View source for British Empire

== English overseas possessions (1583–1707) ==
{{Main|English overseas possessions}}

In 1578, [[Elizabeth I]] granted a patent to [[Humphrey Gilbert]] for discovery and overseas exploration.<ref>{{Harvnb|Andrews|1984|p=187}}; {{Cite web |title=Letters Patent to Sir Humfrey Gylberte June 11, 1578 |url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/16th_century/humfrey.asp |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210321194846/https://avalon.law.yale.edu/16th_century/humfrey.asp |archive-date=21 March 2021 |access-date=8 February 2021 |publisher=[[Avalon Project]]}}</ref> That year, Gilbert sailed for the [[Caribbean]] with the intention of engaging in [[piracy]] and establishing a colony in North America, but the expedition was aborted before it had crossed the Atlantic.<ref>{{Harvnb|Andrews|1984|p=188}}; {{Harvnb|Canny|1998|p=63}}.</ref> In 1583, he embarked on a second attempt. On this occasion, he formally claimed the harbour of the island of Newfoundland, although no settlers were left behind. Gilbert did not survive the return journey to England and was succeeded by his half-brother, [[Walter Raleigh]], who was granted his own patent by Elizabeth in 1584. Later that year, Raleigh founded the [[Roanoke Colony]] on the coast of present-day [[North Carolina]], but lack of supplies caused the colony to fail.{{Sfn|Canny|1998|pp=63–64}}

In 1603, [[James VI of Scotland]] ascended (as James I) to the English throne and in 1604 negotiated the [[Treaty of London (1604)|Treaty of London]], ending hostilities with Spain. Now at peace with its main rival, English attention shifted from preying on other nations' colonial infrastructures to the business of establishing its own overseas colonies.{{Sfn|Canny|1998|p=70}} The British Empire began to take shape during the early 17th century, with the [[British colonization of the Americas|English settlement]] of North America and the smaller islands of the Caribbean, and the establishment of [[Joint-stock company|joint-stock companies]], most notably the [[East India Company]], to administer colonies and overseas trade. This period, until the loss of the [[Thirteen Colonies]] after the [[American Revolutionary War|American War of Independence]] towards the end of the 18th century, has been referred to by some historians as the "First British Empire".{{Sfn|Canny|1998|p=34}}

=== Americas, Africa and the slave trade ===
{{Main|British colonisation of the Americas|British America|Thirteen Colonies|British West Indies|Atlantic slave trade}}
[[File:Tobacco cultivation (Virginia, ca. 1670).jpg|thumb|A 1670 illustration of African slaves working in 17th-century [[Colony of Virginia|colonial Virginia]] in [[British America]]]]
England's early efforts at colonisation in the Americas met with mixed success. An attempt to establish a colony in [[British Guiana|Guiana]] in 1604 lasted only two years and failed in its main objective to find gold deposits.{{Sfn|Canny|1998|p=71}} Colonies on the Caribbean islands of [[Saint Lucia|St Lucia]]&nbsp;(1605) and [[Grenada]]&nbsp;(1609) rapidly folded.{{Sfn|Canny|1998|p=221}} The first permanent English settlement in the Americas was founded in 1607 in [[Jamestown, Virginia|Jamestown]] by Captain [[John Smith (explorer)|John Smith]], and managed by the [[London Company|Virginia Company]]; the Crown took direct control of the venture in 1624, thereby founding the [[Colony of Virginia]].{{Sfn|Andrews|1984|pp=316, 324–326}} [[Bermuda]] was settled and claimed by England as a result of the 1609 shipwreck of the Virginia Company's [[Sea Venture|flagship]],{{Sfn|Lloyd|1996|pp=15–20}} while [[London and Bristol Company|attempts to settle Newfoundland]] were largely unsuccessful.{{Sfn|Andrews|1984|pp=20–22}} In 1620, [[Plymouth Colony|Plymouth]] was founded as a haven by [[Puritan]] religious separatists, later known as the [[Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony)|Pilgrim]]s.{{Sfn|James|2001|p=8}} Fleeing from [[religious persecution]] would become the motive for many English would-be colonists to risk the arduous [[Transatlantic crossing|trans-Atlantic voyage]]: [[Province of Maryland|Maryland]] was established by [[Catholic Church in England and Wales|English Roman Catholics]]&nbsp;(1634), [[Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations|Rhode Island]]&nbsp;(1636) as a colony [[Religious tolerance|tolerant of all religions]] and Connecticut&nbsp;(1639) for [[Congregational church|Congregationalists]]. England's North American holdings were further expanded by the annexation of the Dutch colony of [[New Netherland]] in 1664, following the capture of [[New Amsterdam]], which was renamed [[New York (state)|New York]].{{Sfn|Lloyd|1996|p=40}} Although less financially successful than colonies in the Caribbean, these territories had large areas of good agricultural land and attracted far greater numbers of English emigrants, who preferred their temperate climates.{{Sfn|Ferguson|2002|pp=72–73}}<!-- Insert some discussion of interaction with Native Indians here -->

