Florida should not be considered one of the original thirteen colonies. The original thirteen colonies were English possessions. They were owned by England, and it was largely English people who lived there, though some colonies had significant Irish, German, and Dutch populations. Florida, on the other hand, was Spanish territory. It was more sparsely populated than any of the English colonies as the Spanish did not make a major attempt to export people there, unlike the English. While some in Georgia may have had plans to one day annex the northern part of Florida, this never came to pass. The climate of Florida was considered too unhealthy and the native population too warlike to make Britain consider making Florida a colony.

If there is an additional area that should be considered an addition to the thirteen colonies, one should consider the sugar islands of the Caribbean. These British possessions were considered more valuable than the other thirteen colonies put together. After the sugar market fell, many of these sugar planters from the Caribbean came to South Carolina and brought their slaves with them, thus helping to launch plantation-style slavery in the South.