British Colonies
Starting in the late 1500s, Europeans sought to explore new lands during what would later be known of as the Age of Exploration. The crusades had brought news of new lands and foreign goods, and after the Black Death faded, Europeans wanted to find these new lands. The efforts of a Portuguese prince, known as Henry the Navigator, encouraged other countries to also mount exploration journeys to discover the uncharted areas of the world. This led to an imperialistic scramble for land in the "New World" among competitive countries. England, competing with the other countries, established a colony called Jamestown in 1607. Many of the original Jamestown settlers died, but fifteen years later in 1620, a ship called the Mayflower brought Puritan pilgrims in search of religious freedom to the New England area where they establishing four colonies. By the beginning of the 1700s, thirteen English colonies had been formed on the East coast of the New World.
Although it may be surprising, for many years, the colonist in New England were content in considering themselves British. Matters were going well with King George III and they considered England a part of their country. As Englishmen, they had more rights than the citizens of many other countries. These rights dated back to the Magna Carta which means "great charter". When King Richard died in 1199, King John inherited the throne and abused his position as monarch. He argued with the pope and other nobles over his rights and raised taxes for wars without first gaining approval from the Great Council. The Catholic Church and the nobles raised an army and forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, binding the king by law, restricting his rights, and giving more power to the Great Council. This limited government lasted, granted the citizens of England more representation than many other countries' citizens at the time. The colonists governed themselves for the most part and Parliament did not tax them without the consent of their elected assemblies similar to John Locke's opinion that "They must not raise taxes on the property of the people, without the consent of the people". Changes came with a war that would have a major effect on England and its colonies.