North American Colonies1565-1732

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Land GrantsA colonial grant, or land grant is simply a gift of land from one person to another. The gift usually comes from the King or Queen who owns most of the land in the first place. These grants were often given in exchange for money or in repayment of a debt that is owed. The best example of this would be William Penn. The King owed his father money and as repayment of the debt, granted a large piece of land in North America. Penn in turn gave the land to his son William as a safe place for he and his fellow members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) to settle.

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William Penn’s Charter

ChartersA colonial charter is basically a piece of paper signed by the King or Queen, giving special rights to a person or group of people. The permission sought could range anywhere from establishing a city or town to forming a university (like Harvard in 1636). The date that a place is granted a charter, it has officially been “founded”. You may see different dates for the founding or settlement of a particular city or state throughout your textbooks and on Cicero. Just keep this in mind if you get confused.

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The first page of the Charter of Virginia

St. AugustineWhile there were a few Spanish settlements on the North American continent prior to the founding of St. Augustine, all of them ultimately failed (most due to hurricanes). The city of St. Augustine was founded on September 8, 1565 by a Spanish admiral named Pedro Menendez de Aviles. The city got its name because it was first spotted on August 28th, which marks the Spanish feast day of Augustine Hippo, thus St. Augustine. A little more than a year later, a child named Martin de Arguelles was born, making him the first known person of European ancestry to be born in North America. In fact, he would have been around 20 years old when Virginia Dare was born in the English colony of Roanoke. Today, St. Augustine is located in the state of Florida and is the oldest continuously populated city in the country.

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1565

Castillo de San Marcos was built in 1672 after a pirate attack.

Roanoke Island

Sir Walter Raleigh received a charter to establish a colony in North America by Queen Elizabeth I that stated that he had ten years in which to establish a settlement or lose all rights to the land. In 1684, Raleigh sent an advance party to scout the location along the coast of present day North Carolina and Virginia. He chose a small island off the present day North Carolina coast called Roanoke to establish the first English settlement. Because of poor funding, preparation, leadership and bad luck all three settlement which were attempted failed miserably. The final and most famous of these is known as the “lost colony” of Roanoke. After sending for more supplies from England, there relief ships were caught up in the attack by the Spanish Armada and were delayed returning to the colony. When they finally returned, they found no trace of the colonists. The only clue they could find was a tree marked with “CROA” which was both the name of the local Indians and a nearby island. To this day, no one knows the fate of those settlers.

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1586

Sir Walter Raleigh

Saint Croix IslandCiceroHistory Beyond The Textbook

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1604

Samuel de Champlain was co-founder of the colony.

This early French settlement was located in present–day Maine on an island near the mouth of the St. Croix River. The island was originally called Muttoneguis by the native people who had lived there for hundreds of years prior to the French arrival. The colony was originally founded by Pierre Dugua de Monts (Sieur de Monts) and Samuel de Champlain for France in June of 1604. By the following spring of 1605 half of the French settlers had died from what is believed to be scurvy and the remaining colonists packed up and left for a new settlement at Port-Royal. The colonists who founded Port-Royal would eventually move on to another settlement which became the city of Quebec.

JamestownCiceroHistory Beyond The Textbook

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1607

Following previous attempts, the settlement of Jamestown on the Virginia Colony was finally established on May 14, 1607. The first year on the settlement was harsh; only 32 colonists survived the winter. Native Americans saved the colonists by giving them food. The remaining colonists later tried to leave, but were met with English ships led by Lord Thomas de la Warr. He forced the colonists back to the settlement. Native Americans taught the colonists to grow their own crops, and the settlement succeeded.

Popham (Fort St. George)CiceroHistory Beyond The Textbook

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1607-1608

The Popham Colony was founded by the British in Maine in 1607. Lasting barely a year, it was abandoned in the fall of 1608. Its desertion is believed to have stemmed from a change in leadership. The loss of life of these colonists was far lower than the life lost at Jamestown. Popham was also birthplace of the first ship built by the English in the New World, a pinnace style ship named Virginia of Sagadahoc. The vessel crossed the Atlantic again successfully in 1609 as part of Sir Christopher Newport's supply mission to Jamestown.