The [[British West Indies]] initially provided England's most important and lucrative colonies.{{Sfn|James|2001|p=17}} Settlements were successfully established in [[Saint Kitts|St. Kitts]]&nbsp;(1624), [[Barbados]]&nbsp;(1627) and [[Nevis]]&nbsp;(1628),{{Sfn|Canny|1998|p=221}} but struggled until the "Sugar Revolution" transformed the Caribbean economy in the mid-17th century.<ref name="BBC_Watson">{{Cite web |last=Watson |first=Karl |date=2 February 2011 |title=Slavery and Economy in Barbados |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/barbados_01.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120212022845/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/barbados_01.shtml |archive-date=12 February 2012 |access-date=5 June 2022 |website=BBC History}}</ref> Large [[Sugar plantations in the Caribbean|sugarcane plantations]] were first established in the 1640s on Barbados, with assistance from Dutch merchants and [[Sephardi Jews|Sephardic Jews]] fleeing [[Colonial Brazil|Portuguese Brazil]]. At first, sugar was grown primarily using white [[Indentured servitude in British America|indentured labour]], but rising costs soon led English traders to embrace the use of imported African slaves.<ref>{{Harvnb|Higman|2000|p=224}}; {{Harvnb|Richardson|2022|p=24}}.</ref> The enormous wealth generated by slave-produced sugar made Barbados the most successful colony in the Americas,{{Sfn|Higman|2000|pp=224–225}} and one of the most densely populated places in the world.<ref name="BBC_Watson"/> This boom led to the spread of sugar cultivation across the Caribbean, financed the development of non-plantation colonies in North America, and accelerated the growth of the [[Atlantic slave trade]], particularly the [[triangular trade]] of slaves, sugar and provisions between Africa, the West Indies and Europe.{{Sfn|Higman|2000|pp=225–226}}

To ensure that the increasingly healthy profits of colonial trade remained in English hands, Parliament [[Navigation Acts|decreed]] in 1651 that only English ships would be able to ply their trade in English colonies. This led to hostilities with the [[Dutch Republic|United Dutch Provinces]]—a series of [[Anglo-Dutch Wars]]—which would eventually strengthen England's position in the Americas at the expense of the Dutch.{{Sfn|Lloyd|1996|p=32}} In 1655, England annexed the island of [[Jamaica]] from the Spanish, and in 1666 succeeded in colonising the [[The Bahamas|Bahamas]].{{Sfn|Lloyd|1996|pp=33, 43}}
In 1670, [[Charles II of England|Charles II]] incorporated by royal charter the [[Hudson's Bay Company]] (HBC), granting it a monopoly on the [[North American fur trade|fur trade]] in the area known as [[Rupert's Land]], which would later form a large proportion of the [[Canada|Dominion of Canada]]. Forts and trading posts established by the HBC were frequently the subject of attacks by the French, who had established their own fur trading colony in adjacent [[New France]].{{Sfn|Buckner|2008|p=25}}

