The thirteen colonies that will become the United States of America have all been established by 1732 with the British colonization of Georgia.

All have local governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating support for republicanism.

With extremely high birth rates, low death rates, and steady settlement, the colonial population grows rapidly as relatively small native populations are eclipsed.

British forces seize Canada from the French during the Seven Years' War (known as the French and Indian War in America), but the francophone population remains politically isolated from the southern colonies.

Excluding the natives, who are being conquered and displaced, the thirteen British colonies that will form the United States have a population of over two million one hundred thousand in 1770, about one-third that of Britain.

Despite continuing new arrivals, the rate of natural increase is such that by the 1770s only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas.

The colonies' distance from Britain has allowed the development of self-government, but their success motivates monarchs to periodically seek to reassert royal authority.

North America's natives have often been conquered and displaced with the progress of European colonization in the territories of the contemporary United States.

The native population had declined after Europeans arrived, and for various reasons, primarily diseases such as smallpox and measles.

Violence is not a significant factor in the overall decline among Native Americans, though conflict among themselves and with Europeans affects specific tribes and various colonial settlements.

In the early days of colonization, many European settlers were subject to food shortages, disease, and attacks from Native Americans.

Native Americans were also often at war with neighboring tribes and allied with Europeans in their colonial wars.

At the same time, however, many natives and settlers have come to depend on each other.

Settlers trade for food and animal pelts, natives for guns, ammunition and other European wares.

Natives have taught many settlers where, when and how to cultivate corn, beans and squash.

European missionaries and others feel it is important to "civilize" the Native Americans and urge them to adopt European agricultural techniques and lifestyles.

Northeastern North America

(1732 to 1743 CE): Territorial Expansion, Indigenous Diplomacy, and Economic Consolidation

Between 1732 and 1743, Northeastern North America saw territorial growth, intensified colonial rivalries, significant indigenous diplomacy, and economic prosperity through plantation agriculture and maritime commerce. This era also witnessed a powerful wave of religious revivalism known as the Great Awakening, and expansive French exploration into North America’s interior river valleys, significantly shaping cultural, social, and geopolitical dynamics.

Establishment and Expansion of British Colonies

Founding of Georgia (1732–1733)

In 1732, Britain founded its last mainland colony, Georgia, under James Oglethorpe. Designed as a refuge for debtors and as a buffer against Spanish Florida and French Louisiana, Georgia’s principal settlement, Savannah, emerged rapidly in 1733. Despite initial prohibitions against slavery and large plantations, regional economic pressures soon eroded these early ideals.

Economic Flourishing of South Carolina

South Carolina’s economy continued thriving, particularly due to rice plantations and extensive reliance on enslaved African labor. By the 1730s, Charleston ranked among the wealthiest colonial ports, exporting rice, indigo, deerskins, lumber, and beef, cementing South Carolina’s position as a dominant southern colony.

Louisbourg’s Strategic Importance

Completion and Prosperity of Louisbourg

By the early 1730s, France completed construction of the fortress town Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island. Louisbourg quickly became the most formidable French fortress in North America, strategically protecting maritime routes to New France and guarding vital fishing grounds on the Grand Banks. Its vibrant economy connected France, New France, and the French Caribbean colonies, escalating Anglo-French rivalries.

French Exploration into the Interior

Expansion of French Voyagers and Trade Routes

During this era, French voyageurs significantly expanded exploration into North America's interior. By 1743, French expeditions had explored and mapped extensive new regions, including the river valleys of the Red, Arkansas, and Platte Rivers, as well as areas surrounding Lake Winnipeg, Lake Manitoba, and along the Lower Saskatchewan River. This expansion deepened French influence, extending their trade networks and alliances far into the continental interior, establishing essential fur-trade pathways that would shape future geopolitical conflicts.

The Great Awakening and Religious Revivalism

Religious Enthusiasm and Growing Pluralism

The Great Awakening, a powerful Christian revivalist movement that peaked in the 1730s and 1740s, profoundly influenced colonial culture and society. Preachers such as Jonathan Edwards and later George Whitefield inspired widespread evangelical enthusiasm, leading to increased church participation, religious diversity, and a growing insistence on religious liberty. This movement fostered the growth of new denominations, weakened established religious authorities, and laid foundational ideas about individual rights and liberties that would later influence colonial politics.

Indigenous Diplomacy and Realignments

Plains and Great Lakes Indigenous Nations

On the Plains, the Cheyenne solidified relationships with the semi-sedentary agricultural communities of the Mandan, Hidatsa ("Tsé-heše'émâheónese"), and the Arikara ("Ónoneo'o"). Adopting agricultural practices and adapting to Plains life, they strengthened their resilience against external pressures.

The agriculturally sophisticated Mandan and Hidatsa maintained fortified villages along the Missouri River, thriving through trade, while the Arikara continued to hold vital roles as regional economic intermediaries.

