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Jamestown is established
Seeking the riches of the New World, English settlers established the first permanent settlement in Chesapeake Bay. -
John Rolfe plants Virginia’s first tobacco crop
John Rolfe crossed tobacco strains from Trinidad and Guiana and planted Virginia’s first tobacco crop. -The American Yawp -
The House of Burgesses is established
The Virginia Company established the House of Burgesses, a limited representative body composed of white landowners that first met in Jamestown. -The American Yawp -
Dutch slave ship visits Jamestown
A Dutch slave ship sold twenty Africans to the Virginia colonists. Southern slavery was born. -The American Yawp -
Powhatan attack on Jamestown
With the new Tobacco crops making it more evident that the English settlers were planning on making a large settlement, the Native Americans attacked and killed 350 English settlers. This resulted in war, ultimately ending in the settler's victory mainly due to new disease inflicting the Natives. -
Maryland is created
King Charles The First set a tract of about 12 million acres of land at the northern tip of the Chesapeake Bay aside for a second colony in America. Named for the new monarch’s queen, Maryland was granted to Charles’s friend and political ally, Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore. Calvert hoped to gain additional wealth from the colony, as well as to create a haven for fellow Catholics. -The American Yawp -
King Charles's execution
King Charle's execution challenged American neutrality. Six colonies, including Virginia and Barbados, declared allegiance to the dead monarch’s son, Charles II. -The American Yawp -
English Parliment makes the Navigation Act
The Navigation act of 1651 compelled merchants in every colony to ship goods directly to England in English ships. Parliament sought to bind the colonies more closely to England and prevent other European nations, especially the Dutch, from interfering with its American possessions. -The American Yawp -
The murder of John Sassamon
John Sassamon was found dead under the ice of a pond. A Christian Indian informed English authorities that three warriors under the local sachem had killed Sassamon. The three alleged killers appeared before the Plymouth court in June 1675 and were found guilty of murder and executed. Several weeks later, a group of Wampanoags killed nine English colonists in the town of Swansea. What followed was an all-out war between the natives and the settlers known as King Philip’s War. -The American Yawp -
The Glorious Revolution
The monarchy was restored with Charles II, but popular suspicions of the Crown’s Catholic and French sympathies lingered. The openly Catholic and pro-French policies of his successor, James II, led to the overthrow of the monarchy in 1688. In that year a group of bishops and Parliamentarians offered the English throne to the Dutch Prince William of Holland and his English bride, Mary, the daughter of James II. This relatively peaceful coup was called the Glorious Revolution. -The American Yawp