What were the thirteen British colonies?
What happened during colonial times?

North America, the future United States and Canada, had a critical era during the eighteenth century. The 1700s saw the maturation of the colonies in North America.

England and Scotland joined in 1707 through the Act of Union, meaning that Great Britain was a united nation. France came to build new colonies stretching from Acadia to Quebec to the Great Lakes to the Midwest and down the Mississippi River. New Orleans was established in 1718.

Spain controlled Florida, Texas, and New Mexico. Their missions and influence spread in the American Southwest.

During Queen Anne's War, Britain secured French Port Royal in Acadia which became Port Annapolis. Britain now held Nova Scotia in Canada, but France retained Cape Breton Island, within which they established Fortress Louisbourg.

The British colonies matured. James Oglethorpe established Savannah in Georgia in the 1730s. Benjamin Franklin was active in printing circles, working in newspaper publication. George Washington became a surveyor in Culpepper County, Virginia. A play called "Cato" by Joseph Addison featured a line invoking "liberty or death," and this was performed in Williamsburg, Virginia. The colonies bartered and traded timber, iron, wheat, tobacco, indigo, rice, and other materials in their growing economy. Princeton, Yale, Harvard, and William & Mary were universities.

France secured peaceful relations with many nations, establishing fur trade posts at Fort Miamis, Fort Michilimackinac (Mackinac or Mackinaw), Fort Toulouse, New Orleans, Fort Detroit, Fort Rouge, and others.

Britain established Halifax in Nova Scotia to counter French Louisbourg. King George's War was yet another conflict that sparked in Canada.

The War for Jenkins' Ear pitted Spanish Florida against South Carolina and Georgia, with battles happening at Fort Augustine and Fort Frederica.

The Great Awakening spread revival across the colonies. Preachers and ministers like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and John Wesley brought Methodism and Presbyterianism along with an evangelical fervor to the colonies. Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Reformed churches, Mennonites, and other churches were also active in the colonies, though Puritanism was slowly fading out in New England.

This is a film by Jeffrey Meyer, historian and librarian.