Editing Thirteen Colonies (section)

==Population of Thirteen Colonies==
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; float:right; clear:right; margin-left:8px; margin-right:0"
|+ Population of the thirteen British colonies{{Efn|The population figures are estimates by historians; they do not include the Indian tribes outside the jurisdiction of the colonies. They do include Indians living under colonial control, as well as slaves and indentured servants.<ref>{{cite book|chapter=Chapter Z: Colonial and Pre-Federal Statistics (Series Z 1-19: Estimated Population of American Colonies: 1610 to 1780)|last=Sutherland|first=Stella H.|title=Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Part 2|chapter-url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1975/compendia/hist_stats_colonial-1970/hist_stats_colonial-1970p2-chZ.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1975/compendia/hist_stats_colonial-1970/hist_stats_colonial-1970p2-chZ.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|page=1168|date=1975|publisher=[[U.S. Census Bureau]]|location=Washington, D.C.}}</ref>}}
|- bgcolor="#CCCCCC"
! Year
! Estimated<br/>Population
|-
| 1610 || 350
|-
| 1620 || 2,302
|-
| 1630 || 4,246
|-
| 1640 || 25,734
|-
| 1650 || 49,368
|-
| 1660 || 75,058
|-
| 1670 || 111,935
|-
| 1680 || 151,507
|-
| 1690 || 210,372
|-
| 1700 || 250,588
|-
| 1710 || 331,711
|-
| 1720 || 466,185
|-
| 1730 || 629,445
|-
| 1740 || 905,563
|-
| 1750 || 1,170,760
|-
| 1760 || 1,593,625
|-
| 1770 || 2,148,076
|-
|}
{{further|List of colonial and pre-Federal U.S. historical population}}

The colonial population rose to a quarter of a million during the 17th century, and to nearly 2.5&nbsp;million on the eve of the American revolution. The estimates do not include the Indian tribes outside the jurisdiction of the colonies.
Good health was important for the growth of the colonies: "Fewer deaths among the young meant that a higher proportion of the population reached reproductive age, and that fact alone helps to explain why the colonies grew so rapidly."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Perkins |first=Edwin J. |url=https://archive.org/details/economyofcolonia0000perk_j4y7 |title=The Economy of Colonial America |year=1988 |isbn=9780231063395 |page=[https://archive.org/details/economyofcolonia0000perk_j4y7/page/7 7] |publisher=Columbia University Press |url-access=registration}}</ref> There were many other reasons for the population growth besides good health, such as the [[Puritan migration to New England (1620–40)|Great Migration]].{{Dubious|citations do not support the assertions|date=August 2019}}

By 1776, about 85% of the white population's ancestry originated in the [[British Isles]] (English, Scots-Irish, Scottish, Welsh), 9% of [[German American|German]] origin, 4% [[Dutch American|Dutch]] and 2% Huguenot French and other minorities.
Over 90% were farmers, with several small cities that were also seaports linking the colonial economy to the larger British Empire. These populations continued to grow at a rapid rate during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, primarily because of high birth rates and relatively low death rates. [[History of immigration to the United States|Immigration]] was a minor factor from 1774 to 1830.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Smith |first=Daniel Scott |year=1972 |title=The Demographic History of Colonial New England |journal=The Journal of Economic History |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=165–183 |doi=10.1017/S0022050700075458 |jstor=2117183 |pmid=11632252|s2cid=27931796 }}</ref>

According to the United States Historical Census Data Base (USHCDB), the ethnic populations in the British American Colonies of 1700, 1755, and 1775 were:

{|class="sort wikitable sortable" style="font-size: 90%"

|-
!colspan=6| Ethnic composition in the British American Colonies of 1700, 1755, 1775<ref name="Boyer et. al p. 99">{{Cite book |last1=Boyer |first1=Paul S. |title=The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People |last2=Clark |first2=Clifford E. |last3=Halttunen |first3=Karen |last4=Kett |first4=Joseph F. |last5=Salisbury |first5=Neal |last6=Sitkoff |first6=Harvard |last7=Woloch |first7=Nancy |year=2013 |isbn=978-1133944522 |edition=8th |page=99|publisher=Cengage Learning }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Scots to Colonial North Carolina Before 1775 |url=http://www.dalhousielodge.org/Thesis/scotstonc.htm |access-date=March 17, 2015 |website=Dalhousielodge.org |archive-date=February 19, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120219045151/http://www.dalhousielodge.org/Thesis/scotstonc.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=U.S. Federal Census: United States Federal Census : US Federal Census |url=http://www.1930census.com/united_states_federal_census.php |access-date=March 17, 2015 |website=1930census.com}}</ref>

