In the history commemorated by America250, thirteen colonies declared independence in 1776.
The colonies were British possessions along the Atlantic coast of North America. They were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
The Declaration of Independence described these colonies as the “thirteen united States of America.” That wording referred to the political group that broke from British rule, not to thirteen fully developed modern states with today’s borders.
A common mix-up concerns Vermont, which declared independence from New York in 1777 but was not one of the thirteen colonies represented in the Declaration. Vermont later joined the United States as the fourteenth state in 1791. The original thirteen colonies remain a major symbol of the nation’s founding, making the number especially relevant to the 250th-anniversary story.