Early Colonial
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Early Colonial
1000 A.D. – Leif Ericson, a Viking seaman, explores the east coast of North America and sights Newfoundland, establishing a short-lived settlement there.
1215 – The Magna Carta document is adopted in England, guaranteeing liberties to the English people, and proclaiming basic rights and procedures which later become the foundation stone of modern democracy.
1492 – Christopher Columbus makes the first of four voyages to the New World, funded by the Spanish Crown, seeking a western sea route to Asia. On October 12, sailing the Santa Maria, he lands in the Bahamas, thinking it is an outlying Japanese island.
1497 – John Cabot of England explores the Atlantic coast of Canada, claiming the area for the English King, Henry VII. Cabot is the first of many European explorers to seek a Northwest Passage (northern water route) to Asia.
1499 – Italian navigator, Amerigo Vespucci, sights the coast of South America during a voyage of discovery for Spain.
1507 – The name “America” is first used in a geography book referring to the New World with Amerigo Vespucci getting credit for the discovery of the continent.
1513 – Ponce de Leуn of Spain lands in Florida.
1517 – Martin Luther launches the Protestant Reformation in Europe, bringing an end to the sole authority of the Catholic Church, resulting in the growth of numerous Protestant religious sects.
1519 – Hernando Cortйs conquers the Aztec empire.
1519-1522 – Ferdinand Magellan is the first person to sail around the world.
1524 – Giovanni da Verrazano, sponsored by France, lands in the area around the Carolinas, then sails north and discovers the Hudson River, and continues northward into Narragansett Bay and Nova Scotia.
1541 – Hernando de Soto of Spain discovers the Mississippi River.
1565 – The first permanent European colony in North America is founded at St. Augustine (Florida) by the Spanish.
1587 – The first English child, Virginia Dare, is born in Roanoke, August 18.
1588 – In Europe, the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English results in Great Britain replacing Spain as the dominant world power and leads to a gradual decline of Spanish influence in the New World and the widening of English imperial interests.
1606 – The London Company sponsors a colonizing expedition to Virginia.
1607 – Jamestown is founded in Virginia by the colonists of the London Company. By the end of the year, starvation and disease reduce the original 105 settlers to just 32 survivors. Capt. John Smith is captured by Native American Chief Powhatan and saved from death by the chiefs daughter, Pocahontas.
1608 – In January, 110 additional colonists arrive at Jamestown. In December, the first items of export trade are sent from Jamestown back to England and include lumber and iron ore.
1609 – The Dutch East India Company sponsors a seven month voyage of exploration to North America by Henry Hudson. In September he sails up the Hudson River to Albany.
1609 – Native tobacco is first planted and harvested in Virginia by colonists.
1613 – A Dutch trading post is set up on lower Manhattan island.
1616 – Tobacco becomes an export staple for Virginia.
1616 – A smallpox epidemic decimates the Native American population in New England.
1619 – The first session of the first legislative assembly in America occurs as the Virginia House of Burgesses convenes in Jamestown. It consists of 22 burgesses representing 11 plantations.
1619 – Twenty Africans are brought by a Dutch ship to Jamestown for sale as indentured servants, marking the beginning of slavery in Colonial America.
1620 – November 9, the Mayflower ship lands at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with 101 colonists. On November 11, the Mayflower Compact is signed by the 41 men, establishing a form of local government in which the colonists agree to abide by majority rule and to cooperate for the general good of the colony. The Compact sets the precedent for other colonies as they set up governments.
1620 – The first public library in the colonies is organized in Virginia with books donated by English landowners.
1621 – One of the first treaties between colonists and Native Americans is signed as the Plymouth Pilgrims enact a peace pact with the Wampanoag Tribe, with the aid of Squanto, an English speaking Native American.
1624 – Thirty families of Dutch colonists, sponsored by the Dutch West India Company arrive in New York.
1624 – The Virginia Company charter is revoked in London and Virginia is declared a Royal colony.
1626 – Peter Minuit, a Dutch colonist, buys Manhattan island from Native Americans for 60 guilders (about $24) and names the island New Amsterdam.
1629 – In England, King Charles I dissolves parliament and attempts to rule as absolute monarch, spurring many to leave for the American colonies.
1630 – In March, John Winthrop leads a Puritan migration of 900 colonists to Massachusetts Bay, where he will serve as the first governor. In September, Boston is officially established and serves as the site of Winthrops government.
1633 – The first town government in the colonies is organized in Dorchester, Massachusetts.
1634 – First settlement in Maryland as 200 settlers, many of them Catholic, arrive in the lands granted to Roman Catholic Lord Baltimore by King Charles I.
1635 – Boston Latin School is established as the first public school in America.
1636 – In June, Roger Williams founds Providence and Rhode Island. Williams had been banished from Massachusetts for “new and dangerous opinions” calling for religious and political freedoms, including separation of church and state, not granted under the Puritan rules. Providence then becomes a haven for many other colonists fleeing religious intolerance.