The British Empire

America
Background history of England

- From 1600 to 1900, Britain built the largest empire the world has ever seen.
- The British Empire governed one fourth of the world’s landmass and one
fifth of its population.
- At the end of 15th century gave birth to a new age of European empire.
- Spain established new colonies in Americas, such as Mexico and Peru.
- Portugal developed the most extensive trading routes, spreading from Brazil
to Indonesia.
- The Netherlands pioneered an advanced banking system for investing in
oversea trade.
Spanish colonies Portuguese colonies
The British Settlement in Virginia
- At the beginning of the 17th century, the English began to establish
their own colonies in the America.
- England’s first successful colony was Virginia in North America.
- Virginia was settled by a private company. Virginia Company was
granted a Royal Charter by King James I in 1606 to explore and
cultivate North America territories. But they faced struggle with the
right crop for the soil and climate.
- In 1617, the English settler discovered that the tobacco plant grew
well in Virginia.
- By 1700 almost 6 million kilograms of tobacco was being exported to
Britain each year.
James I Virginia
Massachusetts and New England.
- On 9 November 1620, a boat called Mayflower carrying 102
passenger landed at Cape Cod ( now Massachusetts).
- Many of the passengers were Puritans. They wanted to escape
from England and create a community of perfect godliness in the
New World ( Pilgrim Fathers).
- These Puritan settlers named their colder, wetter stretch of North
America ‘New England’.
- The Pilgrim Fathers established a lucrative trade through buying
animals furs from native American tribes, and fishing stocks off
America’s eastern coast.
- By 1640, 20,000 more settlers had arrived in New England.
Mayflower Pilgrim Fathers ( Puritan)
Other English colonies in North America
- Maryland was named after Charles I’s wife Henrietta Maria and
- New York was named after Charles II’s brother the Duke of York.
- By 1732, Britain’s 13 colonies stretched along the Eastern Coast
from New Hampshire in the north, to Georgia in the south.
Native Americans
- North America was catastrophe for its indigenous population.
- At first, the English settlers depended upon the help of native American to
survive and often traded European goods
- The British saw Native Americans as simple ‘savage’, and became brutal in
their treatment of them. However, the European disease such as smallpox,
influenza and diphtheria attacked on North America.
- The population of Native Americans plummeted from 2 million in1500, to
32,500 in 1820.
13 colonies Native American
.
Caribbean and sugar plantation
- During this period ,the Caribbean was one of the profitable colonies of
England.
- One of the first Caribbean colonies was the island of Barbados, for which
Charles I granted a Royal Charter in 1627.
- The English introduced sugar cane plant to Barbados.
- Sugar cane thrived in Caribbean weather and was used to create refined sugar,
molasses and rum.
- Some of the wealthiest people in England were sugar cane plantation owners.
- England quickly added its Caribbean colonies.
- In 1655 the English seized the islands of Antigua, Nevis and Jamaica from
Spain.
- By 1775, Britain’s sugar trade was worth five times more than tobacco trade.
Charles I
Labour Problems
- However, Farming sugar cane was very labor intensive.
- Many criminal prisoners sent from Britain as plantation labour
died of diseases such as yellow fever or malaria.
- The solution to this shortage of labour was simple: enslaved
people from Africa.
Barbados Sugar cane Plantation