The 13 Original Colonies

The 13 original colonies were British colonies along the Atlantic coast that declared independence in 1776 and, after the Revolutionary War, became the first 13 states of the United States. They are listed below in the order they ratified the US Constitution — which is the order they technically became states.

The 13 in order of statehood

Grouped by region

New England Colonies (4)

Settled mostly by English Puritans starting in the 1620s. Cold climate, rocky soil, small farms, big fishing and shipping economies. Highly religious early on, becoming centers of revolutionary thought by the 1770s.

• Massachusetts — Plymouth Colony (1620), Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630)
• Connecticut — settled 1633, claimed independence from Massachusetts Bay
• Rhode Island — founded 1636 by Roger Williams (exiled from Massachusetts for advocating religious tolerance)
• New Hampshire — chartered 1622, became royal colony 1679

Middle Colonies (4)

Religiously and ethnically diverse: Dutch, Swedish, German, Quaker, Welsh, English, French Huguenot. Mid-Atlantic ports made them the breadbasket and commercial heart of the colonies.

• New York — originally Dutch (New Netherland, 1624), taken by English 1664
• New Jersey — split from New York, separate colony 1665
• Pennsylvania — founded by William Penn as a Quaker refuge, 1681
• Delaware — originally Dutch and Swedish settlements, part of Pennsylvania until 1701

Southern Colonies (5)

Plantation-based economies (tobacco, rice, indigo, later cotton). Warmer climate, larger landholdings, and unfortunately the heaviest reliance on enslaved African labor among the 13.

• Virginia — Jamestown founded 1607, oldest English colony in North America
• Maryland — founded 1632 as a Catholic refuge
• North Carolina — split from Carolina province 1712
• South Carolina — split from Carolina province 1712
• Georgia — founded 1732 as a debtor refuge, last of the 13

Why these 13, why no others?

Britain had other North American colonies that did not join the rebellion: East Florida and West Florida (recently acquired from Spain, still loyal to Britain), Quebec / Nova Scotia / Newfoundland (Canadian, declined to join), and several Caribbean colonies (Jamaica, Bermuda, the Bahamas — too economically dependent on British protection to revolt).

The 13 that did join had several things in common: large enough English-speaking populations to organize political resistance, geographic proximity (the Continental Congress in Philadelphia was accessible to all 13), economies frustrated by British trade restrictions, and decades of de facto self-government via colonial assemblies that made centralized British control feel like a recent intrusion.

How to remember all 13

Group them in your head by region. New England has 4 (MA, CT, RI, NH — picture the top-right corner of the US). Middle Colonies have 4 (NY, NJ, PA, DE — the New York/Philadelphia corridor). Southern Colonies have 5 (VA, MD, NC, SC, GA — the Atlantic coast south of the Mid-Atlantic). Once you can list each region, the 13 fall out automatically.

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