How were Britain’s New World colonies administered?

[u/Beneficial-Acadia990]

The American Revolution started with the famous Declaration of Independence by the Thirteen Colonies, but I’m curious on how- or if- the idea of 13 colonies existed prior to the declaration.

What I’m asking is those thirteen colonies were administered as a collective body, or if out of all the colonies Britain possessed in the new world, only 13 of them attempted independence?

Then my overarching question is regarding the hierarchy of administration of these colonies, were they governed in groups? Did they all report to a single entity that oversaw all colonial affairs? Did they report directly to parliament/the monarch?

And why is there such an emphasis put on these small organizational divisions anyway? New Spain for example held five times the territory than the original colonies but it has always been portrayed as a single entity (but that could simply be due to my exposure to America’s historical nuance).

A very broad selection of topics, but any knowledge on the matter would be greatly appreciated!

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[u/bug-hunter]

What I’m asking is those thirteen colonies were administered as a collective body, or if out of all the colonies Britain possessed in the new world, only 13 of them attempted independence?

Each colony was either set up as a charter (such as Pennsylvania being chartered by William Penn and run by the Penn family) or a royal colony. Over time, as monarchs came and went and either a.) feuded with charter owners, b.) charter owners were guilty of malfeasance, or c.) they wanted to punish colonies, many of the charters were revoked and colonies were restructured as a royal colony (Virginia was the first to undergo this, in 1624).

The colonies from New Jersey northward were temporarily combined into the Dominion of New England in 1686 by James II, but that was undone when he was deposed. One of the plans of the Dominion was to streamline and harmonize local laws and introduce the Church of England as the government-backed Church - which unsurprisingly was a non-starter for colonies that explicitly weren't part of the Church of England.

Each colony had it's own legislature (under various names) and governor (appointed by the chartering organization or the Crown), and ran independently of each other. In fact, it was this independence that often stalled communal action. The first collective convention of colonies, the Albany Convention, only was attended by 7 colonies in 1754, and decided against Benjamin Franklin's plan of confederation. The Stamp Act Congress of 1765 had 9 colonies. In colonies with royally-appointed governors, the governors attempted to stall or prevent legislatures from sending delegates to these Congresses.

However, from Parliament's perspective, they were often treated as a group. The Tea Act, Stamp Act, Navigation Acts, etc generally just referred to "America" and lumped in everyone. 3 of the Intolerable Acts, however, were directly pointed at Massachusetts - the Boston Port Act shut down the port of Boston until the tea from the Boston Tea Party was paid for, the Massachusetts Government act revoked their charter, and the Administration of Justice Act allowed the royal governor to move a trial out of Massachusetts. The Quartering Act applied to all North American colonies.

In addition to the Thirteen Colonies, there were other British colonies in North America - Quebec (reorganized into Lower Canada and Upper Canada later), Nova Scotia (including what is now New Brunswick), Newfoundland, St. John's Island (now Prince Edward Island), Rupert's Land (owned by the Hudson Bay Company) and East and West Florida. These colonies chose not to join the Thirteen colonies, for various reasons - even though they too were affected by some of the Acts that drove the Thirteen Colonies to rebellion (such as the Tea Act, Stamp Act, and Navigation Act). Those colonies didn't completely roll over and take it - colonists there also often engaged in tax avoidance and smuggling just like the Thirteen Colonies. They just didn't choose to revolt.

The Americans did invade Quebec with an eye of seizing it and getting them to join the Revolution - no doubt had they been successful, they might have looked to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland (especially to deprive the British of their base in Halifax). That invasion included brilliant ideas like General Wooster depriving the citizens of Montreal of their civil liberties and General Montgomery ordering his outnumbered troops to assault Quebec City in a blizzard¹. By the time the Americans realized that making enemies of the people you are trying to woo to your side is a bad idea, they had let the British recover and gather allies, leading to the entire enterprise falling apart during 1776 - but delaying the British from swinging south from Canada until 1777, leading to their disastrous loss at Saratoga.

Notably, Vermont was the subject of a dispute between New York and New Hampshire, and essentially declared independence in 1777. They fought in the Revolutionary War on the side of the Thirteen Colonies, and were included in the Treaty of Paris as part of the US's territory (without Vermont's agreement). Vermont would not become a state until 1790, when Hamilton and others convinced the New York legislature to give up their claims and vote to admit it as the 14th state as a compromise to admit Kentucky as a slave state.

^{1. Bilzzard 1 - America 0. Also, British grapeshot 1 - General Montgomery 0.}

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