Changes of Sovereignty

Wars among the European nations, which often extended to North America, brought major changes in the 18th century. In 1762 France ceded Louisiana west of the Mississippi to Spain, and in 1763 it lost Canada and the rest of Louisiana to Great Britain. France retained only some small islands off Newfoundland. Spain began settling California in 1769. The United States won its independence from Britain in 1775–83, acquiring all British-held mainland territory south of Canada.

The Russians discovered Alaska in 1741, and occupied it beginning in 1784. In 1800 Spanish Louisiana was returned to France, which then sold it to the United States in 1803. When Mexico and Central America won their independence, 1821–23, Spain was excluded from the North American mainland. In the Caribbean, most of the Spanish possessions passed to Britain or France, or became independent.

Russia established a post on the California coast in 1809, but abandoned it in 1841. Texas freed itself from Mexico in 1836 and was annexed in 1845 to the United States, which won California and the Southwest from Mexico in 1848. The Russians withdrew from the continent in 1867, when they sold Alaska to the United States. Spain lost its last Caribbean possessions, Cuba and Puerto Rico, in the Spanish-American War, 1898. In 1917 Denmark sold its portion of the Virgin Islands to the United States Canada became an autonomous member of the British Commonwealth in 1931. In 1953 Greenland, a Danish possession since the early 18th century, became an integral part of the kingdom of Denmark.

In the 1960's and 1970's, a number of the Caribbean colonies of Great Britain achieved independence. In 1979 the Panama Canal Zone, a strip of land under American sovereignty since 1904, ceased to exist, becoming part of Panama. Also that year, Greenland became largely self-governing. In the 1980's, additional British colonies in the Caribbean gained independence.