History UsefulNotes / TheThirteenAmericanColonies

The women were all called "[[InsistentTerminology Goody]] Somethingorother" [[note]]A contraction of 'Goodwife'. The male equivalent is Goodman.[[/note]] and were frequently [[BurnTheWitch burned at the stake as witches]] ([[SalemIsWitchCountry especially in Salem, Massachusetts]]). Occupations among the men, besides the aforementioned prayer and witch-burning, included [[MoralGuardians persecuting]] [[TheHeretic Quakers]], [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain oppressing]] [[NobleSavage Native Americans]], [[InjunCountry being scalped]], and hunting turkeys for the first UsefulNotes/ThanksgivingDay dinner.

* The short story "Ezekiel" by Desmond Warzel takes place in Roanoke in 1587 (the first English settlement in North America, and thus the very earliest part of this period).

This era is coincidental with TheCavalierYears across the pond.

* ''Series/{{Outlander}}'': Series 4 onwards is set in the 13 colonies with season 6 taking place at the beginning of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution

* '''[[UsefulNotes/NewYorkState New York]] (1664)''': The colony the English took from other Europeans who were already living there. Specifically, the Dutch, who started exploring and colonizing the region in 1609 with the voyage of Henry Hudson (an Englishman hired by the Dutch). Hudson sailed into a river hoping it was the famed Northwest Passage through the Americas, but it turned out to be just any ordinary river; on the plus side, it was named after him. The Dutch were far more interested in trade in the Caribbean and Indonesia, but they founded a city named New Amsterdam on Manhattan island to take part in the fur trade To defend the colonial capital against Indian attacks, they built a stone wall, and this is where Wall Street gets its name. Soon other settlements developed around the area, on Long Island, and further up the Hudson River; these territories the Dutch collectively named New Netherland.\\

* The opening of Film/HocusPocus and it’s sequel Film/HocusPocus2 takes place in Salem 1693 and 1653.

* Series/GhostsUS: The flashbacks in “The Liquor License” are set in 1773. They reveal that Creator/BenjaminFranklin invited Isaac to a Freemason meeting but he turn him away as he only wanted him to do some tasks using his carriage.

* In ''Series/{{Roots}}'', after being captured in the Gambia, Kunta Kinte arrives in colonial Maryland on September 27, 1767. The colonies are already becoming discontent with British rule due to the recently passed Townshend Acts.

* Series/GhostsUS: The flashbacks in “The Liquor License” are set in 1773. They reveal that Creator/BenjaminFranklin invited Issac to a Freemason meeting but he turn him away as he only wanted him to do some tasks using his carriage.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Paranorman}}'': the plot is centred around a witch trial in 1712 Massachusetts.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'': a lose biopic about the historical figure of [[UsefulNotes/{{Pocahontas}} the same name]], taking place in 1607.

* Series/GhostsUS: The flashbacks in “The Liquor License” are set in 1773. They reveal that Creator/BenjaminFranklin invited Issac to a Freemason meeting but he turn him away as he only wanted him for his carriage.

* The Haytham Kenway segments of ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'' partially take place during this period, specifically the Seven Years War.

* ''Film/PlymouthAdventure''

* Series/GhostsUS: The flashbacks in “The Liquor License” are set in 1773. They reveal that Creator/BenjaminFranklin invited Issac to a Freemason meeting but he turn him away.

* Series/Ghosts(US): The flashbacks in “The Liquor License” are set in 1773. They reveal that Creator/BenjaminFranklin invited Issac to a Freemason meeting but he turn him away.

* Series/Ghosts(US): The flashbacks in “The Liquor License” are set in 1773. They reveal that UsefulNotes/BenjaminFranklin invited Issac to a Freemason meeting but he turn him away.

* The Series/{{Ghosts(US)}}

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'': a lose biopic about the historical figure of the same name.

