1600-1700

  • Virginia Company of London is founded

    Virginia Company of London is founded
    Granted a charter by King James I in 1606, the Virginia Company was a joint-stock company created to establish settlements in the New World
  • Establishment of Jamestown

    Establishment of Jamestown
    the first permanent English settlement in the Americas
  • Santa Fe, New Mexico established by Spain

    Santa Fe, New Mexico established by Spain
    Santa Fe is the oldest capital city and the second-oldest surviving city founded by European colonists on land that later became part of the United States.
  • Fur Trading Center

    The Dutch establish a fur trading center with the Native Americans on Manhattan Island
  • Dutch claim New Netherland

    First Dutch colony in North America; The Dutch claim to this territory derived from their sponsorship of Henry Hudson’s voyages of exploration.
  • Harvesting Tobacco

    Harvesting Tobacco
    John Rolfe successfully harvests tobacco in Jamestown, Virginia and ensured the colonies success
  • Arrival of African slaves

    First African slaves in English North America arrive at Jamestown
  • House of Burgesses was formed in Jamestown

    House of Burgesses was formed in Jamestown
    The first democratically elected legislative body in English North America
  • Plymouth Colony is founded in Massachusetts

    Founded by the Plymouth Company; first colonial settlement in New England
  • Mayflower Compact was signed

    Mayflower Compact was signed
    The Mayflower Compact was a set of rules for self-governance established by the English settlers who traveled to the New World on the Mayflower.
  • Virginia becoming a royal colony

    King James I revokes the Virginia Company's charter, and Virginia becomes a royal colony
  • King James I dies

    King James I dies
    King Charles I becomes King of England
  • Massachusetts Bay Colony is founded

    The Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded by the owners of the Massachusetts Bay Company.
  • Boston is founded

    Puritan colonists from England founded Boston
  • Province of Maryland is founded

    The Maryland Colony was founded by George Calvert, Lord Baltimore and other colonists, at Baltimore.
  • Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations founded

    Providence Plantation was the first permanent European American settlement in Rhode Island. It was established by a group of colonists led by Roger Williams who left Massachusetts Bay Colony in order to establish a colony with greater religious freedom.
  • Connecticut Colony founded

    Hooker and one hundred members of his congregation headed south and founded a new colony on the site of modern-day Hartford, Connecticut.
  • New Haven Colony founded

    New Haven Colony was established by Englishmen, Theophilus Eaton and the Reverend John Davenport.
  • Fundamental Orders of Connecticut adopted

    The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut was an early agreement between the colonial communities of Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor that established a representative government based on the example of a number of Massachusetts colonies.
  • Montreal founded

    Montreal was founded in 1642 as a missionary colony under the direction of Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve and Jeanne Mance , but the fur trade soon became its main activity.
  • Beginning of English Civil War

    Beginning of English Civil War
    a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers") principally over the manner of England's governance
  • New England Confederation created

    New England Confederation, union for mutual safety and welfare formed in 1643 by representatives of the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven.
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    Kieft's War in New Netherland

    Dutch colonists attacked Lenape camps and massacred the inhabitants, which encouraged unification among the regional Algonquian tribes against the Dutch and precipitated waves of attacks on both sides. This was one of the earliest conflicts between settlers and Indians in the region.
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    Third Anglo-Powhatan War

    The third Anglo-Powhatan war started with a large, coordinated strike by Powhatan warriors against the Virginia colonists. Several outlying settlements were struck with the Powhatan killing and/or capturing between 400 and 500 English settlers.
  • Maryland Toleration Act

    The assembly of the Province of Maryland passed “An Act Concerning Religion,” also called the Maryland Toleration Act of 1649. The act was meant to ensure freedom of religion for Christian settlers of diverse persuasions in the colony.
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    Navigation Acts

    The Navigation Acts were a series of laws passed by the English Parliament to regulate shipping and maritime commerce. The Acts increased colonial revenue by taxing the goods going to and from British colonies. The Navigation Acts were one of the direct economic causes of the American Revolution.
  • New Sweden becomes incorporated into the Dutch colony of New Netherland

    New Sweden was the last of the European colonial empires to be founded in North America, as well as the smallest, least populous, and shortest-lived.
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    Peach Tree War

