Native America and European colonisation
Long before Europeans arrived, the Americas were home to millions of people with diverse societies. Colonisation transformed both continents.
Native North America
Before 1492, North America was home to many hundreds of distinct peoples speaking hundreds of languages. Societies ranged from the farming towns of the Mississippian culture, whose city of Cahokia near modern St Louis may have had 10,000-20,000 people around 1100, to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy in the northeast and the Pueblo peoples of the southwest.
The Columbian Exchange
After Columbus's 1492 voyage, plants, animals, people, and diseases crossed the Atlantic. Europe gained maize, potatoes, and tomatoes; the Americas gained horses, cattle, wheat, and sugar plantations. Diseases such as smallpox, to which Native peoples had no immunity, killed a large share of the Indigenous population in many regions, often before Europeans even arrived in person.
Spanish and French colonies
Spain built a vast empire in the Caribbean, Mexico, and South America, and founded St Augustine, Florida, in 1565, the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the continental United States. France focused on the fur trade along the St Lawrence and Mississippi rivers, founding Quebec in 1608 and New Orleans in 1718, often relying on trading alliances with Native nations.
Jamestown and the Chesapeake
England's first permanent colony, Jamestown, Virginia, was founded in 1607. Early years brought starvation and conflict with the Powhatan Confederacy. Tobacco became a profitable export, driving demand for land and labour. Virginia's House of Burgesses, first meeting in 1619, was the first elected legislative assembly in English America.
The beginnings of slavery
In 1619, enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia. At first, much labour came from indentured servants, who worked for a set number of years. By the late 1600s, Chesapeake planters increasingly relied on enslaved Africans, and colonial laws made slavery a lifelong, inherited status based on race.
New England
The Pilgrims, religious separatists, founded Plymouth in 1620 after signing the Mayflower Compact, an agreement to form a self-governing community. Puritans founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, hoping to build a model Christian society, a 'city upon a hill'. New England's economy relied on small farms, fishing, shipbuilding, and trade.
The Middle and Southern colonies
The Middle colonies, such as New York (taken from the Dutch in 1664) and Pennsylvania (founded by Quaker William Penn in 1681), were ethnically and religiously diverse and grew grain. The Southern colonies, such as the Carolinas and Georgia, developed plantation economies growing rice, indigo, and tobacco with enslaved labour.
Worked example
Comparing Virginia and Massachusetts in 1650: Virginia was settled mainly by young single men seeking profit, had high death rates, and relied on tobacco and bound labour. Massachusetts was settled largely by families with religious motives, had healthier conditions and longer life expectancy, and built towns centred on churches and town meetings. These differences shaped regional cultures for centuries.
Key takeaways
Diverse Native societies, such as Cahokia and the Haudenosaunee, existed long before 1492. The Columbian Exchange swapped crops, animals, and devastating diseases. Spain and France built empires in the south and north. Jamestown (1607) began English settlement; slavery took root from 1619. Plymouth (1620) and Massachusetts Bay (1630) shaped New England. Middle colonies were diverse; Southern colonies built plantation economies.
Flashcard
Large Mississippian city near St Louis
Check your understanding
Which was a major cause of Native American population decline after 1492?