Expansion into the Americas, 16th and 17th Century

Looking West

Portrait of Walter Raleigh — Figure caption,
Walter Raleigh

During the 16th and 17th centuries, the government of England became involved in the expansion of the overseas:

Queen Elizabeth I and her ministers encouraged Walter Raleigh to establish his in the Americas at Roanoke Island in the 1580s so it could be used as a base against the Spanish to the south.
In 1600 the government issued a Royal Charter to the East India Company which granted it on trading between England and Asia. However, the government had no shares in that company.
King James I issued a Royal Charter to the Virginia Company and the Plymouth Company in 1606. Eventually a permanent colony was established at Virginia at Jamestown, and in 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers set up the Plymouth colony.
In 1627 King Charles I confirmed the Earl of Carlisle as the landowner of the West Indies which included the new colony of Barbados.

In the 18th century, Britain had a well-established empire of colonies in the Americas. By 1740, the British government had allowed thirteeen colonies to develop in British America. The British government fought a number of wars to protect and expand these colonies, and as a result they decided that the colonists would have to pay something for their own defence. This led to the introduction of the Stamp Act of 1765, which was an attempt to make the American colonists pay taxes that could be used to pay for the armed forces in North America.

��˿��

How Britain gained an empire - governmentExpansion into the Americas, 16th and 17th Century