-
The English began a colony in Jamestown in Chesapeake Bay
-
Samuel de Champlain established a fort at Cape Diamond, the site of present-day Quebec city, then called Stadacona. A half century later the French settlement had a meagre population of some 3,200 people. -
John Rolfe of Virginia discovers a method for curing the tobacco leaf -
Pocahontas, a daughter of the Indian leader Powhatan, marries English colonist John Rolfe in Virginia. Rolfe is credited with introducing tobacco cultivation in Virginia. -
Smallpox virus wipes out most New England Indians -
A Dutch ship brings the first Africans to Jamestown -
-
John Winthrop leads a Puritan migration of 900 colonists to Massachusetts Bay, where he will serve as the first governor.
-
The Navigation Acts were a series of laws designed to restrict England’s carrying trade to English ships in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their efforts were to put the theory of mercantilism (the economic theory that trade generates wealth and is stimulated by the accumulation of profitable balances) into actual practice. In 1651 the First Navigation Act was passed. -
Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion in 1676 by Virginia settlers led by Nathaniel Bacon against the rule of Governor William Berkeley. Bacon's Rebellion can be attributed to the declining of tobacco prices, an increasing and restricted English market, and the rising prices from English manufactured goods (mercantilism) that caused problems for the Virginians. -
The German Mennonite Revolution Against Slavery passes, the first formal anti-slavery protest in colonial America.
-
John Locke publishes 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding'