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The Thirteen Colonies were British colonies in North America founded between 1607 (Virginia), and 1732 (Georgia). They subsequently constituted the first 13 states of the United States of America.

Although Great Britain held several other colonies in North America and the West Indies, the colonies referred to as the "thirteen" are those that rebelled against British rule in 1775 (August 22) and proclaimed their independence on July 4, 1776.

More here about how they were found.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Colonies

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The Question ask why, Money to be made from tobacco is one reason.
VI History
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As early as 2,000 years ago, natives of the Americas used as a medicine, as a hallucinogen in religious ceremonies, and as offerings to the spirits they worshiped. When Italian Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus traveled to the Americas in 1492, he observed the Arawak people of the Caribbean smoking tobacco loosely rolled in a large tobacco leaf. They also smoked tobacco through a tube they called a tobago, from which the name tobacco originated. Columbus?s crew introduced tobacco growing and use to Spain. During the next 50 years, sailors, explorers, and diplomats helped spread pipe and cigar smoking throughout Europe. At first, it was used medicinally as a purported treatment for diseases and disorders such as bubonic plague, migraines, labor pains, asthma, and cancer. Within 100 years, however, smoking for pleasure became common.

In 1612 the British colony at Jamestown, Virginia, began growing wild tobacco and exporting it to England. They soon switched to common tobacco, the milder kind grown in the West Indies and in demand in Europe. It quickly became the main crop grown in the colonies and was so profitable that without it, historians agree, the English colonies in North America would have failed.

As tobacco farming expanded through the colonies, growers brought British prisoners and debtors to work the fields. These indentured servants earned their freedom after 5 to 12 years of labor. Growers soon found it more profitable to bring in African slaves, since they never had to be given their freedom. Slavery enabled growers to farm larger areas, making giant plantations possible. After 1776 tobacco farming expanded from Virginia south to North Carolina and west as far as Missouri. In about 1864 an Ohio farmer happened upon a chlorophyll-deficient strain of tobacco called white burley, which became a main ingredient of American blended tobaccos.