Knowra Colonial history of the United States Colonial history of the United States The history of European colonization and settlement in the territories that became the United States, from the sixteenth century through independence. It encompasses Indigenous displacement, diverse colonial societies, imperial competition, and the growth of resistance to British rule.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas : The diverse peoples and societies native to the Americas before and after European colonization. Colonization transformed Indigenous homelands through warfare, disease, diplomacy, trade, and dispossession.
Spanish colonization of the Americas : Spain’s conquest, settlement, and rule across parts of the Americas from the late fifteenth century onward. Spanish claims and settlements preceded English colonization in territories that later became the United States.
Pocahontas : A Powhatan woman who became a central figure in relations between the Powhatan Confederacy and English colonists in Virginia. Her life illustrates diplomacy, conflict, and the unequal power surrounding Jamestown.
American Revolution : The political and military struggle through which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British rule and formed the United States. It turned colonial resistance into independence and ended the period covered by this history.
Atlantic slave trade : The forced transportation of millions of Africans across the Atlantic into systems of enslavement in the Americas. It supplied enslaved labor that shaped colonial economies, especially in plantation regions.
Roanoke Colony : An English settlement on Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina that was abandoned by 1590. Its failure exposed the uncertainty of England’s earliest attempts to establish a permanent American colony.
John Winthrop : An English Puritan leader who served as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His leadership helped define the colony’s religious and political order.
United States Declaration of Independence : The 1776 document in which the Thirteen Colonies declared themselves independent of Great Britain. It announced the colonies’ formal break with the empire.
Thirteen Colonies : The British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America that declared independence in 1776. Their varied societies became the principal setting for the colonial crisis with Britain.
Jamestown, Virginia : The English settlement founded in Virginia in 1607, the first lasting English colony in North America. Jamestown established a durable English foothold and a model of colonial expansion.
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