Colonial America Timeline (British North American Colonies to 1763)

AP United States History, Unit 1 (Mr. Broach, 2005-2006)

1585 – 1587 Roanoke Island colony fails

1588 British Navy defeats Spanish Armada (sig)

1607 Jamestown (Virginia Colony) founded

1609 Henry Hudson explores Delaware Bay and New York Bay

1614 First Anglo-Powhatan War ends in Virginia

1619 First slaves introduced to Virginia

First colonial representative government – Virginia House of Burgesses

1620 Separatist Puritans (or Pilgrims) found Plymouth Colony

1624 Virginia becomes royal colony after investigation of mismanagement by Virginia/London Company

Dutch found New Netherlands (present-day New York)

1630 Great Puritan Migration (Non-Separatists) to Massachusetts Bay

Led by John Winthrop, creates the Massachusetts Bay Colony

1634 Calvert (Lord Baltimore) founds Maryland

1635 – 1637 Pequot War with Native Americans in Massachusetts

Roger Williams exiled for heresy in Mass. – founds Rhode Island

1638 New Haven colony, merges with Connecticut

New Sweden is founded near Delaware river (not successful, later becomes British Jersey Colony and Delaware)

1639 Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (Thomas Hooker-Conn. River settlement)

1641 New Hampshire absorbed into Massachusetts

1642 – 1648 English Civil War, Charles I beheaded, Oliver Cromwell – Lord Protector

1643 New England Confederation formed (later becomes ineffective Dominion of New England led by Andros)

1644 – 1646 Second Anglo-Powhatan War (Virginia) – tribe exiled from lands

1649 Maryland’s Act of Toleration

1650 First Navigation Act – beginnings of mercantilism

1660 Restoration – Charles II invited to English throne

1662 Half-Way Covenant for Congregational Churches in Puritan Massachusetts

1664 New Netherlands conquered by English, become New York

New Sweden becomes East and West Jersey colonies

1670 Carolina Colony founded at Charles Town (now Charleston, SC)

1675 – 1676 King Philip’s War (Metacom) in Massachusetts

1676 Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia (SIG: problems of old indentured servants)

1679 New Hampshire separated from Massachusetts to become royal colony

1682 Pennsylvania settled (William Penn)

1686 Dominion of New England founded, Sir Edmond Andros appointed governor

1688 – 1689 Glorious Revolution in England (William & Mary); English Bill of Rights

Ends Dominion of New England

1689 – 1697 King William’s War (Europe = War of the League of Augsburg)

1691 Massachusetts becomes a royal colony; Plymouth colony merges with Mass.

1692 Salem witch trials

1702 – 1713 Queen Anne’s War (Europe = War of Spanish Succession)

1702 East and West Jersey combine into New Jersey colony

1703 Queen Anne authorizes “Test Acts” which drive Presbyterian (Calvinist) Scots-Irish to American colonies – begin to settle western frontier and in Appalachians

Delaware granted own assembly (but still somewhat under authority of Penn.)

1712 North Carolina separates from South Carolina

Slave revolt in New York City

1732 Benjamin Franklin publishes Poor Richard’s Almanack

1733 Georgia founded

1734 – 1741 First Great Awakening, led by Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield

1735 Trial of John Peter Zenger (freedom of press issue)

1739 South Carolina slave revolt (Stono River)

War of Jenkins’s Ear

1744 – 1748 King George’s War (Europe = War of Austrian Succession)

1754 Albany Congress and Albany Plan of Union by Ben Franklin (“Join or Die”)

1754 – 1763 French-Indian War (known as Seven Years War of 1756-1763)

Ignited by George Washington at Ft. Necessity and Ft. Duquesne

SOURCES USED:

Mr. Broach’s personal notes/compilations/research/etc

Kennedy, Cohen, Bailey, The American Pageant, 13^th edition (textbook)

Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, A Patriot’s History of the United States, (New York: Sentinel/Penguin Group, 2004) 1 – 57.

Paul Johnson, A History of the American People, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997) 3 – 109.