So Just When Was the Colonial Era?

I had the idea to look into what exactly the colonial era meant as far as actual dates in world history. Well, at least in “North American” history. According the Library of Congress, the colonial era is nearly 200 years long.

Wikipedia - the classic Boston Tea Party painting

Here on the Colonial Quills, we include the post-1776 Revolutionary era up to the War of 1812. (Thanks to Carrie who knows many of us love writing in that time period as well!) After all, there was still a very thin line separating loyalists and the 'new' Americans along the border with Canada. The War of 1812 made a significant change in how those on both sides of the border viewed themselves.

The idea for this post also came from the recent social media promotion of a history project called 1619 by its creator, The New York Times. The year 1619—in fact it was August of that year—is considered the first recorded introduction of African slaves to the shores of the New World.

QUOTE: The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.

Here’s a quick overview of what I found and adapted from multiple history websites:

It certainly wasn’t just the British. The London Company might have sent out their first expedition in December of 1606, but the French Huguenots had already built a colony near Jacksonville, Florida in 1564. This didn’t please the Spanish who were quick to establish a military fort at St. Augustine. (Our oldest city on the continent, so they say…)

Who knows how long fishing fleets and explorers from the Nordic nations and European coastal countries were passing by and setting up semi-permanent camps along the present-day Canadian Maritimes and the “New England” coast? It seems that these fishermen and hunters had decent relationships with the indigenous people (though whether they introduced diseases or not is another story). “American” history looks back to the 1580s when the English colonized Roanoke Island (now part of North Carolina), leading to one of the better mysteries of the era. (The Lost Colony of Roanoke.)

Wikipedia- Jamestown Settlement Museum

Wikipedia- Massachesetts Bay Colony

Throughout the early 1600s appeared Jamestown (England), Quebec (France) and New Amsterdam (Holland). By the 1650s, colony-makers like Plymouth Company, the Massachusetts Bay Company, the Company of New France and the Dutch West India company had sent out families and men skilled in all aspects of agriculture and trades. It was a true competition to land-grab the continent's rich resources…
With NO CONSIDERATION of those people already living here, nor the use of slave labor. And slave labor did not always mean Africans taken against their will. As we all know, slavery would ultimately be the center of an agricultural economy. 

Wikipedia: 'slave ship'

Throughout the 1700s, wars were raged on this continent and around the world for ownership of Americas. What we’ve been handed down is a rich history of multi-culturalism as well as the more base hallmarks of human nature—taking advantage of those less fortunate, and ‘might makes right.’ It all leads to more story fodder than we could ever address. 

So thank you, readers, for your support our desire to celebrate stories of our long colonial era.