British America Thirteen Colonies All colonies had local governments Jews Catholics Christian revivalist Great Awakening religious liberty Britain British monarchs
In what was then considered British America, the Thirteen Colonies were administered as overseas dependencies by the British. All colonies had local governments with elections open to white male property owners except Jews and, in some areas, Catholics. With very high birth rates, low death rates, and steadily growing settlements, the colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s, known as the Great Awakening, fueled colonial interest in both religion and religious liberty. Excluding the Native Americans population, the Thirteen Colonies had a population of over 2.1 million in 1770, representing a population that was then roughly a third the size of Britain. By the 1770s, despite continuing new immigrant arrivals from Britain and other European regions, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain had allowed for the development of self-governance in the colonies, but it encountered periodic efforts by British monarchs to reassert royal authority.
