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Jan 1, 1513
Ponce de Leon arrives in North America
Ponce was the first Spanish settler to come to the Americas. He landed in Florida looking for the Fountain of Youth. He died from one of the natives' poison arrows. -
Gual Indians rise up against the Spanish
The Gual fought against the Spanish Christian missionaries that were attempting to convert them. This further increased the tensions between the native people and the Europeans. -
The Jamestown colony is established
Jamestown, established in modern day Virginia, was the first successful English colony in North America. The two previous colonies had failed. Half of the Jamestown colonists died in the first year due to their focus on getting rich and ignoring food production in the process. -
Santa Fe is established
Santa Fe was the first permanent Spanish settlement in the Southwest. It was also the site of the first large-scale uprising by Native Americans against the Europeans. -
Pocahontas marries John Rolfe
This marriage was the beginning of a short period of peace between the settlers and the natives. -
The Virginia Company begins using the Headright System
The Headright System, aimed at convincing more Europeans to settle in the New World, was essentially a recruitment tactic. The Virginia Company offered 50 acres of land for each person a settler paid to bring over to North America. This led to the creation of many large estates. -
First African slaves are brought to Virginia
This was the beginning of centuries of oppression of African and African-American peoples in America. -
The first Thanksgiving takes place
The first Thanksgiving took place in the Massachusetts Bay colony. The piligrims hosted a feast for Squanto and the natives to thank them for their generosity one year earlier, when the ill-prepared pilgrims arrived in America. Without the help of the natives, the pilgrims would've died of starvation. -
Chief Opechancanough leads a rebellion against the English
The natives saw that more and more settlers were arriving in America, and feared that their land would be taken. This was why the natives rebelled; however, the English struck back, and the natives' uprising failed. -
The Pequot War takes place
This war began when the Pequot, a native tribe, attacked English fur traders. The settlers retaliated by sending soldiers from Massachusetts and Connecticut to attack a Pequot village. The soldiers burned it to the ground and killed over 500 people. The one-sided war continued for several months after this; the outnumbered natives stood no chance against the English. By the end of it, most of the natives had either been killed or sold into slavery. -
The natives perform another uprising against the English settlers
This second uprising failed just as the first one did. This time, however, the 2,000 remaining natives were forced to sign a treaty that restricted them onto a reservation west of Virginia. -
The English take over the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam
The English changed the name of the colony to New York, which quickly became one of the biggest colonies in North America. -
Nathaniel Bacon arrives in Virginia
Bacon led an armed uprising against Berkeley, the governor of Virginia. The uprising took place becuase the colonists were upset that Berkeley wouldn't let them kill more natives and take more land. Bacon and his uprising burned Jamestown to the ground and declared himself ruler of Virginia. -
Pope leads an uprising against the Spanish
Pope, a native religious leader, organized an uprising of over 2,000 warriors. Overall, they killed 400 Spanish colonists and forced the rest out of Santa Fe. This made the Spanish somewhat more tolerant of native religions. -
Charles II gives land to William Penn
That land included modern-day Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. Penn was a Quaker, who established Pennsylvania as a Quaker colony. -
King James II creates the Dominion of New England
King James II decided that the English colonies would be easier to rule if they were consolidated, so he combined them and called it the Dominion of New England. The dictator-like ruler of the Dominion, Edmund Andros, was the former governor of New York. He was eventually thrown in jail for his unfair taxes.