The women were all called "[[InsistentTerminology Goody]] Somethingorother" [[note]]A contraction of 'Goodwife'. The male equivalent is Goodman.[[/note]] and were frequently [[BurnTheWitch burned at the stake as witches]]. Occupations among the men, besides the aforementioned prayer and witch-burning, included [[MoralGuardians persecuting]] [[TheHeretic Quakers]], [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain oppressing]] [[NobleSavage Native Americans]], [[InjunCountry being scalped]], and hunting turkeys for the first UsefulNotes/ThanksgivingDay dinner.

The colonies were mostly self-governing since it was pretty much impossible for Parliament to heavily govern settlements months away. They also began practicing primitive forms of democracy during this time, especially in New England and Pennsylvania. Still, the monarchy had some level of control; royal colonies were the ones where the king appointed the governor himself, and the list grew larger over the years. Hey, maybe slowly having their self-governing institutions come under the direct authority of a monarch living months away [[{{UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution}} would lead them to protest this or something]]. Almost all of the colonies had established churches supported with taxpayer money.

* '''Virginia (1607)''': The first successful English colony in the future United States, the first unsuccessful one having been UsefulNotes/TheLostColonyOfRoanoke. Named by Sir Walter Raleigh in honor of [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethI Queen Elizabeth I]], famously known as the Virgin Queen. The first settlement that lasted was named Jamestown, after [[UsefulNotes/JamesTheFirst King James I]]. \\

Virginia was founded on purely capitalist and imperialist motives; namely, the belief that gold would be discovered and everyone would become wealthy, and England's worries that Spain and Portugal had too many colonies and England was falling behind in the balance of power. Things initially went really badly until John Smith, a Navy captain, whipped the settlers into shape, relations with the natives improved thanks to UsefulNotes/{{Pocahontas}} and her English husband John Rolfe started to cultivate tobacco and economically saved the infant colony. \\

* '''Plymouth (1620)''': The colony around the region that is now Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Founded by a group of Separatists (now known as the Pilgrims; they were given their name by their leader William Bradford as a metaphor for their religious journey and the name stuck) who wanted to escape religious persecution in Europe. Sailed across the Atlantic on the ''Mayflower''. Initially planned to settle in the north part of the Chesapeake Bay, but they [[EpicFail somehow sailed to New England instead]]. Since this was not part of the Virginia colony's original charter, which originally stretched into what is now New Jersey, they wrote and signed a document to set up an official government there. Now known as the Mayflower Compact, it is often called the first constitution in American history. \\

* '''Maine (1622)''': Maine and New Hampshire (see below), unlike all of the other New England colonies, were not founded by religious denominations, but by fishermen. Originally encompassed the coasts of both present-day Maine and New Hampshire, but in 1629 they were split. It was previously just a loose collection of small plantations and fishing villages. Most of Maine's earliest settlements were failures, some disappearing mysteriously. By 1658, Massachusetts Bay Colony had essentially taken over Maine, but this wasn't made official until 1677. Maine became its own state in 1820 due to one of the numerous compromises over slavery that saw Missouri admitted as a slave state and Maine split off from Massachusetts to even out the Senate.
* '''New Hampshire (1623)''': First settled in 1623 and originally part of Maine, this colony was formally created and given the name New Hampshire in 1629 (the "old" Hampshire is a county in southern England, for those who don't know). Massachusetts Bay Colony laid claim to the colony and, in 1641, they basically just took it. The people of New Hampshire never really got along well with their neighbors to the south, however, and in 1679 King Charles II separated them and made them a royal colony. Following the collapse of the Dominion of New England (see below), New Hampshire shared the same governor as Massachusetts until 1741. New Hampshire was involved in some border disputes for most of its colonial history, namely over the border with Massachusetts (settled in 1741 as part of the deal giving them a separate governor) and with New York. New Hampshire claimed they had the land all the way to Lake Champlain, while New York claimed they had the land all the way to the Connecticut River. This area eventually became Vermont. The established church in New Hampshire was the Congregational Church.
* '''Massachusetts (1630)''': Whoo boy, Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was founded by [[NewEnglandPuritan Puritans]] who wanted to escape persecution at the hands of [[UsefulNotes/CharlesI King Charles I]]. Chartering land just a bit north of Plymouth, the nearly one thousand Puritans on the first trip founded the city of Boston. By the 1640s, over 20,000 Puritans were already settled in Massachusetts Bay Colony, and their large population growth and need for more land is why they kept trying to integrate all of the previously established colonies in the region. \\