|-
! style="background:#efefef" |1700
! style="background:#efefef" |Percent
! style="background:#efefef" |1755
! style="background:#efefef" |Percent
! style="background:#efefef" |1775
! style="background:#efefef" |Percent

|-
| [[English Americans|English]] and [[Welsh American|Welsh]]
| 80.0%
| English and Welsh
| 52.0%
| English
| 48.7%

|-
| [[African American|African]]
| 11.0%
| African
| 20.0%
| African
| 20.0%

|-
| [[Dutch Americans|Dutch]]
| 4.0%
| [[German American|German]]
| 7.0%
| Scots-Irish
| 7.8%

|-
| [[Scottish Americans|Scottish]]
| 3.0%
| [[Scotch-Irish Americans|Scots-Irish]]
| 7.0%
| German
| 6.9%

|-
| Other European
| 2.0%
| [[Irish American|Irish]]
| 5.0%
| Scottish
| 6.6%

|-
| colspan="2" rowspan="4" |
| Scottish
| 4.0%
| Dutch
| 2.7%

|-
| Dutch
| 3.0%
| [[French Americans|French]]
| 1.4%

|-
| Other European
| 2.0%
| [[Swedish Americans|Swedish]]
| 0.6%

|-
| colspan="2" |
| Other
| 5.3%

|-class="sortbottom" bgcolor="lightgrey"
! Colonies
!100%
! Colonies
| 100%
! Thirteen Colonies
| 100%

|-

|}

===Slavery===
{{Main|Slavery in the colonial United States}}

[[Slavery#Chattel slavery|Chattel slavery]] was legal and practiced in all of the Thirteen Colonies.<ref name="Rodriguez2007">[[#jrodriguez2007|Rodriguez, 2007]], p. 88</ref> In most places, it involved house servants or farm workers. It was of economic importance in the export-oriented tobacco plantations of Virginia and Maryland and on the rice and indigo plantations of South Carolina.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wood |first=Betty |title=Slavery in Colonial America, 1619–1776 |date=2013}}</ref>
About 287,000 slaves were imported into the Thirteen Colonies over a period of 160 years, or 2% of the estimated 12&nbsp;million taken from Africa to the Americas via the [[Atlantic slave trade]]. The great majority went to sugar colonies in the Caribbean and to Brazil, where life expectancy was short and the numbers had to be continually replenished. By the mid-18th century, life expectancy was much higher in the American colonies.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Finkelman |first=Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cCMbE4KKlX4C&pg=RA1-PA156 |title=Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619–1895 |year=2006 |isbn=9780195167771 |pages=2:156|publisher=Oxford University Press, US }}</ref>

{|class="wikitable"
|+ Slaves imported into Colonial America<ref>{{Cite book |title=Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery |date=1988 |isbn=9780275957995 |editor-last=Miller |editor-first=John David |page=678 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |editor-last2=Smith |editor-first2=Randall M.}}</ref>

|-
! 1620–1700
! 1701–1760
! 1761–1770
! 1771–1780
! Total

|-
| 21,000
| 189,000
| 63,000
| 15,000
| '''288,000'''

|}

The numbers grew rapidly through a very high birth rate and low mortality rate, reaching nearly four million by the [[1860 United States census|1860 census]]. From 1770 until 1860, the rate of natural growth of North American slaves was much greater than for the population of any nation in Europe, and was nearly twice as rapid as that in England.

The legal status of chattel slavery has been explained by William M. Wiecek:<ref>William M. Wiecek, “The Statutory Law of Slavery and Race in the Thirteen Mainland Colonies of British America.” The William and Mary Quarterly'' 34#2 pp. 258–280 [260–264],  {{doi|10.2307/1925316}}</ref><blockquote>By the time of the Revolution, each of the mainland colonies had at least the rudiments of a statutory law of slavery...and nine of them had fairly elaborate slave codes that specified four basic legal characteristics of American slavery. First, the statutes defined slavery as a lifetime condition, distinguishing it from servitude and other forms of unfree status, which lasted only for a term of years. Second...slave status was made hereditable through the mother. In so providing, the American colonies reversed the common-law rule that personal status followed the condition of the father.... The third fundamental statutory characteristic of American slavery was racial identification....The fourth and most troublesome of the elements of slavery for colonial legislators was the precise legal status of a slave as property.... southern jurisdictions ...settled on the legal definition of a slave as a "chattel personal."</blockquote>