Independence

Independence During the Age of Discovery, adventurous seafarers explored the so-called New World and discovered new trade routes with royal support. This ensured better connectivity and profits. Though Spain and Portugal took the lead in exploring the new places, establishing trade centres first and later colonies, it was Britain which established colonies all over the world and successfully controlled them over a long period of time. Though the English were the first to settle in North America, in due course of time, the Germans, the Swedes, the French, the Italians and the Dutch too went to the America and settled there. The colonisation of the New World absorbed the growing population of Europe at a time of rapid economic and demographic growth. King James I sent an expedition to Virginia where a colony was established in and named Jamestown. Then the pilgrims from Britain sailed in a ship called Mayflower and set up a colony at Plymouth in Massachusetts. Slowly other colonies were established. The Dutch set up a colony, in , near the mouth of the River Hudson and named it New Amsterdam. Later, the English acquired it from the Dutch and renamed it New York. In the early 1700s enslaved Africans made up a growing percentage of the colonial population. By , more than million people lived and worked in Great Britain's North American colonies.