increase in the numbers of slaves.

[81][82] Colonial society was largely divided over the religious and

moral implications of slavery, and colonies passed acts for and against the practice. [83][84] But by
the turn of the 18th century, African slaves were replacing indentured servants for cash crop
labor, especially in southern regions.[85]
With the establishment of the Province of Georgia in 1732, the 13 colonies that would become
the United States of America were administered by the British as overseas dependencies. [86] All
nonetheless had local governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing
devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating support
for republicanism.[87] With extremely high birth rates, low death rates, and steady settlement, the
colonial population grew rapidly. Relatively small Native American populations were eclipsed.
[88]
 The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great
Awakening fueled interest both in religion and in religious liberty. [89]
During the Seven Years' War (in the United States, known as the French and Indian War), British
forces seized Canada from the French, but the francophone population remained politically
isolated from the southern colonies. Excluding the Native Americans, who were being conquered
and displaced, the 13 British colonies had a population of over 2.1 million in 1770, about a third
that of Britain. Despite continuing new arrivals, the rate of natural increase was such that by the
1770s only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas.[90] The colonies' distance from
Britain had allowed the development of self-government, but their success
motivated monarchs to periodically seek to reassert royal authority.[91]
In 1774, the Spanish Navy ship Santiago, under Juan Pérez, entered and anchored in an inlet
of Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island, in present-day British Columbia. Although the Spanish did
not land, natives paddled to the ship to trade furs for abalone shells from California.[92] At the time,
the Spanish were able to monopolize the trade between Asia and North America, granting limited
licenses to the Portuguese. When the Russians began establishing a growing fur trading system
in Alaska, the Spanish began to challenge the Russians, with Pérez's voyage being the first of
many to the Pacific Northwest.[93][h]
During his third and final voyage, Captain James Cook became the first European to begin
formal contact with Hawaii.[95] Captain Cook's last voyage included sailing along the coast of
North America and Alaska searching for a Northwest Passage for approximately nine months.[96]

Independence and expansion (1776–1865)

Further information: American Revolutionary War, United States Declaration of
Independence, American Revolution, and Territorial evolution of the United States

Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull

The American Revolutionary War was the first successful colonial war of independence against a
European power. Americans had developed an ideology of "republicanism" asserting that
government rested on the will of the people as expressed in their local legislatures. They
demanded their rights as Englishmen and "no taxation without representation". The British
insisted on administering the empire through Parliament, and the conflict escalated into war.[97]