Colonizing North America

The Spanish and French were the first Europeans to explore North America. French traders and missionaries explored the north, which they named Canada. To the south, the Spanish founded what is now New Mexico, and explored California and Texas.

The first serious attempts at European colonization were made in the 1580s by English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh, in an area he named Virginia. These early colonies failed, but in 1607 Raleigh set up a more successful colony named Jamestown. The colonists struggled against hunger, disease and battles with the Native.

Americans, whose land they were occupying, but they survived. In 1620, a group of religious dissenters, the Pilgrim Fathers, left Plymouth in England and sailed to North America seeking a place where they could practice their religion in peace. They landed near Cape Cod in Massachusetts, and founded a small settlement – the Plymouth Plantation. Only with help from the Native Americans were they able to survive. In 1624, the Dutch West India Company founded the colony of New Netherlands on the Hudson River, and, in 1625, the Dutch built a trading post on Manhattan Island, naming it New Amsterdam.

French colonization started in Canada. Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608, and from there explored beyond the St Lawrence River, claiming all of the land for France.

Later, other French explorers travelled along the Mississippi River and claimed the whole river valley for France, naming it Louisiana, after King Louis XIV of France.

EUROPEANS FIGHT FOR NORTH AMERICA

The English, French and Spanish claimed large areas of North America for themselves, even though many Native Americans already lived there. Some Europeans tried to convert the Native Americans to Christianity. The colonists fought battles with Native Americans and with rival colonists over land ownership.