* '''Maryland (1634)''': Founded by Lord Baltimore, a Catholic, as a safe haven for English Catholics and also in the hopes of making money. He was granted the land on the northern half of Chesapeake Bay because post-Reformation England was all-too-happy to help the Catholics leave. The state's current largest city, Baltimore, is named for him. \\

* '''Rhode Island (1636)''': Rhode Island was founded by people who fled Boston after being convicted for spreading different religious views (the Boston clergy derided it as a "sewer"). The two most noted founders were Roger Williams, a minister from Salem who demanded complete separation from the Church of England, and Anne Hutchinson, who held a popular meeting in her home defending the idea of antinomianism. Both were tried and convicted and had to escape during harsh winters (Hutchinson while pregnant), Williams and followers founding Providence in 1636 and Hutchinson and followers founding Portsmouth two years later. \\

* '''New York (1664)''': The colony the English took from other Europeans who were already living there. Specifically, the Dutch, who started exploring and colonizing the region in 1609 with the voyage of Henry Hudson (an Englishman hired by the Dutch). Hudson sailed into a river hoping it was the famed Northwest Passage through the Americas, but it turned out to be just any ordinary river; on the plus side, it was named after him. The Dutch were far more interested in trade in the Caribbean and Indonesia, but they founded a city named New Amsterdam on Manhattan island to take part in the fur trade To defend the colonial capital against Indian attacks, they built a stone wall, and this is where Wall Street gets its name. Soon other settlements developed around the area, on Long Island, and further up the Hudson River; these territories the Dutch collectively named New Netherland.\\

* '''New Jersey (1664)''': Part of the lands conquered from the Dutch, in 1664 the Duke of York gave this land to two proprietors, Sir George Carteret and Lord John Berkeley. Most of its population came from people leaving other colonies as opposed to immigrants coming directly from Europe.\\

* '''Carolina (1670)''': Originally part of Virginia, this was created in the period after the English Revolution when [[UsefulNotes/CharlesII King Charles II]] was desperate to build support for the monarchy. Charted to eight nobles in 1663 and named after the sitting king, Carolina wasn't formally colonized until 1670 (the first official Carolina settlement was Charlestown in present day South Carolina; guess who the town was named after). It was created to help manage trade with the British colonies in the Caribbean, and many of its early settlers were wealthy people from those colonies. \\

The small-farm based northern half, meanwhile, was not nearly as slave-dependent and was also rather more democratic than the aristocratic southern half. Eventually these differences made the colony too difficult to govern together and they were split in 1712 between the originally named '''North Carolina''' and '''South Carolina'''. Seventeen years later, both were made into royal colonies. The established church in Carolina colony and both of its descendants was the Anglican church.
* '''Pennsylvania (1681)''': Pennsylvania means "Penn's Forest." For this reason, most people assume it was named after William Penn, the colony's founder, but it was actually named after his father, Sir William Penn, a [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships Royal Navy admiral]]. King Charles II owed a lot of money to Admiral Penn (who had spent a lot of effort and money helping the king win back his throne), and when the admiral died, his estranged son and namesake inherited the debt. The younger Penn made a deal to just give him land in the New World instead. William Penn actually objected to this name out of fear that people thought it was named after him (he preferred just "Sylvania", after the woods, or perhaps "New Wales", as a large number of Welsh people were interested in settling there[[note]]The Welsh did come, and to this day there are a number of places west of Philadelphia, in Chester, Montgomery, and Bucks Counties, with unpronounceable Welsh names like Bala Cynwyd, Gwynedd, Tredyffrin, Uwchlan, and Bryn Mawr.[[/note]]), but no one listened. \\