PlymouthCiceroHistory Beyond The Textbook

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1620

Two views of both Plymouth Rock (or at least part of it) and the building that houses it.

Plymouth was the first permanent English settlement. It was established by Pilgrims in 1620. Squanto, a Native American, negotiated a treaty with Chief Massasoit on behalf of the colony to ensure its success. The Plymouth Colony played a major role in provoking King Phillip’s War against Massasoit’s son. In 1691, Plymouth was taken over by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Most of the early settlers of Plymouth were Separatists, people who had broken with the Church of England seeking religious freedom. The Plymouth colony is famous for holding the first Thanksgiving feast.

New Amsterdam

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(New York) 1626

The Dutch originally settled in New Amsterdam in 1624. Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan Island from local Native Americans for 60 guilders in 1626. The settlement and the fort became known as New Amsterdam. In 1653, New Amsterdam was given self-government by the Dutch. In 1664, King Charles II of Britain wanted to reclaim the land between New England and Virginia, so he forced Peter Stuyvesant to surrender New Amsterdam to the British. Charles II gave New Amsterdam to his brother, James, the Duke of York. James renamed the territory New York.

Peter Minuit

Massachusetts Bay

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1630

The first English colonists to permanently settle in Massachusetts were the Pilgrims in 1620. After the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the Puritans settled in Boston in 1630 and Naumkeag, now known as Salem. John Winthrop arrived with the Massachusetts Bay Charter, which allowed the colony more self-government. Maine was taken over by Massachusetts in 1652. The relationship between the colonists and local Native Americans was somewhat hostile. That hostility led to King Phillip’s War in 1675. Massachusetts Bay colony began as a Corporate Colony, but changed to a Royal colony in 1691.

John Winthrop

Maryland

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1634

Named for Queen Henrietta Maria of England, wife of Charles I, Maryland became a chartered colony in 1632. The first settlers (seventeen men, their wives, and about two hundred others) left England on November 22, 1633 with two small ships, the Ark and the Dove. Landing on March 25, 1634, “Maryland Day” is still commemorated by the state each year. The Old Line state gained statehood during the American Revolution in 1776.

Queen Henrietta Maria of England

Rhode Island

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1636

The first permanent settlement in Rhode Island was established by Roger Williams in 1636, after he was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for wanting to practice religious freedom. He was joined two years later by Anne Hutchinson who was also banished for the same reason. Williams bought land from the Narragansett Indians and settled in an area now known as Providence. Rhode Island was a corporate colony, and in 1663 it received a Royal “Charter of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” Hutchinson and her six children moved to Long Island, New York, following her husband’s death. In 1643, she and five of her children were killed by Indians. Roger Williams

Connecticut

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1636

Connecticut was explored by Adriaen Block from the Netherlands. By 1614, Dutch fur traders were sailing up the Connecticut River and were building a fort near present-day Hartford. Unlike other colonies, Connecticut existed because of a merging of three other territories: Hartford, Old Saybrook, and New Haven. The establishment of the Connecticut Colony was not approved by the British crown; in fact, it was only viewed as an extension of the Massachusetts Bay colony. In 1662, John Winthrop petitioned a charter to unite the Connecticut and Quinnipiac colonies. The charter passed and a seat of government was gained soon thereafter.

Adriaen Block

North Carolina

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1654

British and Spanish settlers unsuccessfully tried to establish a colony in the area of the Carolinas in the late 1500s. In 1653, Virginia colonists began to settle in the area now known as North Carolina, and the colony was granted a charter by King Charles II in 1663. The northern Carolina region, Albemarle, was recognized by the King of England in 1691. This was officially the first time “North Carolina” was used. North and South Carolina were officially divided in 1729. Most of the settlers were poor tobacco farmers, making plantation agriculture the main source of industry.

