The First ‘British’ Colony in the Americas: Inter-kingdom Cooperation and Stuart-British Ideology in the Colonisation of Newfoundland, 1616–1640

Abstract

The accession of James VI, the Stewart (or Stuart) King of Scots, to the thrones of England and Ireland in 1603 renewed debates about ‘Britishness’. Many of the king’s attempts to popularise and codify his version of the concept were unsuccessful. His vision for closer political union between England and Scotland did not come to pass until 1707 and most historians attribute the formation of British identity to the eighteenth century. Most influentially, Linda Colley has argued that British identity was forged in the crucible of eighteenth-century empire-building as English, Scottish, and Welsh people lived, worked, and fought together across the globe in defence of shared values. English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish people and interests likewise coalesced in the pursuit of empire in the early seventeenth century. They cooperated in attempts to colonise Newfoundland and explicitly promoted the project as British. The Newfoundland example shows that James’ British vision had some success. This article examines the project’s ‘Britishness’ and argues that the 1603 union of the crowns’ role in the formation of British identity and its impact on overseas expansion requires additional attention.