Anyway, this colony was also founded to protect religious dissenters, in this case members of the Quaker denomination of which Penn was a leading member. Philadelphia ("The City of Brotherly Love"), the settlement they founded, was very well-planned for a colonial city, and Penn attracted a lot of skilled craftsmen to help populate his colony. They purchased the land from the Native Americans after landing, a commitment to principle most of the other colonial founders didn't have; relations with local tribes were so peaceful that many Indians actually moved ''into'' Pennsylvania after the colony was founded. Like Rhode Island, there was also toleration for Catholics and Jews. \\

From 1682 to 1701, Delaware was part of Pennsylvania, but like New Hampshire and Massachusetts the older colony didn't appreciate being absorbed into a new one. Differences between the two were too large to ignore, and in 1701 they were granted their own assembly. However, until independence Delaware had the same colonial governor as Pennsylvania, arguably making this its own colony in-name-only. Like Pennsylvania, there was no established church in Delaware.
* '''Georgia (1733)''': The last of the Thirteen Colonies founded. It was so new, in fact, that many of its first settlers were still around during UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution. As such, it was the most intensely loyalist colony during the war. Georgia, named after King George II, was founded for two reasons. First, the English government was concerned about the number of border conflicts between Spanish Florida and the (wealthy) Carolinas and wanted to create a buffer zone between the two. And what was to fill this buffer zone? Poor people! The second reason was because a reform-minded statesman, James Oglethorpe (who was also still alive when America won independence and seemed to have accepted the fact rather well), wanted to create a colony with easy, cheap land available for London's poor and for those imprisoned for debt. A big fan of the Enlightenment, Oglethorpe placed limits on land grants to prevent widespread economic inequality and also banned slavery from the colony. However, the settlers quickly grew to resent these rules, believing that it prevented them from becoming economically prosperous. In the 1750s, Georgia became a royal colony, the rules on land ownership were removed, and slavery was legalized. Previously an exporter of wine and silk, large plantations producing rice started to take over. The established church in Georgia colony was the Anglican church.

P.S. Not to be confused with the United States' seldom-mentioned [[AmericaTakesOverTheWorld foray]] [[EagleLand into]] [[ExpandedStatesOfAmerica colonialism]], which properly began in the late 19th century with the defeat of Spain in the UsefulNotes/SpanishAmericanWar and the seizure of its then-colonies: the UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}}, UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}}, UsefulNotes/PuertoRico and UsefulNotes/{{Guam}}, as well as [[HulaAndLuaus Hawaii]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}''

The period in America from around 1607–1763, during which [[BlatantLies just about everyone was a Puritan or Pilgrim]] and had to attend church services that were approximately eleven days long. Everyone [[DeliberatelyMonochrome wore black all the time]]; the men all carried [[{{BFG}} blunderbusses]] and wore [[NiceHat tall hats with big buckles around them,]][[note]]The hats are called [[UsefulNotes/HatShop capotains]] and are period-accurate; the buckles, however, are not.[[/note]] while the women all wore bonnets and square linen collars with optional [[Literature/TheScarletLetter large red A's]]. [[note]]This option was generally discouraged -- but then, everything, and everyone, was generally discouraged.[[/note]]

* ''Series/Outlander'': Series 4 onwards is set in the 13 colonies with season 6 taking place at the beginning of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution

* '''Massachusetts (1630)''': Whoo boy, Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was founded by Puritans who wanted to escape persecution at the hands of [[UsefulNotes/CharlesI King Charles I]]. Chartering land just a bit north of Plymouth, the nearly one thousand Puritans on the first trip founded the city of Boston. By the 1640s, over 20,000 Puritans were already settled in Massachusetts Bay Colony, and their large population growth and need for more land is why they kept trying to integrate all of the previously established colonies in the region. \\

[[caption-width-right:350:"...most dismal wretches, who said their prayers before daylight, and then wrought in the forest or the cornfield till evening made it prayer time again."]]

* Many of Nathaniel Hawthorne's works, including ''Literature/TheScarletLetter'' and "Young Goodman Brown."