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Announcing a permanent break with Britain, the delegates adopted a Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776 for the United States of America. [101] The French formed a military alliance with the United States in 1778 following the British defeat at the Battle of Saratoga. Spain joined France in order to regain Gibraltar from Britain. [102]
British America collectively refers to various European colonies in the Americas prior to the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War in 1783. The British monarchy of the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland—later named the Kingdom of Great Britain, of the British Isles and Western Europe—governed many colonies in the Americas beginning in 1585.
The British American colonies became part of the global British trading network, as the value tripled for exports from America to Britain between 1700 and 1754. The colonists were restricted in trading with other European powers, but they found profitable trade partners in the other British colonies, particularly in the Caribbean.
In domestic matters, the colonies were largely self-governing on many issues; however, the British government did exercise veto power over colonial legislation, and regardless of the type of colonial government, retained control of the law and equity courts; judges were selected by the British government and served at the king's pleasure.
The United States reached an agreement with Spain for navigation rights on the river and was content to let the "feeble" colonial power stay in control of the area. [35] The situation changed when Napoleon forced Spain to return Louisiana to France in 1802 and threatened to close the river to American vessels.
British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland, then further south at Roanoke and Jamestown, Virginia, and more substantially with the founding of the Thirteen Colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America.
All colonial charters guaranteed to the colonists the vague rights and privileges of Englishmen, which would later cause trouble during the American Revolution. In the second half of the 17th century, the Crown looked upon charters as obstacles to colonial control and substituted the royal colony for corporations and proprietary governments.
Unlike the Iberians, the British men came with families with whom they planned to permanently live in what is now North America. [38] They kept the natives on the margins of colonial society. Because the British colonizers' wives were present, the British men rarely had sexual relations with the native women.