Thirteen Colonies. The Thirteen British colonies in North America, strung out along the eastern seaboard from Maine to Georgia, had even fewer ties to one another than to the mother country. However, they did share certain underlying interests, one of which was the potential and desire for westward expansion. The Royal Proclamation of 1763, which forbade settlement beyond the Appalachians, was therefore widely resented, particularly since it came at a time when economic recession made the land beyond the frontier especially attractive. The Proclamation was issued as an emergency measure designed to protect Native American lands, but it was widely ignored by the settlers.

Source: MAPS IN MINUTES™ © RH Publications (1997)

The British colonies in North America that ratified the Declaration of Independence (1776) and thereby became founding states of the USA. They were, with dates of foundation or English colonial status: Virginia (1607), Massachusetts (1629), Maryland (1632), Connecticut (1635), Rhode Island (1636), North Carolina (1663), South Carolina (1663), New York (1664), New Jersey (1664), Delaware (1664), New Hampshire (1679), Pennsylvania (1681), and Georgia (1732). By 1776 all were ruled by royal governors except Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, and all had representative assemblies. Though there were major differences over such issues as slavery or religion and often quarrels between neighbouring colonies, they managed to sustain a fragile unity between 1776 and 1783. This improbable cohesion could be described as the greatest unsought achievement of George III and his ministers, who, in Franklin’s words, “made thirteen clocks strike as one”.