Names edit

Kingdom of England

1707 - Great Britain edit

Act of Union in 1707, England and Scotland agreed to permanently join as Great Britain

1801 - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland edit

The legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland was implemented in 1801, with the adoption of the name the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1927 - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland edit

The Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 formalized a partition of Ireland; six northern Irish counties remained part of the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland and the current name of the country, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, was adopted in 1927.

Notes edit


Timeline edit

 
The British Colonies in North America, 1763-1775

1606 edit

1607 edit

London Company found the Jamestown Settlement (Virginia) in 1607.

1609 edit

Bermuda, these islands, located in the North Atlantic, were first settled in 1609 by the London Virginia Company; Administration passed to The Somers Isles Company, formed by the same shareholders, in 1615. Also known officially as The Somers Isles, they remain a British overseas territory.

1610 edit

  • Society of Merchant Venturers founded [[:en:Cuper's Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador|Cuper's Cove (Newfoundland)]], founded 1610, abandoned in the 1621

1611 edit

1615 edit

  • London and Bristol Company founded [[Renews, Newfoundland and Labrador|Renews (Newfoundland)]] in 1615, (abandoned in 1619[1])

1618 edit

  • Society of Merchant Venturers founded Bristol's Hope, founded 1618, abandoned in the 1631

1620 edit

1622 edit

1623 edit

  • en:South Falkland, Newfoundland, founded 1623 by Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland
  • Province of New Hampshire, later New Hampshire settled in 1623.
  • Saint Kitts and Nevis After the Kalinago Genocide of 1626, the island was partitioned between the British and French, with the French gaining the ends, Capisterre in the North and Basseterre in the south, and the British gaining the centre. In 1689, during the War of the Grand Alliance, France re-occupied the entire island, and decimated the British farms. English retaliation by General Codrington defeated the French forces and deported them to Martinique. The Treaty of Rijswijk in 1697 restored pre-war coniditons.

1627 edit

  • Barbados - British sailors who landed on Barbados in 1625 arrived at the site of present-day Holetown. At the time only feral pigs which were left behind from the Portuguese. From the arrival of the first British settlers in 1627–1628 until independence in 1966, Barbados was under uninterrupted British control.

1628 edit

1629 edit

1632 edit

  • Antigua and Barbuda - Early settlement by the Spanish was replaced by English rule from 1632, with a French interlude in 1666.
  • Montserrat fell under English control in 1632 when a group of Irish fleeing anti-Roman Catholic sentiment in Saint Kitts and Nevis settled there.

1633 edit

1634 edit

1636 edit

1638 edit

  • New Haven Colony, founded 1638
  • British Honduras (Belize)" His Majesty's Settlement in the Bay of Honduras," as the territory was formerly styled in official documents, owes its origin, in 1638, to log-wood cutters who had formerly been buccaneers. These were afterwards joined by agents of the Chartered Company which exploited the pearl fisheries of the Mosquito coast.

1664 edit

  • Saint Lucia In 1664, Thomas Warner (son of the governor of St Kitts) claimed Saint Lucia for England. He brought 1,000 men there to defend it from the French, but after two years there were only 89 left, mostly due to disease.

1647 edit

  • Bahamas - The Bahamian islands settled by the English led by William Sayle who came from Bermuda seeking religious freedom in 1647.

1650 edit

  • Anguilla - First colonized by English settlers from Saint Kitts, beginning in 1650

1655 edit

  • Mosquito CoastFrom 1655 to 1860, Britain claimed an area, called the Mosquito Coast over the Miskito Indians; but little success attended the various endeavors to plant colonies, and the protectorate was disputed by Spain, the Central American republics, and the United States.
  • JamaicaThe English Admiral William Penn (father of William Penn of Pennsylvania) and General Robert Venables seized the island in 1655

1664 edit

1670 edit

  • Rupert's Land, territory of the Hudson's Bay Company, founded in 1670
  • Province of Georgia, later Georgia; first settled in about 1670, formal colony in 1732
  • Cayman IslandsThe islands were captured, then ceded to England in 1670 under the Treaty of Madrid. They were governed as a single colony with Jamaica until 1962 when they became a separate British Overseas Territory and Jamaica became an independent Commonwealth realm.

1672 edit

  • British Virgin IslandsIn 1672, the English captured Tortola from the Dutch, and the British annexation of Anegada and Virgin Gorda followed in 1680.

1680 edit

  • British Virgin IslandsIn 1672, the English captured Tortola from the Dutch, and the British annexation of Anegada and Virgin Gorda followed in 1680.

1681 edit

1705 edit

On St. Kitts the French made one more major attack on British troops in 1705 during the War of the Spanish Succession, as the over 8,000 French troops on the island easily defeated the 1,000 British posts.

1706 edit

Spanish and French forces seized the Turks in 1706.

1710 edit

Spanish and French forces seized the Turks in 1706, but English Bermudian forces expelled them four years later in what was probably Bermuda's only independent military operation.

