Territorial evolution of North America prior to 1763
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.
Giovanni da Verrazzano explored the East Coast of North America from Florida to presumably Newfoundland in 1524.
Jacques Cartier made a series of voyages on behalf of the French crown in 1534 and penetrated the St. Lawrence River.
These powers slowly replaced the native nations of the North American east coast and then spread into the interior.
This is the second oldest settlement, following only San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the current territory and possessions of the United States.
[12] The initial colony was abandoned but a second attempt led by John White, an artist and friend of Sir Walter Raleigh who had accompanied the previous expeditions to Roanoke, was sent out.
Named for King James I of England, Jamestown was founded in the Virginia Colony on May 14, 1607 Arriving in August 1607, these British Plymouth Company colonists established their settlement, known as the Popham Colony, in the present-day town of Phippsburg, Maine near the mouth of the Kennebec River.
[14] Soon after, the first of two Fort Nassaus was built and small factorijen, or trading posts, where commerce could be conducted with Algonquian and Iroquois population, went up (possibly at Schenectady, Schoharie, Esopus, Quinnipiac, Communipaw and elsewhere).
[15] The Swedish ships Fogel Grip and Kalmar Nyckel, sailed into Delaware Bay, which lay within the territory claimed by the Dutch, passing Cape May and Cape Henlopen in late March 1638,[16] and anchored at a rocky point on the Minquas Kill that is known today as Swedes' Landing on March 29, 1638.
Led by Major Robert Sedgwick, a flotilla from Boston, under orders from Oliver Cromwell, arrived in Acadia to chase the French out.
[18] In May 1654, the Dutch Fort Casimir was captured by soldiers from the colony of New Sweden, led by Governor Johan Risingh.
In 1665, the charter was revised slightly, with the northerly boundary extended to 36 degrees 30 minutes north to include the lands of settlers along the Albemarle Sound who had left the Virginia Colony.
The charter also granted all the land, between these northerly and southerly bounds, from the Atlantic, westward to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
[22] In 1697, the first "permanent" mission in Baja California was established at Loreto, about 20 miles away from San Bruno, also on the east coast of the peninsula.
The treaties were among several European states, including France, Spain, Great Britain, Savoy, and the Dutch Republic, and they helped end the War of the Spanish Succession.
In North America, France ceded to Great Britain its claims to the Hudson's Bay Company territories in Rupert's Land, Newfoundland and Acadia.