French and British Rivalries in the Interior

Strengthening French-Miami Relations

French commanders such as Jean Baptiste Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes, maintained strategic alliances with the Miami at Kekionga (present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana). French traders leveraged these alliances, expanding trade routes and fortifying economic and political influence throughout the Ohio Valley and Illinois Country.

British Frontier Pressures and Indigenous Diplomacy

Britain continued westward settlement pressures from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas, increasing competition with French and indigenous interests. Indigenous nations, notably the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy), engaged in sophisticated diplomacy, carefully managing European rivalry through strategic neutrality and selective alliances.

Maritime Commerce, Piracy, and Urban Growth

Prosperity and Regulation in New York City

New York City expanded rapidly during the 1730s, significantly engaged in Atlantic maritime commerce and the slave trade. British regulatory efforts intensified to curb piracy, but the city continued its economic ascent, reinforcing its critical role in colonial trade networks.

Slavery, Social Stratification, and Economic Dependence

Deepening Dependence on Enslaved African Labor

The prosperity of South Carolina’s plantation economy deepened reliance on enslaved Africans, reinforcing rigid social stratification based on race. Georgia’s initial resistance to slavery gradually weakened under economic pressure from its neighbors, laying the groundwork for slavery’s eventual establishment there.

Spanish Persistence and the Florida Frontier

Oglethorpe’s Georgia and Spanish Tensions

Spanish settlements, notably St. Augustine, remained resilient despite increased British frontier pressure. In 1740, James Oglethorpe unsuccessfully attempted to capture St. Augustine, highlighting ongoing Anglo-Spanish tensions and solidifying the southern colonial border.

Environmental Transformations and Agricultural Innovations

African Agricultural Techniques in Rice Cultivation

South Carolina’s plantation agriculture extensively utilized enslaved Africans’ agricultural knowledge, particularly in rice cultivation. Complex irrigation and water-management systems, including dikes and canals, transformed the Lowcountry ecology, ensuring large-scale, profitable rice production.

Legacy of the Era (1732–1743 CE)

The era from 1732 to 1743 profoundly influenced Northeastern North America. The establishment of Georgia completed British territorial claims along the Atlantic seaboard, intensifying rivalries with Spanish Florida and French Louisiana. Louisbourg’s strategic completion and expanded French explorations inland deepened Anglo-French tensions, setting the stage for future conflicts. The Great Awakening significantly shaped colonial culture, enhancing religious pluralism and ideas about individual liberty. Indigenous nations continued strategic adaptations, maintaining autonomy amid competing colonial pressures. Economic prosperity driven by plantation agriculture, slavery, and maritime trade reinforced regional wealth and social stratification. Collectively, these developments laid critical foundations for economic growth, indigenous diplomacy, geopolitical rivalry, and cultural transformations shaping subsequent North American history.

The Great Awakening, as the Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s is known, fuels interest in both religion and religious liberty.

James Oglethorpe is famous for conducting a parliamentary investigation into the conditions of London prisons, and he has exercised a leading role in the movement to found a new American colony with an eye towards assisting some of those who had been imprisoned for debt.

He had confided to his friend John Lord Viscount Percival (who will be known as the first earl of Egmont after that title is conferred on him in 1733) that he intends to help released debtors begin a new life in America.

In fact, Oglethorpe has received a grant of five thousand pounds to carry out his plan.

Dr. Thomas Bray had in 1729 chosen trustees to administer his estate.

In addition to Oglethorpe, the trustees, called the Associates of Dr. Bray, include several future members of the Georgia Trust, notably Percival, James Vernon, Stephen Hales and Thomas Coram.

Coram is better known as the founder of the Foundling Hospital in London.

Oglethorpe and his friends had decided to add the Bray legacy to the funds in hand for the purpose of establishing a new colony between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers, in territory claimed by both the province of South Carolina and the Spanish colony of Florida.

The associates had on September 17, 1730, presented a petition for a charter to the Privy Council, Parliament's executive body, headed by the chancellor of the exchequer, Robert Walpole.

The petition was routinely passed on to the notoriously inefficient Board of Trade, which had dawdled for a year without acting.

Walpole, the prime minister, is less than eager to challenge the Spanish, who have a prior claim to the region requested by the petitioners.

Walpole needs the support of the influential members of Parliament who support the charter, however, and he had managed to bring the charter before the Privy Council.

After going through several revisions, the notion of helping debtors had given way to a more pragmatic plan to send over "the deserving poor" who would protect South Carolina while producing such goods as wine and silk for England.

England's King George II, for whom the colony is named, on April 21, 1732, signs a charter establishing the colony and creating its governing board.

His action culminates a lengthy process.

The charter creates a corporate body called a Trust and provides for an unspecified number of Trustees who will govern the colony from England.

Seventy-one men will serve as Trustees during the twenty-year life of the Trust.

Trustees are forbidden by the charter from holding office or land in Georgia, nor are they paid.

Their motives for serving are presumably humanitarian, and their motto is Non sibi sed aliis ("Not for self, but for others").

The charter provides that the body of Trustees elect fifteen members to serve as an executive committee called the Common Council, and specifies a quorum of eight to transact business.

