Colonial America

Colonial America consists of all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series of Colonial Office files held at The National Archives in London, plus all extracted documents associated with them. They have been published in five modules.

Module 1: Early Settlement, Expansion and Rivalries
Module 2: Towards Revolution
Module 3: The American Revolution
Module 4: Legislation and Politics in the Colonies
Module 5: Growth, Trade and Development

The documents in Colonial America have been indexed by key themes. Short introductions to these major thematic areas and their significance in the CO 5 series are described in the Introduction: Thematic Areas section.

The National Archives’ CO 5 series consists of the original correspondence and entry books of the Board of Trade, the Secretary of State for the Southern Department and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, together holding responsibility for the British possessions in mainland North America and the Caribbean. This unique collection of largely manuscript material from the archives of the British government is an invaluable one for students and researchers of all aspects of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century American history and the early-modern Atlantic world.

Coverage: 1606-1822