Colonies & Settlement

Portrait to Come (Hidden)

Portrait by Artist to Come


QUICK FACTS
  • Compared to the West Indies, British North America was economically trivial in the 18th century. In 1773, for example, British imports from Jamaica alone were five times more valuable than those from all of the North American colonies combined.
CONTENTS

     

Thirteen Colonies

Territories

  • Kentucky County
  • New Hampshire Grants (Vermont Republic)

At the end of March [1783] Franklin applied to [French Foreign Secretary] Vergennes for permission to publish a complete translation of the United States constitutions in French, the only language in which they could be widely read. He was eager to correct Europe’s misapprehensions about the new nation; he knew as well that he was offering up an advertisement for American trade and immigration.... Copies went out over the summer to the entire diplomatic corps and, in extravagantly bound editions, to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The most influential of Franklin’s European publications the constitutions were universally well received.

— Stacy Schiff
A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America (2005)