Timeline of the European colonization of North America

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This is a chronology and timeline of the European colonization of the Americas, with founding dates of selected European settlements. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Pre–Columbus

15th century

16th century

17th century

18th century

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">European colonization of the Americas</span>

During the Age of Discovery, a large scale colonization of the Americas, involving a number of European countries, took place primarily between the late 15th century and the early 19th century. The Norse had explored and colonized areas of Europe and the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short term settlement near the northern tip of Newfoundland circa 1000 AD. However, due to its long duration and importance, the later colonization by the European powers involving the continents of North America and South America is more well-known.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">French colonization of the Americas</span> Part of Frances colonial empire

France began colonizing the Americas in the 16th century and continued into the following centuries as it established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France established colonies in much of eastern North America, on several Caribbean islands, and in South America. Most colonies were developed to export products such as fish, rice, sugar, and furs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juan Ponce de León</span> Spanish explorer and conquistador (1474–1521)

Juan Ponce de León was a Spanish explorer and conquistador known for leading the first official European expedition to Puerto Rico in 1508 and Florida in 1513. He was born in Santervás de Campos, Valladolid, Spain, in 1474. Though little is known about his family, he was of noble birth and served in the Spanish military from a young age. He first came to the Americas as a "gentleman volunteer" with Christopher Columbus's second expedition in 1493.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Ribault</span> French navigator and colonizer

Jean Ribault was a French naval officer, navigator, and a colonizer of what would become the southeastern United States. He was a major figure in the French attempts to colonize Florida. A Huguenot and officer under Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, Ribault led an expedition to the New World in 1562 that founded the outpost of Charlesfort on Parris Island in present-day South Carolina. Two years later, he took over command of the French colony of Fort Caroline in what is now Jacksonville, Florida. He and many of his followers died at the hands of Spanish soldiers during the Massacre at Matanzas Inlet, near St. Augustine.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tortuga (Haiti)</span> Island in Nord-Ouest, Haiti

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alonso de Ojeda</span> Spanish conquistador, navigator and governor

Alonso de Ojeda was a Spanish explorer, governor and conquistador. He travelled through modern-day Guyana, Venezuela, Trinidad, Tobago, Curaçao, Aruba and Colombia, at times with Amerigo Vespucci and Juan de la Cosa. He is famous for having named Venezuela, which he explored during his first two expeditions, for having been the first European to visit Guyana, Curaçao, Colombia, and Lake Maracaibo, and later for founding Santa Cruz.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Captaincy General of Santo Domingo</span> Spanish possession in the Caribbean (1492–1865)

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The exploration of North America by European sailors and geographers was an effort by major European powers to map and explore the continent with the goal of economic, religious and military expansion. The combative and rapid nature of this exploration is the result of a series of countering actions by neighboring European nations to ensure no single country had garnered enough wealth and power from the Americas to militarily tip the scales over on the European continent. It spanned the late 15th to early 17th centuries, and consisted primarily of expeditions funded by Spain, England, France, and Portugal. See also the European colonization of the Americas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Territorial evolution of North America prior to 1763</span>

Before contact with Europeans, the natives of North America were divided into many different polities, from small bands of a few families to large empires. Modern anthropology assigns some larger divisions into various "culture areas", regions within which a particular set of cultural, political, subsistence and/or linguistic traits predominated. These pre-Columbian American culture areas may also roughly correspond to particular geographic and biological zones of the continent. During the thousands of years of native inhabitation on the continent, cultures changed and shifted. One of the oldest cultures yet found is that of the Clovis peoples. Upon the arrival of the Europeans in the "New World", Native American population declined substantially, primarily due to the introduction of European diseases to which the Native Americans lacked immunity.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Newfoundland Colony</span> 1610–1907 English/British colony in North America

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colony of Santiago</span> Former Spanish colony in the Caribbean

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White Haitians, are Haitians of predominant or full European. There were approximately 20,000 whites around the Haitian Revolution, mainly French, in Saint-Domingue. They were divided into two main groups: The Planters and Petit Blancs. The first Europeans to settle in Haiti were the Spanish. The Spanish enslaved the indigenous Haitians to work on sugar plantations and in gold mines. European diseases such as measles and smallpox killed all but a few thousand of the indigenous Haitians. Many other indigenous Haitians died from overwork and harsh treatment in the mines from slavery. Many Europeans who settled in Haiti were killed or fled during the Haitian Revolution.

References

  1. Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America (1971).
  2. William Langer, ed.. An Encyclopedia of World History (5th ed. 1973)
  3. Melvin E. Page, ed. Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia (3 vol. 2003); vol. 2 pages 648–831 has a detailed chronology
  4. Birgitta Wallace, "The Norse in Newfoundland: L'Anse aux Meadows and Vinland." Newfoundland and Labrador Studies 19.1 (2005). online
  5. Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the ocean sea." A live of Christopher Columbus (1942).
  6. Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las islas y tierr firme del Mar Oceano (General History of the Deeds of the Castilians on the Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea), Madrid, 1601–1615
  7. First Arrivals, http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/amerbegin/settlement/text1/text1read.htm
  8. Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America (1971).
  9. "GOMES, ESTEVÃO - Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online" . Retrieved March 18, 2012.
  10. Douglas Hunter (August 31, 2010). Half Moon: Henry Hudson and the Voyage That Redrew the Map of the New World. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 136. ISBN   978-1-60819-098-0 . Retrieved March 18, 2012.
  11. Joseph Dow (1894). History of the Town of Hampton, New Hampshire: From Its Settlement in 1638, to the Autumn of 1892. Salem Press Publishing and Printing Company.
  12. "Dundee Island Park".
  13. Scott, William Winfield (1922). "History of Passaic and Its Environs ...: Historical-biographical".