1890s Colour Map - BRITISH COLONIAL EMPIRE ,1894 Antique Colour Map

TOPOGRAPHICAL POLITICAL MAP

EXPANSION OF THE BRITISH COLONIAL EMPIRE PRE 1700 - 1894. The British Empire was the most extensive empire in world history and for a time was the foremost global power. It was a product of the European age of discovery, which began with the global maritime explorations of Portugal and Spain in the late 15th century. The overseas British Empire (in the sense of British oceanic exploration and settlement outside of Europe and the British Isles) was rooted in the pioneering maritime policies of King Henry VII, who reigned from 1485 to 1509. Building on commercial links in the wool trade promoted during the reign of his predecessor King Richard III, Henry established the modern English merchant marine system, which greatly expanded English shipbuilding and seafaring. The merchant marine also supplied the basis for the mercantile institutions that would play such a crucial role in later British imperial ventures, such as the Massachusetts Bay Company and the British East India Company. Henry's financial reforms made the English Exchequer solvent, which helped to underwrite the development of the Merchant Marine. Henry also ordered construction of the first English dry dock, at Portsmouth, and made improvements to England's small navy. Additionally, Henry sponsored the voyages of the Italian mariner John Cabot in 1496 and 1497 that established England's first overseas colony - a fishing settlement - in Newfoundland, which Cabot claimed on behalf of Henry.n 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed the island of Newfoundland as England's for Elizabeth I, reinforcing John Cabot's prior claim to the island in 1497, for Henry VII, as England's first overseas colony. Gilbert's shipwreck prevented ensuing settlement in Newfoundland, other than the seasonal cod fishermen who had frequented the island since 1497. However, the Jamestown colonists, led by Captain John Smith, overcame the severe privations of the winter in 1607 to found England's first permanent overseas settlement. The empire thus took shape during the early 17th century, with the English settlement of the eastern colonies of North America, which would later become the original United States as well as Canada's Atlantic provinces, and the colonisation of the smaller islands of the Caribbean such as Jamaica and Barbados.The sugar-producing colonies of the Caribbean, where slavery became central to the economy, were at first England's most important and lucrative colonies. The American colonies provided tobacco, cotton, and rice in the south and naval materiel and furs in the north were less financially successful, but had large areas of good agricultural land and attracted far larger numbers of English emigrants. war and colonisation, England gaining control of New Amsterdam (later New York) via negotiations following the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The growing American colonies pressed ever westward in search of new agricultural lands. During the Seven Years' War the British defeated the French at the Plains of Abraham and captured all of New France in 1760, giving Britain control over the greater part of North America. Later, settlement of Australia (starting with penal colonies from 1788) and New Zealand (under the crown from 1840) created a major zone of British migration. The entire Australian continent was claimed for Britain when Matthew Flinders proved New Holland and New South Wales to be a single land mass by completing a circumnavigation of it in 1803. The colonies later became self-governing colonies and became profitable exporters of wool and gold

1890s Wood Engraving, Antique Map

Approximate Overall Size: 12 X 9 1/2 inches

CONDITION: Book Plate Map - Excellent Condition. Folded. As Scanned. German Text. Beautiful with excellent detail. Map Print is Blank on the back