Timeline of the European colonization of North America

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This is a chronology and timeline of the colonization of North America, with founding dates of selected European settlements. See also European colonization of the Americas.[1][2][3]

Before Columbus[]

  • 986: Norsemen settle Greenland and Bjarni Herjólfsson sights coast of North America, but doesn't land (see also Norse colonization of the Americas).
  • c. 1000: Norse settle briefly in L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.[4]
  • c. 1450: Norse colony in Greenland dies out.
  • 1473: João Vaz Corte-Real perhaps reaches Newfoundland; writes about the "Land of Cod fish" in his journal. The claims of this discovery remain entirely speculative.

Late fifteenth century[]

Sixteenth century[]

  • 1501: Corte-Real brothers explore the coast of what is today the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador
  • 1502: Columbus sails along the mainland coast south of Yucatán, and reaches present-day Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama
  • 1503: Las Tortugas noted by Columbus in passage through the Western Caribbean present-day Cayman Islands
  • 1508: Ponce de León founds Caparra on San Juan Bautista (now Puerto Rico)
  • 1511: Conquest of Cuba begins
  • 1513: Ponce de León in Florida
  • 1515: Conquest of Cuba completed
  • 1517: Francisco Hernández de Córdoba lands on the Yucatán Peninsula
  • 1519: Founding of Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz (Veracruz)
  • 1521: Hernán Cortés completes the conquest of Mexico.
  • 1521: Juan Ponce de León tries and fails to settle in Florida.
  • 1524: Pedro de Alvarado conquers present-day Guatemala and El Salvador.
  • 1524: Giovanni da Verrazzano sails along most of the east coast.
  • 1525: Estêvão Gomes enters Upper New York Bay[9][10]
  • 1526: Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón briefly establishes the failed settlement of San Miguel de Gualdape in South Carolina, the first site of enslavement of Africans in North America and of the first slave rebellion.
  • 1527: Fishermen are using the harbor at St. John's, Newfoundland and other places on the coast.
  • 1535: Jacques Cartier reaches Quebec.
  • 1536: Cabeza de Vaca reaches Mexico City after wandering through North America.
  • 1538: Failed Huguenot settlement on St. Kitts in the Caribbean (destroyed by the Spanish).
  • 1539: Hernando de Soto explores the interior from Florida to Arkansas.
  • 1540: Coronado travels from Mexico to eastern Kansas.
  • 1540: The Spanish reach the Grand Canyon (the area is ignored for the next 200 years).
  • 1541: Failed French settlement at Charlesbourg-Royal (Quebec City) by Cartier and Roberval.
  • 1542: Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo reaches the California coast.
  • 1559: Failed Spanish settlement at Pensacola, Florida.
  • 1562: Failed Huguenot settlement in South Carolina (Charlesfort-Santa Elena site).
  • 1564: French Huguenots at Jacksonville, Florida (Fort Caroline).
  • 1565: Spanish slaughter French 'heretics' at Fort Caroline.
  • 1565: Spanish found Saint Augustine, Florida.
  • 1566–1587: Spanish in South Carolina (Charlesfort-Santa Elena site).
  • 1568: Dutch revolt against Spain begins. The economic model developed in the Netherlands would define colonial policies in the next two centuries.
  • 1570: Failed Spanish settlement on Chesapeake Bay (Ajacán Mission).
  • 1576: Martin Frobisher reaches the coast of Labrador and Baffin Island.
  • 1579: Sir Francis Drake claims New Albion.
  • 1583: England formally claims Newfoundland (Humphrey Gilbert).
  • 1585: Roanoke Colony founded by English Roanoke Island, North Carolina, failed in 1587
  • 1598: Failed French settlement on Sable Island off Nova Scotia.
  • 1598: Spanish settlement in Northern New Mexico.
  • 1600: By 1600 Spain and Portugal were still the only significant colonial powers. North of Mexico the only settlements were Saint Augustine and the isolated outpost in northern New Mexico. Exploration of the interior was largely abandoned after the 1540s. Around Newfoundland 500 or more boats annually were fishing for cod and some fishermen were trading for furs, especially at Tadoussac on the Saint Lawrence.

Seventeenth century[]

Map of the northern part and parts of the southern parts of the Americas, from the mouth of the Saint Laurent River to the Island of Cayenne,with the new discoveries of the Mississippi (or Colbert) River. This map shows the results of the expeditions of Father Marquette and L. Jolliet (1673) and the Cavelier de la Salle expedition in the Mississippi valley. The map shows three forts built between 1679 and 1680: Conty fort (near Niagara Falls), Miamis Fort (south of Michigan lake), and Crèvecœur fort (Left bank of the Illinois River). Mississippi river course is only shown upstream of the Ohio confluence. Map by French Claude Bernou in 1681.

Eighteenth century[]

  • 1701 – Cornwallis[dubious ] – French
  • 1701 – Detroit – French
  • 1702 – Mobile – French
  • 1704 – Delaware separated from Pennsylvania
  • 1706 - Albuquerque - Spanish
  • 1714 – Natchitoches - French
  • 1714 – Germanna, Virginia – Germans from Hessen-Nassau
  • 1717 – Germanna, Virginia – Germans from Baden-Württemberg
  • 1718 – New Orleans – French
  • 1718 – San Antonio – Spanish
  • 1721 – Germanna, Virginia – Germans
  • 1721 – Greenland – Danish
  • 1729 – Baltimore – British
  • 1733 – Province of Georgia – British
  • 1734 – Culpeper, Virginia – Germans
  • 1738 – Culpeper, Virginia; some to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania – Germans
  • 1763 – St. Louis (Missouri) – French
  • 1769 – San Diego – Spanish
  • 1770 – Monterey – Spanish
  • 1775 – Tucson – Spanish
  • 1776 – San Francisco – Spanish
  • 1777 – San Jose – Spanish
  • 1781 – Los Angeles – Spanish
  • 1784 – Kodiak Island – Russian
  • 1787 – U.S. constitution written – American
  • 1791 – Santa Cruz – Spanish

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America (1971).
  2. ^ William Langer, ed.. An Encyclopedia of World History (5th ed. 1973)
  3. ^ Melvin E. Page, ed. Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia (3 vol. 2003); vol. 2 pages 648-831 has a detailed chronology
  4. ^ Birgitta Wallace, "The Norse in Newfoundland: L'Anse aux Meadows and Vinland." Newfoundland and Labrador Studies 19.1 (2005). online
  5. ^ Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the ocean sea." A live of Christopher Columbus (1942).
  6. ^ Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las islas y tierr firme del Mar Oceano (General History of the Deeds of the Castilians on the Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea), Madrid, 1601-1615
  7. ^ First Arrivals, http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/amerbegin/settlement/text1/text1read.htm
  8. ^ Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America (1971).
  9. ^ "GOMES, ESTEVÃO - Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online". Retrieved March 18, 2012.
  10. ^ Douglas Hunter (August 31, 2010). Half Moon: Henry Hudson and the Voyage That Redrew the Map of the New World. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 136. ISBN 978-1-60819-098-0. Retrieved March 18, 2012.
  11. ^ Joseph Dow (1894). History of the Town of Hampton, New Hampshire: From Its Settlement in 1638, to the Autumn of 1892. Salem Press Publishing and Printing Company.
  12. ^ "Dundee Island Park".
  13. ^ Scott, William Winfield (1922). "History of Passaic and Its Environs ...: Historical-biographical".
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