1713 edit

  • Nova Scotia, site of abortive Scottish colony in 1629; British colony 1713, but this did not permanently include Cape Breton Island until 1758.
  • The French held St. Kitts,for 8 years (1713). until the Treaty of Utrecht was signed. The treaty ceded the entire island of St. Kitts to the British.

1759 edit

From 1759 through 1763, as a part of the Seven Years' War, the British took control of Guadeloupe and its main city Pointe-à-Pitre was established during these years.

1761 edit

  • In 1761 a British expedition against Dominica led by Lord Rollo was successful and the island was conquered.
  • Cuba, taken from Spain in 1761.

1762 edit

Britain captured Martinique and Grenada during the Seven Years' War, holding it from 1762 to 1763. Saint Lucia becomes British.

1763 edit

France formally ceded possession of Dominica, Grenada to the United Kingdom in 1763 via the Treaty of Paris (1763). Also part of the treaty the French in exchange for the entirety of Canada regained Martinique as well as the neighboring island of Guadeloupe and Spain gives Florida to the British. The French island of St. Vincent was ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Paris (1763) In the 1763 the Turks and Caicos Islands were under French occupation.


1763 edit

  • Quebec, which had been called Canada under French rule. Canada was by far the most settled portion of New France. Britain gained complete control of French Canada in 1759-1761, during the Seven Years' War; France ceded title with the Treaty of Paris in 1763.
  • East Florida and West Florida, acquired from Spain in 1763 in exchange for returning Cuba, taken from Spain in 1761; the Floridas were recovered by Spain in 1783.

1779 edit

Saint Vincent restored to French rule in 1779

1782 edit

Spain takes control of the Bahamas

1783 edit

After the American revolution the Treaty of Paris (1783) was signed giving control of Florida to the Spanish and ceding St. Vincent, Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas to the British.

1796 edit

Britain took Guyana from the Dutch in 1796. , before being ousted again by the British in 1803.

1799 edit

Britain occupied Aruba from 1799 to 1802, and from 1805 to 1816.

1802 edit

Dutch retake Aruba and Guyana back in 1802 British returned the island of Martinique to the French with the Treaty of Amiens and Napoléon Bonaparte reinstated slavery. In 1797, General Sir Ralph Abercromby and his squadron sailed through the Bocas and anchored off the coast of Chaguaramas. The Spanish Governor Chacon decided to capitulate without fighting. Trinidad became a British crown colony, with a French-speaking population and Spanish laws. The conquest and formal ceding of Trinidad and Tobago in 1802 led to an influx of settlers from England or the British colonies of the Eastern Caribbean.


1803 edit

Guyana is retaken by the British.

1805 edit

Britain occupied Aruba from 1805 to 1816

1809 edit

Martinique again falls under British rule during the Napoleonic wars from 1809 to 1814


1810 edit

On February 4, 1810 the British once again seized Guadeloupe. By the Anglo-Swedish alliance of March 3, 1813, it was ceded to Sweden but the British administration continued in place while Swedish commissioners were sent to make arrangements for the transfer. Sweden already had a colony in the area, but then by the Treaty of Paris of May 30, 1814, ceded Guadeloupe once more to France

1814 edit

the Treaty of Paris of May 30, 1814, ceded Guadeloupe and, Martinique once more to France. The colonies of Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice were officially ceded to the United Kingdom in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 and at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In 1831 they were consolidated as British Guiana. Britain eventually triumphed, with France permanently ceding Saint Lucia in 1814 in The First Treaty of Paris, 30 May 1814

1816 edit

Dutch retake Aruba

1818 edit

The Convention respecting fisheries, boundary, and the restoration of slaves between the United States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, also known as the London Convention, Anglo-American Convention of 1818, Convention of 1818, or simply the Treaty of 1818, was a treaty signed in 1818 between the United States and the United Kingdom. It resolved standing boundary issues between the two nations, and allowed for joint occupation and settlement of the Oregon Country, known to the British and in Canadian history as the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company, and including the southern portion of its sister fur district New Caledonia.

Article II set the US-Canadian boundary along "a line drawn from the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods, [due south, then] along the 49th parallel of north latitude..." to the "Stony Mountains"[3] (now known as the Rocky Mountains). This settled a boundary dispute caused by ignorance of actual geography in the boundary agreed to in the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolutionary War. That earlier treaty had placed the boundary between the United States and British possessions to the north, along a line going westward from the Lake of the Woods to the Mississippi River. The parties failed to realize that the river did not extend that far north, so such a line would never meet the river. The new treaty also created the anomalous Northwest Angle, the small section of the present state of Minnesota that is the only part of the United States outside of Alaska north of the 49th parallel.

1819 edit

 
Adams-Onís Treaty

The fledgling United States had no claim to the Oregon Coast at the time. Spanish rights in the area were later acquired by the United States in the Adams-Onís Treaty signed in 1819. The United States argued that it acquired from Spanish rights to exclusive ownership; this position led to a dispute with Britain known as the Oregon boundary dispute.

The Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819 (formally titled the Treaty of Amity, Settlement, and Limits Between the United States of America and His Catholic Majesty, and also known as the Transcontinental Treaty of 1819, and sometimes the Florida Purchase Treaty) was an historic agreement between the United States and Spain that settled a border dispute in North America between the two nations. The treaty was the result of increasing tensions between the U.S. and Spain regarding territorial rights at a time of weakened Spanish power in the New World. In addition to granting Florida to the United States, the treaty settled a boundary dispute along the Sabine River in Texas and firmly established the boundary of U.S. territory and claims through the Rocky Mountains and west to the Pacific Ocean in exchange for the U.S. paying residents' claims against the Spanish government up to a total of $5,000,000 and relinquishing its own claims on parts of Texas west of the Sabine River and other Spanish areas.

Alabama becomes the 22th State to join the United States of America

1840 edit

 

Guatemala separated from the federation.

A map of the British colony Guyana was published in 1840. Venezuela protested, claiming the entire area west of the Essequibo River.

1843 edit

1846 edit

  • Columbia District, the trading area of the Columbia Department of the Hudson's Bay Company from 1821 to the Oregon Treaty of 1846, by which most of the Columbia District was formally annexed to the United States.
  • America and Britain eventually came to a peaceful agreement in the 1846 Oregon Treaty that divided the territory along the 49th parallel to Georgia Strait, with all of Vancouver Island remaining under British control. This border still divides British Columbia from neighboring Washington, Idaho, and Montana.

1853 edit

1867 edit

The Dominion of Canada was formed from three provinces of British North America: the Province of Canada, which was split into the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and the colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

1870 edit

Manitoba joins Canada along with North West Territories minus the Arctic Islands

1871 edit

British Columbia joins Canada.

1873 edit

PEI joins Canada.

1880 edit

Arctic Islands are handed over to Canada

1899 edit

An international tribunal arbitrate the boundary in 1897. For two years, the tribunal consisting of two Britons, two Americans, and a Russian studied the case. Their three-to-two decision, handed down in 1899, awarded 94 percent of the disputed territory to British Guiana.

1907 edit

Newfoundland remained a colony until acquiring dominion status on September 26, 1907, along with New Zealand. It successfully negotiated a trade agreement with the United States but the British government blocked it after objections from Canada. The Dominion of Newfoundland reached its golden age under Prime Minister Sir Robert Bond of the Liberal Party.

1934 edit

In 1934, the Dominion of Newfoundland , because of financial difficulties, was obliged to give up its self-governing status and the Commission of Government took its place. Following World War II, the Commission held elections for the Newfoundland National Convention which debated the dominion's future in 1946 and 1947. Two referendums resulted in which Newfoundlanders decided to end the Commission,[4] and join the Canadian Confederation in 1949.

1940 edit

Aruba became a British protectorate from 1940 to 1942 and a US protectorate from 1942 to 1945.

1942 edit

Aruba a US protectorate from 1942 to 1945.

1949 edit

Two referendums resulted in which Newfoundlanders decided to end the Commission, and join the Canadian Confederation in 1949.


1958 edit

The West Indies Federation, also known as the Federation of the West Indies, was a short-lived Caribbean federation that existed from January 3, 1958 to May 31, 1962. It consisted of several Caribbean colonies including Turks and Caicos Islands, Jamaica, Cayman Islands, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla, Montserrat, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago

1962 edit

The Cayman Islands, along with nearby Jamaica were governed as a single colony with Jamaica until 1962 when they became a separate British Overseas Territory and Jamaica became an independent Commonwealth realm. Trinidad and Tobago also elected for independence in 1962.

1964 edit

  • [[British Honduras became a self-governing colony in January 1964 and was renamed "Belize" on June 1 1973; it was the United Kingdom's last colony on the American mainland.

1966 edit

Barbados independence in 1966.

Guyana achieved independence on May 26, 1966, and became the Co-operative Republic of Guyana on February 23, 1970 - the anniversary of the Cuffy slave rebellion - with a new constitution.

1969 edit

British rule was fully restored to Anguilla in 1969.

1973 edit

In 1973, the Bahamas became fully independent, but retained membership in the Commonwealth of Nations.

1974 edit

Grenada gains independence.

1978 edit

In 1978 Dominica finally became an independent nation.

1979 edit

In Saint Lucia,Saint Vincent and the Grenadines became independent nations.

1981 edit

Antigua and Barbuda became an independent state within the Commonwealth of Nations on 1 November 1981

1983 edit

In 1983 Saint Kitts and Nevis became an independent nation.

  1. ^ William Vaughan and New Cambriol: Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage
  2. ^ Nicholas Canny, The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume I: The Origins of Empire: British Overseas Enterprise to the Close of the Seventeenth Century , 2001, ISBN 0-19-924676-9.
  3. ^ The Early Settlement of St. John's, [1], 1998, Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage Web Site Project, Memorial University of Newfoundland, accessed August 27, 2006
  4. ^ Paul O'Neill, The Oldest City: The Story of St. John's, Newfoundland, 2003, ISBN 0-9730271-2-6.
  5. ^ Colony of Avalon, [2], Colony of Avalon Foundation, Revised March 2002, accessed August 27, 2006