Like kids grabbing for cookies, the nations of Europe claimed land in the Americas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Britain all set up colonies. A colony is a group of people who settle in a place far from their native land. They’re still ruled by the country they left.
There were 13 British colonies along the Atlantic Coast of North America. This is the Colonial America that gave birth to the United States of America. The colonial period lasted for 168 years. It started in 1607. That’s when the British built their first full-time settlement in Jamestown, Virginia.
In the beginning, the colonists welcomed Britain’s help. But as time passed, that changed. They hated being ruled by a government so far away. And they felt that it mostly wanted to make money off them. Conflict between Britain and the colonists turned into war in 1775. That became the Revolutionary War, and as you know, the colonists won. After the war, they were no longer colonists. They were citizens of a new nation.
