Militia (British Dominions and Crown Colonies)

The Militia of the British Dominions and Crown Colonies were the principal military forces of the Dominions and Crown Colonies of the British Empire.

The English had raised militia forces in their settled colonies in the New World immediately upon establishing them in the first decade of the 17th century. Whereas militias in England remained little used, outside the period of the English Civil Wars, during the following century, those in the North American colonies were to play significant roles. In many actions fought with Native Americans, the militia were the primary English force in the field, as professional full-time military forces were usually far away. Even when the English colonies around the world became the British Empire, and regular forces began to become available for garrison duty, militias were still a vital part of Great Britain's military power in the Americas, and British victory over Spain and France during the Seven Years' War, and its resulting hegemony in North America, could not have been realised without the colonial militias and their Native allies. It was the presence of their militia that allowed thirteen American colonies to launch the secessionist American War of Independence.

The colonies of Australia did not have militia, nor officially did New Zealand. In 1843 a local militia had been formed in Wellington without official sanction it was immediately disbanded.

In Bermuda, a self-governed (rather than Crown) colony settled in 1609, with no native population, the Militia followed a trajectory more like that in Britain, finally becoming moribund after the American War of 1812, by when the build-up of regular forces had removed the demand for the militia. Nevertheless, during the first century of its settlement, Bermuda's militia had remained the colony's sole defence, manning its fortifications and coastal batteries and calling up all available manpower in times of war. This included slaves and indentured servants, among whom were Irish and Scottish Prisoners of war (POW), forcibly removed from their homelands following the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland and the invasion of Scotland by England during the Third English Civil War and sold to the highest bidder.

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