The Other British Colonies

Burnard, Trevor

Abstract

Britain had a substantial Atlantic empire during the era of the Atlantic Revolutions. Only some of their Atlantic colonies joined in the colonial rebellion that led to the creation of the United States. The end of the American Revolution signaled a new period in the history of the British Empire, but it was far from a period in which the Empire’s geographic center moved decisively to the East from the West. The British colonies in the Atlantic World that either remained or were acquired during the Atlantic Revolutions were vital parts of a changing geopolitical and economic order in which Britain solidified its global dominance in the period economic historians have termed the Great Divergence (when the West overtook the East in economic power). The British West Indies and Canada were central to the Atlantic Revolutions from the period of the Seven Years’ War until the end of slavery in the British West Indies in 1834. Expansion in the British Atlantic after 1783 showed how valuable West Indian colonies continued to be to British geopolitical and economic policies and how Canada was rapidly becoming a set of colonies that were developing into vibrant settler societies.

Citation

Burnard, T. (2023). The Other British Colonies. In W. Klooster (Ed.), The Enlightenment and the British Colonies (248-68). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108567671

• Online Publication Date: Oct 20, 2023
• Publication Date: Oct 31, 2023
• Deposit Date: May 30, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: May 31, 2024
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Pages: 248-68
• Series Title: The Cambridge History of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions
• Book Title: The Enlightenment and the British Colonies
• Chapter Number: 9
• ISBN: 9781108476034; 9781108469432
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108567671
• Keywords: American Revolution; imperialism; Canada; Jamaica; Ireland
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4677359