Colonial North America

The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European settlements from the start of colonization until their incorporation into the United States. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands launched major colonization programs in eastern North America. Small early attempts often disappeared, such as the English Lost Colony of Roanoke. Everywhere, the death rate was very high among the first arrivals. Nevertheless, successful colonies were established within several decades.

European settlers came from a variety of social and religious groups. Few settled permanently, but a number of adventurers, soldiers, farmers, and tradesmen arrived. Diversity was an American characteristic as settlers came to the new continent, including the Dutch of New Netherland, the Swedes and Finns of New Sweden, the English Quakers of Pennsylvania, the English Puritans of New England, the English settlers of Jamestown, and the "worthy poor" of Georgia. They built colonies with distinctive social, religious, political, and economic styles.

Non-British colonies were taken over and most of the inhabitants were assimilated, unlike in Nova Scotia, where the British expelled the French Acadian inhabitants. There were no major civil wars among the 13 colonies, and the two chief armed rebellions were short-lived failures in Virginia in 1676 and in New York in 1689–91. The colonies developed legalized systems of slavery, based largely in the Atlantic slave trade from Africa or by way of the Caribbean. Wars were recurrent between the French and the British—the French and Indian Wars especially—and involved French support for Wabanaki attacks on the frontiers. By 1760, France was defeated and the British seized its colonies.

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