dominion" following the Restoration. As tobacco became a profitable export, Virginia imported more African slaves to cultivate it. The Colony grew in population and became increasingly wealthy.

Province of Maryland

Founded as a refuge for Catholics by the Calvert family, Maryland (named after Queen Henrietta Maria) shares much history with the Colony of Virginia until the arrival of Lord Baltimore and his family. The Calverts were converts to the Roman Catholic faith, and despite their original goal of a Catholic haven, the colony was always a majority Protestant.

Maryland suffered greatly because of the English Civil War, with tensions between the Catholic elite and Protestant majority at an all time high. The area was the site of much conflict during the Civil War, even after the colony passed the Maryland Toleration Act, which guaranteed freedom from persecution for all trinitarian Christians, making it the first New World colony to pass an act of its kind.

By 1676, the Calverts were once again governors of Maryland. The dominant religion was nonconformist Protestantism, and most Marylanders lived on small farms or eked out a living by fishing. The once-dominant Maryland tobacco industry had fallen, and African slaves began to become a staple of plantation life.

Massachusetts and New England

Standards of education and literacy were high in the colony (the University of Harvard was founded as early as 1636), drawing upwards of 20,000 settlers from England. As the population grew and colonization extended further afield, regions evolved into separate colonies. Connecticut emerged, in 1662, and later New Hampshire, in 1679.

Rhode Island

Rhode Island was an exception within the New England region, choosing to keep separate from the other emerging colonies (from 1636), because of the religious intolerance in Massachusetts. Founded by Roger Williams, a clergyman banished by the Boston authorities for his radical views, the town of Providence was established on land which Williams bought from the Indians. He welcomed persecuted sects, such as the Anabaptists and Quakers, and turned Rhode Island into a haven of religious tolerance.

Province of Carolina

Prior to its formal creation, the first permanent English settlement in the region was established in 1653. Set in Albemarle Sound, it was nicknamed "Rogues' Harbour."

In 1663, Charles II created the Province of Carolina by charter, granting ownership to eight of his faithful supporters during the Interregnum. First encompasing all the land between 31 and 36 degrees north, it was extended, in 1665, to 29 degrees through 36 degrees 30 minutes north. Among the men named in the charter, and known as the Lords Proprietors, were: Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon; George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle; and Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury, with the assistance of his secretary, John Locke, drafted the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina.

In 1665, Clarendon became the second permanent settlement, with Charles-town emerging to the south of the first two, in 1670. Shaftesbury designed the street plan for the town. It had a natural harbour and easy access to the West Indies. The settlement flourished and became the de facto seat of provincial government.

The province was governed by a governor and council, as well as an elected assembly.

Provinces of New York and New Jersey

The English took the Dutch colony of New Netherlands, in 1664, during the second Anglo-Dutch War. The Treaty of Breda, signed in July, 1667, allowed England to keep New Netherlands, and it was renamed New York. The province originally included New Jersey, Delaware, and Vermont, as well as parts of what would later become Massachusetts and Maine.

Charles II gave the land to the Duke of York, who then gave the portion extending between the Hudson and Delaware rivers to Sir George Carteret. The corresponding land James sold to Lord Berkeley of Stratton. These became East and West Jersey.

Carteret became the first Governor of New Jersey, while Richard Nicolls became the first Governor of New York.

Newfoundland and Nova Scotia

During the 17th century, the main area of friction between France and England was in northern waters, on the approach to the St Lawrence Seaway. This region had long been disputed for its valuable cod fisheries, but, with the growth of imperial and trading interests on the mainland, it also became of strategic importance.

The Cabot Strait, between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, was the only practical route to the territory of New France, strung out along the St Lawrence River and Seaway. It was also the only current route to Hudson Bay, where the English had developed extensive fur-trading interests, particularly after the foundation of the Hudson's Bay Company, in 1670.

The land on the south side of the strait changed hands several times during the later 17th century, between the French, who called it Acadie, its American Indian name, and the English, who referred to it as Nova Scotia, for 'New Scotland'.