Colonial Times 1607-1789

United StatesUnited States History Colonial Times 1607-1789

Colonial Era and Revolutionary War (1607-1789)

The colonies grew from Jamestown with the English at Chesapeake Bay to Quebec with the French. African slaves were brought into Jamestown. The Dutch settled in New York and other areas. European colonization of North America (the "new world") was an intrusion of terrain controlled and established for centuries by Native Americans. With the interactions of this melting pot of diverse people began the complex process of European colonization in the western hemisphere.

• 1607 - 1763: The Colonial Wars page offers information about the wars fought between 1607 to 1763.
• 1607: Jamestown, Virginia, the first English settlement in North America, is founded by Captain John Smith and English gold seekers.
• 1609: Henry Hudson sails into New York Harbor, explores Hudson River. Spaniards settle Santa Fe, New Mexico.
• 1614: Dutch claim New Netherland.
• 1619: The first African slaves are brought to Jamestown. (Slavery is made legal in 1650.)
• 1620: Pilgrims from England arrive at Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the Mayflower.

• 1626: Peter Minuit buys Manhattan island for the Dutch from Manahata Indians for goods worth $24. The island is renamed New Amsterdam.
• 1630: Boston is founded by Massachusetts colonists led by John Winthrop.
• 1634: Maryland is founded as a Catholic colony, with religious freedom for all granted in 1649.
• 1638-1655: New Sweden was a small Swedish settlement along the Delaware River. These settlers were a mixture of Finns, Swedish and a few Germans. The Swedes and Finns brought their log house design to America, where it became the typical log cabin of pioneers.
• 1640: French and Iroquois Wars escalate to full warfare.
• 1664: The English seize New Amsterdam from the Dutch. The city is renamed New York.
• 1677: Province of Maine absorbed by Massachusetts Bay Colony
• 1670: Charles Town (Charleston) founded in present-day South Carolina
• 1672-1673: Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette explore the Illinois Country
• 1682: Province of Pennsylvania founded by William Penn
• 1687: Yamasee Indians from Spanish Florida move to South Carolina, becoming an important ally of the British
• 1692: Salem witchcraft trials in Salem Colony in Salem, Massachusetts
• 1698: Pensacola, Florida established by the Spanish.

• 1699: Biloxi, Mississippi by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville
• 1699: French settlers move into Mississippi and Louisiana.
• 1702: Queen Anne's War (War of the Spanish Succession) begins; The name "Queen Anne's War" is used only in the United States. It is called the War of the Spanish Succession by Canada, Britain, and France.
• 1702: East Jersey and West Jersey become crown colonies
• 1704: February 28; The French/Indian forces destroy Deerfield, Massachusetts.
• 1712: January 28; American forces attack the Tuscarora Indians during the Tuscarora Indian War.
• 1729: Province of Carolina proprietors sell out to Crown
• 1732: First Great Awakening
• 1751: Georgia became a slave state
• 1752: Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment showed that lightning was actually static electricity.
• 1752: September 2; Britain and the colonies under its control adopt the Gregorian calendar.
• 1754: French and Indian War begins, part of the Seven Years' War
• 1754: Albany Congress, in which a "Union of Colonies" is proposed.
• 1758: Treaty of Easton
• 1759: Battle of the Plains of Abraham, part of the Battle of Quebec
• 1754 -1763: French and Indian War between England and France. The French are defeated and lose their lands in Canada and the American Midwest.
• 1760: Jeffrey Amherst becomes the First British Governor-General of North America, replacing Pierre de Rigaud, Governor of New France

• 1764-1766: England places taxes on sugar that comes from their North American colonies. England also requires colonists to buy stamps to help pay for royal troops. Colonists protest, and the Stamp Act is repealed in 1766.
• 1770: March 5; The Boston Massacre: English troops fire on a rock-throwing crowd protesting English taxes.
• 1771: May 16; Battle of Alamance in North Carolina
• 1772: June 9; The 1st naval Battle of the American Revolution off the coast of Rhode Island. The Gaspée Affair.
• 1772: The Watauga Association in what would become Tennessee, declares itself independent.
• 1773: May 10; The Parliament passes the Tea Act
• 1773: Association of the Sons of Liberty in New York published by local Sons of Liberty (December 15
• 1773: December 16; Boston Tea Party: English tea is thrown into the harbor by residents disguised as Indians to protest a tax on tea.

• 1774: Dunmore's War was a confrontation between colonial Virginia and the Native Americans of the Ohio Country in 1774.
• 1774: June 12; Martial Law is declared in Massachusetts by General Thomas Gage
• 1774: October 26; Minute Men are established in America.
• 1775: Fighting at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, marks the beginning of the American Revolution.
• 1774 to 1783: The Revolutionary War began with the confrontation between British troops and local militia at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, on 19 April 1775. More information is at the Revolutionary War page.
• 1776: July 4; The Declaration of Independence is approved by the Continental Congress (made up of representatives from the American colonies).
• 1770's to 1780's The United States Indian Wars page has information about these conflicts.
• 1778 to 1806:70,000 and 80,000 loyalists emigrated to Canada
• 1781: British General Cornwallis surrenders to the Americans at Yorktown, Virginia, ending the fighting in the Revolutionary War.
• 1783: September 3; The Treaty of Paris ends the American Revolutionary War
• 1783: The British withdraw from ports in New York and the Carolinas
• 1784: "The state of Frankland," later known as Franklin, secedes from North Carolina
• 1785: Congress refuses admission of Franklin to the Union
• 1787: Northwest Ordinance of 1787 created the first organized territory in the United States out of the region south of the Great Lakes, north and west of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River.

• 1787:May 25 to September 17; Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia the result of which is the United States Constitution.
• 1787: Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey ratify the constitution.
• 1788: North Carolina reconquers Franklin, which ceases to exist.
• 1788: Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia and New York ratify the constitution. The Thirteen Original Colonies are listed in on a map of the Northern, Middle and Southern Colonies.
• 1789: U.S. presidential election, 1789
• 1789: March 4, 1st United States Congress meets.
• 1789: March 4, The Constitution is Ratified.
• 1789: George Washington becomes President.
• 1789: North Carolina ratifies the constitution.

Websites

• Constitutional History
• Discovering Lewis and Clark
• Jamestown History is a history of early Jamestown and it's people.
• Jamestown list of original settlers with occupations.
• Jamestown Timeline are the events leading up to the establishment of Jamestown.
• Mayflower Passenger List
• Mayflower -Wikipedia
• Museum of The American Revolution and Colonial America
• Revolutionary Soldier's Genealogy
• Queen Anne's War 1702-1713
• Colonial North American Project at Harvard University. Digitized archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th and 18th century North America.