Two years later, the [[Royal African Company]] was granted a monopoly on the supply of slaves to the British colonies in the Caribbean.{{Sfn|Lloyd|1996|p=37}} The company would transport more slaves across the Atlantic than any other, and significantly grew England's share of the trade, from 33 per cent in 1673 to 74 per cent in 1683.{{Sfn|Pettigrew|2013|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=8osqAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 11]}} The removal of this monopoly between 1688 and 1712 allowed independent British slave traders to thrive, leading to a rapid escalation in the number of slaves transported.{{Sfn|Pettigrew|2007|pages=3–38}} British ships carried a third of all slaves shipped across the Atlantic—approximately 3.5&nbsp;million Africans{{Sfn|Ferguson|2002|p=62}}—until the abolition of the trade by Parliament in 1807 (see {{Section link||Abolition of slavery}}).{{Sfn|Richardson|2022|p=23}} To facilitate the shipment of slaves, forts were established on the coast of West Africa, such as [[Kunta Kinteh Island|James Island]], [[Jamestown, Ghana|Accra]] and [[Bunce Island]]. In the British Caribbean, the percentage of the population of African descent rose from 25 per cent in 1650 to around 80 per cent in 1780, and in the Thirteen Colonies from 10 per cent to 40 per cent over the same period (the majority in the southern colonies).{{Sfn|Canny|1998|p=228}} The transatlantic slave trade played a pervasive role in British economic life, and became a major economic mainstay for western port cities.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Draper |first=N. |date=2008 |title=The City of London and Slavery: Evidence from the First Dock Companies, 1795–1800 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40057514 |url-status=live |journal=The Economic History Review |volume=61 |issue=2 |pages=432–433, 459–461 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-0289.2007.00400.x |issn=0013-0117 |jstor=40057514 |s2cid=154280545 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220608174235/https://www.jstor.org/stable/40057514 |archive-date=8 June 2022 |access-date=8 June 2022}}</ref> Ships registered in [[Bristol]], [[Liverpool]] and [[London]] were responsible for the bulk of British slave trading.{{Sfn|Nellis|2013|p=30}} For the transported, harsh and unhygienic conditions on the slaving ships and poor diets meant that the average [[mortality rate]] during the [[Middle Passage]] was one in seven.{{Sfn|Marshall|1998|pp=440–464}}

=== Rivalry with other European empires ===
{{Main|East India Company}}
[[File:Fort St. George, Chennai.jpg|thumb|upright=1.58|[[Fort St. George, India|Fort St. George]] in [[Chennai|Madras]], India was founded in 1639.]]
At the end of the 16th century, England and the [[Dutch Empire]] began to challenge the [[Portuguese Empire]]'s monopoly of trade with Asia, forming private joint-stock companies to finance the voyages—the English, later British, East India Company and the [[Dutch East India Company]], chartered in 1600 and 1602 respectively. The primary aim of these companies was to tap into the lucrative [[spice trade]], an effort focused mainly on two regions: the [[Malay Archipelago|East Indies archipelago]], and an important hub in the trade network, India. There, they competed for trade supremacy with Portugal and with each other.{{Sfn|Lloyd|1996|p=13}} Although England eclipsed the Netherlands as a colonial power, in the short term the Netherlands' more advanced financial system{{Sfn|Ferguson|2002|p=19}} and the three [[Anglo-Dutch Wars]] of the 17th century left it with a stronger position in Asia. Hostilities ceased after the [[Glorious Revolution]] of 1688 when the Dutch [[William III of England|William of Orange]] ascended the English throne, bringing peace between the [[Dutch Republic]] and England. A deal between the two nations left the [[spice trade]] of the [[East Indies]] archipelago to the Netherlands and the [[Textile industry in India|textiles industry of India]] to England, but textiles soon overtook spices in terms of profitability.{{Sfn|Ferguson|2002|p=19}}

Peace between England and the Netherlands in 1688 meant the two countries entered the [[Nine Years' War]] as allies, but the conflict—waged in Europe and overseas between France, Spain and the Anglo-Dutch alliance—left the English a stronger colonial power than the Dutch, who were forced to devote a larger proportion of their [[military budget]] to the costly land war in Europe.{{Sfn|Canny|1998|p=441}} The death of [[Charles II of Spain]] in 1700 and his bequeathal of Spain and its colonial empire to [[Philip V of Spain]], a grandson of the [[Louis XIV of France|King of France]], raised the prospect of the unification of France, Spain and their respective colonies, an unacceptable state of affairs for England and the other powers of Europe.{{Sfn|Shennan|1995|pp=11–17}} In 1701, England, Portugal and the Netherlands sided with the [[Holy Roman Empire]] against Spain and France in the [[War of the Spanish Succession]], which lasted for thirteen years.{{Sfn|Shennan|1995|pp=11–17}}