As time goes on, the council frequently lacks a quorum; those present then assume the status of the whole body of Trustees, a pragmatic solution not envisioned by the framers of the charter.

Historian John McCain has counted two hundred and fifteen meetings of the Common Council and five hundred and twelve meetings of the corporation.

Twelve Trustees had attended the first meeting on July 20, 1732, at the Georgia office in the Old Palace Yard, conveniently close to Westminster.

Committees were named to solicit contributions and interview applicants to the new colony.

Seven Trustees on November 17, 1732, bid farewell to Oglethorpe and the first settlers as they leave from Gravesend aboard the Anne.

The original charter for Georgia specifies the new colony as being between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers, up to their headwaters (the headwaters of the Altamaha are on the Ocmulgee River), and then extending westward "sea to sea."

The area within the charter had previously been part of the original grant of the Province of Carolina, which is closely linked to Georgia.

South Carolina had never been able to gain control of the area, but after the Yamasee War the Georgia coast had been effectively cleared of natives, excepting a few villages of defeated Yamasee, who have become known as the Yamacraw to distinguish them from the still-hostile Yamasee in Florida and among the Creek.

The Yamacraw had formed by 1728, under the leadership of Tomochichi, out of some of the Yamasee and Creek who had disagreed with the breaking of friendship with the British during the Yamasee War of 1715.

The Yamacraw had by 1728 settled at the site of the present day city of Savannah.

The Creeks cannot account for anyone by the name of Yamacraw, and the R, which appears in the name, is not recognized in either the Maskoki or Yuchi dialect Oglethorpe, accompanied by the first settlers, arrives on February 12, 1733, at Yamacraw Bluff, in what is now Savannah, and establishes a camp with the help of the elderly Tomochichi.

A Yamacraw Native American village had occupied the site, but Oglethorpe negotiates with Tomochichi and the Yamacraw agree to move their village upriver.

The day is still celebrated as Georgia Day.

One plan had called for Georgia to be created to be a safe home for debtors.

However, this purpose was never fulfilled and one hundred and sixteen men, women, and children had been selected to become the original colonists.

Oglethorpe's plan for settlement (now known as the Oglethorpe Plan) is founded on eighteenth-century country party philosophy and draws from principles of Roman colonial town design.

The Trustees succeed in obtaining ten thousand pounds from the government in 1733 and will obtain lesser amounts in subsequent years.

Georgia is the only American colony that depends on Parliament's annual subsidies.

The charter contains contradictions.

The colonists are entitled to all the rights of Englishmen, yet there is no provision for the essential right of local government.

Religious liberty is guaranteed, except for Roman Catholicism and Judaism.

A group of Jews lands in Georgia without explicit permission in 1733 but are allowed to remain.

The Engraving Copyright Act 1734 (8 Geo.2 c.13) is an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1734 to give protections to producers of engravings.

It is sometimes called Hogarth's Act after William Hogarth, whose work had prompted the law.

Historian Mark Rose notes, "The Act protected only those engravings that involved original designs and thus, implicitly, made a distinction between artists and mere craftsmen. Soon, however, Parliament was persuaded to extend protection to all engravings." (Rose, Mark. Technology and Copyright in 1735: The Engraver's Act. The Information Society, Volume 21, Number 1, January-March 2005. pp. 63-66.)

This Act is the first of the Copyright Acts 1734 to 1888.

Oglethorpe returns to England in June 1734 with goodwill ambassadors in the persons of Yamacraw chief Tomochichi, Senauki, his wife, their nephew Toonahowi, and six other Lower Creek tribesmen.

The Indians are regarded as celebrities, feted by the Trustees, interviewed by the king and queen, entertained by the archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace, and made available to meet the public.

All but two of them pose with a large number of Trustees at the Georgia office for the painter William Verelst.

One of the absent Indians dies of smallpox, despite the ministrations of the eminent physician Sir Hans Sloane, and is buried by his grieving comrades in the burial plot of St. John's in Westminster.

After performing their social obligations, the Indians become tourists, visiting the Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, Oglethorpe's Westbrook Manor, and Egmont's Charlton House, and enjoying a variety of plays, from Shakespearean dramas to comic farces.

The Indians depart on October 31, 1734.

With them go fifty-seven Salzburgers to join the forty-two families already in Georgia at Ebenezer.

Spain and Great Britain in the 1730s dispute control over the border between Georgia and La Florida, where the Spanish have several settlements and forts.

Oglethorpe seeks to increase his southern defenses, given a heightened threat of Spanish invasion.

Accompanied by rangers and two Native American guides, he picks St. Simons Island as the site for a new town and fort.

Oglethorpe in 1734, persuades Parliament and the colonial trustees to pay for a new military garrison.

He recruits a company of British settlers to migrate with their families to live at Darien, at the mouth of the Altamaha River.

Salzburgers, Lutherans who had been expelled by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Salzburg, Austria, in October 1731, had set sail on January 8, 1734, for the British Colony of Georgia, in America, and arrive at the mouth of the Savannah River on March 12.