United States: Colonial Period

European colonization of what became the United States accelerated in the early seventeenth century. England established its first lasting settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, though the colony nearly failed amid disease, food shortages, and conflict with neighboring Indigenous nations. In 1620, a group of English separatists later known as the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts, establishing a second enduring English foothold. Around the same period, France founded Quebec and the Dutch established trading posts in the region that became New York, giving several European powers a stake in North America.

Over the following century, English settlement expanded into what became known as the Thirteen Colonies, a chain of territories stretching along the Atlantic seaboard. The colonies were founded for varied reasons, including trade, religious freedom, and land grants to individuals or companies, and they developed distinct local governments, economies, and social structures even as they shared a common language, Protestant heritage, and allegiance to the British Crown. Agriculture, shipping, and the labor of enslaved Africans became central to many colonial economies, particularly in the South.

By the mid-eighteenth century, competition among European powers for control of North America culminated in the French and Indian War, part of the broader Seven Years' War, which ended in 1763 with Britain gaining most French territory east of the Mississippi River. The war left Britain deeply in debt, prompting Parliament to impose new taxes and trade restrictions on the colonies. These measures fueled growing colonial resentment toward British rule, setting the stage for the tensions that would eventually lead to the American Revolution.