    The Peach Tree War was a large-scale attack on September 15, 1655 by the Susquehannock Indians and allied tribes on several New Netherland settlements along the Hudson River in New York. The attack was motivated by the Dutch reconquest of New Sweden, a close trading partner and protectorate of the Susquehannocks.
  • First Quakers arrive in New England

    Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, two Englishwomen, become the first Quakers to immigrate to the American colonies when the ship carrying them lands at Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The pair came from Barbados, where Quakers had established a center for missionary work.
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    Esopus Wars

    The Esopus Wars were two conflicts between the Esopus tribe of Lenape Indians (Delaware) and New Netherlander colonists during the latter half of the 17th century in Ulster County, New York. The first battle was instigated by settlers; the second war was the continuation of a grudge on the part of the Esopus tribe.
  • King Charles II grants charter for Province of Carolina

    King Charles II grants charter for Province of Carolina
    Charles II issued a new charter to a group of eight English noblemen, granting them the land of Carolina, as a reward for their faithful support of his efforts to regain the throne of England.
  • New Jersey and New York established as Proprietary Colonies of England

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    Second Anglo-Dutch War

    The Second Anglo-Dutch War was a conflict fought between England and the Dutch Republic partly for control over the seas and trade routes, where England tried to end the Dutch domination of world trade during a period of intense European commercial rivalry, but also as a result of political tensions.
  • The Duke's Laws are issued

    The Duke's Laws were issued that allowed for religious tolerance for all Protestants.
  • Charles Town (Charleston) founded in present-day South Carolina

    Charles Town (Charleston) founded in present-day South Carolina
    Charleston was founded in 1670 as Charles Town, honoring King Charles II of England.
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    King Philip's War in New England

    King Philip’s War was an armed conflict between English colonists and the American Indians of New England in the 17th century. It was the Native-American’s last major effort to drive the English colonists out of New England. The war took place between 1675-1676 in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts and later spread to Maine and New Hampshire.
  • Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia

    Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia
    The significance of Bacon's Rebellion of 1676 was that it pushed the elite of Virginia towards a harsher, more rigid system of slavery.
  • William Penn receives a royal charter from Charles II to establish Pennsylvania

    In 1681, William Penn received a royal charter from King Charles II of England in 1681 to cover a debt of £16,000 owed by the monarch to Penn's father Admiral William Penn, by which he became the proprietor of a huge tract of land in what is now Pennsylvania.
  • Philadelphia founded

    the city was founded by William Penn in the English Crown Province of Pennsylvania between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers
  • The Glorious Revolution occurs

    The Glorious Revolution occurs
    "The Bloodless Revolution": It involved the overthrow of the Catholic king James II, who was replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange. Motives for the revolution were complex and included both political and religious concerns.
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    King William's War, the North American theater of the Nine Years' War

    The North American theater of the Nine Years' War; It was the first of six colonial wars fought between New France and New England along with their respective Native allies before France ceded its remaining mainland territories in North America east of the Mississippi River in 1763.
  • The English Bill of Rights

    The English Parliament presents the English Bill of Rights to William and Mary and is later used as one of the models for the United States Bill of Rights. The bill outlined specific constitutional and civil rights and ultimately gave Parliament power over the monarchy.
  • The Boston Revolt and Leisler's Rebellion

    The uprising took place in the aftermath of Britain's Glorious Revolution and the 1689 Boston revolt in the Dominion of New England, which had included New York. The rebellion reflected colonial resentment against the policies of deposed King James II.
  • Toleration Act is passed by Parliament

    gives limited Freedom of Religion to all British citizens
  • The Salem Witch Trials

    The Salem Witch Trials
    The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft.
  • Cahokia, Illinois established by French missionaries from Quebec

    Founded in 1699 by Quebec missionaries and named for a tribe of Illinois Indians, it was the first permanent European settlement in Illinois and became a center of French influence in the upper Mississippi River valley.
  • The Treaty of Ryswick

    In July 1697 the treaty brought to an end the Nine Years War, in which Louis XIV's France faced a grand coalition of England, the emperor, the Dutch, and Spain.
  • The Wool Act

    The Wool Act of 1699 was a British Law, passed by the Parliament of Great Britain, that was designed to restrict the trading of wool products by banning the export of wool from the colonies, limiting the importing of wool to that produced by Great Britain, and taxing wool sales.