British America in 1775

Tobacco Colonies 2
1606 Virginia colony settled under King James I
1632 Maryland colony settled (and named after the Queen)

New England Colonies 4
1620 Massachusetts colony started at Plymouth by Pilgrim Fathers.
Split into Connecticut, New Haven, Rhode Island, New Hampshire
1665 Connecticut combined with New Haven.

Middle Colonies 4
1664 New York colony granted to King Charles II's brother, the future James II, the Duke of York.
James granted two friends the province of New Jersey. It became a royal colony in 1702.
1680 Pennsylvania settled (William Penn) a mass emigration of English Quakers.
1704 Lower counties on the Delaware split from Pennsylvania.

Southern Colonies 3
Carolana (originally named after Charles I), settled in 1663 under Charles II. Carolina Colony then split into North and South in 1729.
Georgia settled in 1732 by James Oglethorpe, a buffer place between the Spanish in Florida, and South Carolina.

The 1730's and 1740's is referred to as The Great Awakening, Outpouring of the Holy Spirit, reforming the nation, starting in the church, one church.
Leaders: John Wesley, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards.

In 1700, the population had been about 250,000 English speaking settlers with other Europeans and Africans.
In 1775, the population was about 2.5 million.

Some notes re The Boston Tea Party, The East India Company, and Revolution

The East India Company, based in London, operated from 1600 to 1858, and was one of the richest and longest-lived trading companies in history. Its influence on British colonial policy indirectly influenced American history. At the time that the English colonies were becoming increasingly restive, the company was trying to strengthen its position in Canton in China, and as a result was purchasing greater and greater quantities of tea. The colonial response to the tea tax in 1767 (The Townshend Acts) resulted in a precipitous decline in consumption, from 900,000 pounds in 1769 to just 237,000 in 1772.

Smuggled tea was a large issue for Britain and the East India company, since approximately 86% of all the tea in America at the time was smuggled Dutch tea, with no taxes payable. Although the British tea was, according to many, more appealing in taste, some Patriots like the Sons of Liberty encouraged the consumption of smuggled tea as a political protest against the Townshend taxes. Colonists declared it violated their rights as Englishmen to "no taxation without representation", that is, to be taxed only by their own elected representatives and not by a British parliament in which they were not represented.

With warehouses overflowing with unsold tea, the company negotiated with Parliament for the right to sell tea directly to the colonies without paying duties (when exporting from Britain), thus lowering the price, but still paying the tax imposed by the Townshend Acts. It was granted in the Regulating Act of May 10, 1773. Instead of gaining a new market for the East India Company, the act produced more opposition. Colonial tea importers resented the move and feared additional infringement on their business.

The Boston Tea Party was a political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. Protesters had successfully prevented the unloading of tea in three other colonies, but in Boston, embattled Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson had refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain. Demonstrators, some disguised as Native Americans, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company. They boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into the Boston Harbor.

Over the next four months, the British government responded harshly, issuing the Coercive Acts (called the Intolerable Acts) which closed Boston's port (until the tea was paid for), ended local self-government (in Massachusetts), and restricted town meetings in Boston for a year. Colonists up and down the Thirteen Colonies in turn responded by convening the First Continental Congress to

1. Petition the British monarch for repeal of the acts and 
2. Co-ordinate colonial resistance to them.

The crisis escalated, and the Revolutionary War began near Boston on April 19, 1775 following Paul Revere's midnight ride: The British are Coming (to arrest leaders and confiscate militia ordnance).

After the Revolution, the East India Company had little direct contact with America.

End notes