Drying Tobacco

South Carolina

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1663

The first site of a European settlement in what would be South Carolina was in 1526. Named San Miguel of Guadalupe, it was settled by Spanish settlers from Hispaniola. The settlers were forced to leave after suffering from many deaths due to fever. In 1663, the colony of Carolina was created by Britain’s King Charles II. He named the colony after himself. In 1670, Charleston was established, and again was named after the King. In 1710, North and South Carolina were not able to agree upon a common government between the two areas, so they separated. Officially, North and South Carolina became two separate colonies in 1729.

King Charles II

New Jersey

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1664

New Jersey was settled by the Dutch as a part of New Netherland in 1623. The area of New Jersey was originally much larger than it is today, stretching well into present-day New York. The area was seized from the Dutch by Englishman Richard Nicolls in 1664. The English falsely claimed that John Cabot discovered the land, well before the Dutch. The British gave that area to James, the Duke of York. James gave Sir George Carteret the area between the Hudson and Delaware rivers. That area was named after the Island of Jersey.

George Carteret

New Hampshire

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1664

The colony of New Hampshire was an area originally owned by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. There were four original settlements in the area, Little Harbor, Dover, Portsmouth, and Exeter. In 1638, John Wheelwright established Exeter, when he was sent away from Boston for supporting his sister-in-law, Anne Hutchinson. In 1680, New Hampshire separated from Massachusetts Bay Colony, only to reunite in 1688. New Hampshire officially separated itself in 1691 to become the royal Province of New Hampshire. In 1719, Scots-Irish settlers were sent to New Hampshire to establish a “Scottish” town and name it Londonderry, after the town in Ireland.

John Wheelwright

Pennsylvania

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1681

Swedish, Dutch and English settlers arrived in the Pennsylvania area around 1647. William Penn received the land in 1681 as payment to settle a debt owed to his father. Pennsylvania was named after Penn, and given the Latin root word Sylvania meaning “forest.” The plan for the major city of Philadelphia was laid out in 1682, and the “Frame of Government” began that same year. The next year, German settlers arrived and established Germantown. The major industries in Pennsylvania were agriculture and manufacturing.

Penn’s Treaty with the Indians

Delaware

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1682

Dutch traders unsuccessfully tried to settle Delaware in the early 1630s, but they were killed off by local natives. In 1638, Peter Minuit, under a grant from the New Sweden Company, led Swedish settlers to the Delaware River. The Dutch gained control of the area from the Swedish in 1655. Sir Robert Carr went to the Delaware River and took the area from the Dutch, and renamed it New Castle. The Dutch shortly gained control of Delaware in 1673, but the British got it back a year later. Delaware was named after former Virginia Governor Thomas West, or Lord De La Warr.

Lord De La Warr

Georgia

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1732

The last of the original thirteen colonies to be settled by the British, Georgia was founded in 1733. James Oglethorpe convinced the established Yamacraw Indian to leave the area and settled the land as a safe haven for debtors. The original charter to Britain stated the colony would extend westward from the Savannah River to the Altamaha Rivers and would last for twenty-one years. There was a plea for slave labor to help with the development of the colony. The British Parliament finally allowed Georgia to become a slave colony; but strict laws for the humane treatment of slaves were enforced, at least at first. On January 7, 1755, Georgia officially became a colony of the royal crown.

James Oglethorpe

San Diego

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1769

San Diego was founded in 1769 for Spain by a Franciscan monk named Junipero Serra. The area was originally explored by Sebastian Vizcaino in 1602, who sailed aboard the Spanish vessel the “San Diego”, whose name was given to the new the settlement. In 1769, Junipero Serra founded a mission in the colony to convert American Indians to Catholicism. Within eight years it would become the largest settlement of Indians in California.