Colonial America Timeline

1607

Jamestown is founded in Virginia by the colonists of the London Company.

1620

The Mayflower ship lands at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with 101 colonists. On November 11, the Mayflower Compact is signed by the 41 men.

1623

In 1623 two groups of English settlers, sent by Captain John Mason, arrived in what is now called New Hampshire.

1626

Peter Minuit, a Dutch colonist, buys Manhattan Island from the Native Americans for 60 guilders (about $24) and names the island New Amsterdam.

1634

First settlement in Maryland as 200 settlers, many of them Catholic, arrive in the lands granted to Roman Catholic Lord Baltimore by King Charles I.

1636

Roger Williams is driven from Puritan Massachusetts and settles Rhode Island, a haven for religious freedom.

1636

After being driven from Massachusetts, Clergyman Thomas Hooker and his followers arrived in Hartford and declared freedom from all save Divine Authority.

1638

Peter Minuet settles Delaware.

1639

John Wheelwright, banished from Boston, founded a colony in New Hampshire.

1653

Virginia colonists began to settle the North Carolina region in 1653 to provide a buffer for the southern frontier.

1663

King Charles II created the colony of Carolina (named for King Charles II) by granting the territory, of what is now roughly North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia

1664

The Dutch New Netherland colony becomes English New York after Gov. Peter Stuyvesant surrenders to the British following a naval blockade.

1664

The Duke of York made a proprietary grant of New Jersey, to Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley, of the land between the Hudson and the Delaware River.

1682

The state of Pennsylvania was granted to William Penn to offset a debt owed to Penn's father.

1732

King George II granted Georgia to James Edward Oglethorpe, an English general to provide additional protection for its northern colonial partners.