North American Colonies1565-1732

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Land GrantsA colonial grant, or land grant, is a gift of land from one person to another. The gift usually comes from the king or queen who owns the land. These grants often were granted in exchange for money or in payment of a debt. The best example of this would be William Penn. The king owed Penn’s father money; and as repayment of the debt, he granted a large tract of land in North America to William Penn’s father. Admiral Penn gave the land to his son, William, as a safe place for him and his fellow members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) to settle.

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William Penn’s Charter

ChartersThe king or queen signs a colonial charter, which grants special rights to a person or group of people. The charter could grant permission to establish a city, a town, or a university (Harvard, 1636).

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The first page of the Charter of Virginia.

St. AugustineThere were a few North American Spanish settlements prior to St. Augustine; however, all of them failed (most due to hurricanes). A Spanish admiral, Pedro Menendez de Aviles, founded St. Augustine on September 8, 1565. The city received its name because it was first spotted on August 28, the Spanish feast day of Augustine Hippo. A little more than a year later Martin de Arguelles was born in St. Augustine. He was the first European known to have been born in North America. De Arguelles would have been 20 years old when Virginia Dare was born in the English colony of Roanoke. Today, St. Augustine is 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

Queen Elizabeth I granted Sir Walter Raleigh a charter to establish a colony in North America. According to the charter, Raleigh had to establish the colony within ten years; or he would lose all rights to the land. In 1684 Raleigh sent an advance party to along the coast of present-day North Carolina and Virginia. He chose Roanoke, a small island off North Carolina, as the site of the first English settlement. Because of poor funding, poor preparation, poor leadership, and bad luck, all three settlements on Roanoke failed. The final and most famous of these failed colonies is the “lost colony” of Roanoke. After sending for supplies from England, three relief ships were caught in the attack of the Spanish Armada; and this delayed their return to the colony. When the supply ships arrived, there was not trace of the colonists. The only clue was a post marked with the word “CROATOAN,” the name of the local Indians and a nearby island. 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 Saint Croix

colony.

This early French settlement was located in present-day Maine on an island near the mouth of the St. Croix River. The native people called the island, Muttoneguis. Pierre Dugua de Monts (Sieur de Monts) and Samuel de Champlain founded the French colony of Saint Croix on the island in June 1605. By the following spring half the French settlers had died from what is believed to have been scurvy, and the remaining colonists left for a new settlement at Port-Royal. The colonists who founded Port-Royal would move on to another settlement, which became the city of Quebec.

JamestownCICEROHistory Beyond The Textbook

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1607

The Virginia colony of Jamestown, was established on May 14, 1607. The first year on the settlement was harsh; only thirty-two colonists survived the winter. American Indians gave the colonists food, which helped them to survive their first winter. In the spring, the remaining colonists tried to leave, but they encountered English ships Lord Thomas de la Warr commanded. De la Warr He forced the colonists to return to Jamestown. Indians 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 British colony of Popham was founded in 1607. The colony survived barely a year and was abandoned in the fall of 1608. A change in leadership was blamed for Popham’s decline. Popham was the birthplace of the first ship the English built in the New World, a pinnace-style ship, Virginia of Sagadahoc. This vessel crossed the Atlantic 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 and the building that houses it.

Plymouth was the first permanent English settlement. Pilgrims establish Plymouth in 1620. Squanto, an American Indian, 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 the Massachusetts Bay Colony took over Plymouth. Most of Plymouth’s early settlers 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 American Indians for sixty guilders in 1626. The settlement and the fort became known as New Amsterdam. In 1653 the Dutch government granted New Amsterdam self-government. 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, present-day Salem. John Winthrop arrived with the Massachusetts Bay Charter, which allowed the colony more self-government. Massachusetts took over Maine in 1652. The relationship between the colonists and local Native Americans was somewhat hostile. That hostility led to King Philip’s War in 1675. Massachusetts Bay Colony began as a corporate colony, but it became 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. They landed on March 25,1634; and the state commemorates that date as “Maryland Day” each year. Maryland gained statehood during the American Revolution in 1776.

Queen Henrietta Maria of England

Rhode Island

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1636

In 1636 Roger Williams established the first permanent settlement in Rhode Island after he was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony because he wanted religious freedom. Banished for the same reason, Anne Hutchinson followed him two years later. Williams bought land from the Narragansett Indians and settled in an area near present-day 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 Indians killed her and five of her children. Roger Williams

Connecticut

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1636

The Netherlands’ Adriaen Block explored present-day Connecticut . By 1614 Dutch fur traders were sailing up the Connecticut River and 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 British crown did not approve the establishment of the Connecticut Colony; in fact, it was viewed as an extension of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1662 John Winthrop petitioned for a charter to unite the Connecticut and Quinnipiac colonies. The charter passed, and a seat of government was establish soon after.

Adriaen Block

North Carolina

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1654

British and Spanish settlers unsuccessfully established colonies in the present-day area Carolinas in the late 1500s. In 1653 Virginia colonists began to settle in the area now known as North Carolina, and King Charles II granted the colony a charter in 1663. The King of England recognized the northern Carolina region, Albemarle, 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.

Tobacco drying in a barn.

South Carolina

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1663

The first site of a European settlement in what present-day South Carolina was in 1526. Spanish settlers from Hispaniola settled San Miguel of Guadalupe. The settlers were forced to leave after suffering many deaths because of fever. In 1663 Britain’s King Charles II created the colony of Carolina and named it after himself. In 1670 Charleston was established and was named after the king. In 1710 North and South Carolina could not agree on a common government, so they separated. Officially, North and South Carolina became two separate colonies in 1729. King Charles II

New Jersey

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1664

The Dutch settled present-day New Jersey as a part of New Netherland in 1623. The area of New Jersey was originally much larger, stretching well into present-day New York. Englishman, Richard Nicolls seized the area from the Dutch in 1664. The English falsely claimed 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

Originally, the Massachusetts Bay Colony owned the area that became the colony of New Hampshire. 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 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. They named it Londonderry, after a 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’s father and given the Latin root word sylvania meaning “forest.” The plan for the 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 local natives killed these early settlers. In 1638 Peter Minuit, with 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, claimed the area from the Dutch, and renamed it New Castle. The Dutch shortly gained control of Delaware in 1673, but the British resumed control a year later. Delaware was named after former Virginia Governor, Thomas West, Lord De La Warr.

Lord De La Warr

Georgia

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1732

Georgia was the last of the original thirteen colonies the British settled. Georgia was founded in 1733. James Oglethorpe convinced the established Yamacraw Indians to leave the area and settled the land as a safe haven for debtors. The original British charter 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 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 first. On January 7, 1755, Georgia officially became a colony of the royal crown.

James Oglethorpe

San Diego

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1769

A Franciscan monk, Junipero Serra, founded San Diego in 1769 for Spain. Sebastian Vizcaino who was aboard the Spanish ship, San Diego, originally explored the area in 1602. The land was named after Vizcaino’s ship. 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.