Motivations for Colonization Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands established colonies in North America.

Native peoples of America had no immunity to the diseases that European explorers and colonists brought with them. Diseases such as smallpox, influenza, measles, and even chicken pox proved deadly to American Indians. Europeans were used to these diseases, but Indian people had no resistance to them.

While the Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and English were the main players in European colonization of the New World, they were not the only ones. Sweden, Courland, Norway, The Danes, Russia, and Scotland also colonized the New World.

The motivations for the first wave of colonial expansion can be summed up as God, Gold, and Glory: God, because missionaries felt it was their moral duty to spread Christianity, and they believed a higher power would reward them for saving the souls of colonial subjects; gold, because colonizers would exploit resources …

Five hundred years before Columbus, a daring band of Vikings led by Leif Eriksson set foot in North America and established a settlement. And long before that, some scholars say, the Americas seem to have been visited by seafaring travelers from China, and possibly by visitors from Africa and even Ice Age Europe.

Jamestown In 1606, a group of English merchants received permission from King James I to set up a colony in North America. These merchants hoped to find riches to rival the Aztec empire in Mexico. In December 1606, three ships carry- ing about 100 men and boys sailed for a part of North America they called Virginia.

Americans pay a percentage of their taxes to the Queen of England via the IRS. The 1040 tax form is the payment of a foreign tax to the King/Queen of England. American citizens have been in financial servitude to the British Monarch since the Treaty of 1783 and the War of Dependence.

British America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in America from 1607 to 1783. At the start of the Revolutionary War in 1775, the British Empire included 23 colonies and territories on the North American continent.

If you point out basic facts about the British Empire – that the British deliberately adopted policies that caused as many as 29 million Indians to starve to death in the late 19th century, say – you smack into a wall of incomprehension and rage.

In the 16th Century, Britain began to build its empire – spreading the country’s rule and power beyond its borders through a process called ‘imperialism’. This brought huge changes to societies, industries, cultures and the lives of people all around the world.

After defeating Napoleonic France in 1815, Britain became the world’s only superpower for more than a century. The empire became even larger. Though the British Empire had been the most powerful economy before the war, it was quickly surpassed by the United States as the greatest industrial power after the war.

The UK Overseas Territories are:

• Anguilla.
• Bermuda.
• British Antarctic Territory (BAT) – ASSI has no direct responsibility in relation to BAT as the Antarctic Treaty takes precedence.
• British Indian Ocean Territory.
• British Virgin Islands.
• Cayman Islands.
• Falkland Islands.

Now England controlled all of Canada. In the years that followed, Canadian colonies—now under British rule—expanded their trade networks and built an economy largely supported by agriculture and the export of natural resources like fur and timber.

The final constitutional ties between the United Kingdom and Australia ended in 1986 with the passing of the Australia Act 1986. Due to Australia’s history as a colony of Britain, the two nations retain significant shared threads of cultural heritage, many of which are common to all English-speaking countries.

Current overseas territories

Independence came in 1947 with the Partition of India into the dominions of India and Pakistan, within the Commonwealth of Nations. In 1950 India became a republic and the link with the British crown was severed. The Dominion was part of the Sterling Area (the Republic of India finally leaving in 1966).

Current territories

• Anguilla.
• Bermuda.
• British Antarctic Territory.
• British Indian Ocean Territory.
• British Virgin Islands.
• Cayman Islands.
• Falkland Islands.
• Gibraltar.

Today, the United Kingdom consists of four constituent countries, and it is responsible for three crown dependencies and fourteen overseas territories, although the legacy of the British Empire can still be seen, and it’s impact will be felt for centuries to come.

The British wanted an empire for a number of reasons. Firstly, the discovery of the New World provided the opportunity to acquire wealth. With each threat to trading routes or British interests, the need to strengthen, often through conquest, became greater. Exploration and sheer inquisitiveness was also a motivation.

Others say the start date should be the 1490s, while other historians date the empire from the early 1600s. The end of the empire came in the years after World War 2, with most of Britain’s colonies ruling themselves independently by the late 1960s.