Colonial America
Samuel Adams
Founding Father Samuel Adams was a thorn in the side of the British in the years before the American Revolution. As a political activist and state legislator, he spoke out against British efforts to tax the colonists, and pressured merchants to boycott British products. He also ...read more
King Philip’s War
King Philip’s War—also known as the First Indian War, the Great Narragansett War or Metacom’s Rebellion—took place in southern New England from 1675 to 1676. It was the Native Americans' last-ditch effort to avoid recognizing English authority and stop English settlement on ...read more
10 Things You May Not Know About the Jamestown Colony
In May of 1607, a hearty group of Englishmen arrived on the muddy shores of modern-day Virginia under orders from King James I to establish an English colony. But despite their efforts, the Jamestown Colony was immediately plagued by disease, famine, and violent encounters with ...read more
New York adopts state constitution
The first New York state constitution is formally adopted by the Convention of Representatives of the State of New York, meeting in the upstate town of Kingston, on April 20, 1777. The constitution began by declaring the possibility of reconciliation between Britain and its ...read more
Why the Quran Was a Bestseller Among Christians in 18th Century America
Islam has existed in North America for hundreds of years, ever since enslaved people captured in Africa brought their religion over. In the 1700s, an English translation of the Quran (or Koran) actually became a bestseller among Protestants in England and its American colonies. ...read more
What Was Life Like in Jamestown?
The first settlers at the English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia hoped to forge new lives away from England―but life in the early 1600s at Jamestown consisted mainly of danger, hardship, disease and death. All of the early settlers in 1607 were men and boys, including ...read more
Great Awakening
The Great Awakening was a religious revival that impacted the English colonies in America during the 1730s and 1740s. The movement came at a time when the idea of secular rationalism was being emphasized, and passion for religion had grown stale. Christian leaders often traveled ...read more
Freedom of Religion
Freedom of religion is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits laws establishing a national religion or impeding the free exercise of religion for its citizens. While the First Amendment enforces the “separation of church and state” it doesn’t ...read more
Want To Eat Like A Colonist? Ask This Virginia Chef
Frog’s legs, gooseberries, candied fruit peel, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, artichoke hearts and potatoes. It may sound like the weirdest shopping list ever, but in reality it’s the recipe for a pie once considered a delicacy by Virginia’s richest colonists. And Frank Clark, ...read more
America’s Forgotten Swedish Colony
Most Americans are familiar with France, Spain, Holland and England’s colonial history in the United States, but lesser-known is New Sweden, a Swedish holding that once spanned parts of Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The upstart settlement dates to the early 17th ...read more
The Lost Colony of Popham
Many of the details of the Popham colony have been lost to history, but in its heyday the tiny settlement in Maine was considered a direct rival of Jamestown. Both colonies got their start in 1606, when the British King James I granted the Virginia Company a charter to establish ...read more
Did Florida Host the First Thanksgiving?
Blaring trumpets and thundering artillery serenaded Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés as he waded ashore on September 8, 1565. The Spanish admiral kissed a cross held aloft by the fleet’s captain, Father Francisco Lopez, then claimed Florida for both his God and his country. As ...read more
The Dutch Surrender New Netherland
1. An Englishman gave the colony its start. Hired by English merchants, explorer Henry Hudson twice entered the Arctic Ocean in an attempt to find a Northeast Passage to Asia, only to be stymied each time by sheets of sea ice. Though unable to gain additional backing in his home ...read more
Deeper Roots of Northern Slavery Unearthed
In the winter of 1757, one of the bluest of Colonial Connecticut’s bluebloods set sail from New London. Colonial governors sprouted from Dudley Saltonstall’s family tree, and his ancestors included John Winthrop, the Puritan founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Sir ...read more
How the Proclamation of 1763 Sparked the American Revolution
Great Britain’s victory over France in the Seven Years’ War, also known as the French and Indian War, gave it control over all of eastern North America. In an attempt to further flex their dominance in the New World, King George III issued a royal proclamation on October 7, 1763, ...read more
Evidence of Cannibalism Found at Jamestown
Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in North America, was founded in May of 1607 by 104 settlers who arrived aboard three ships: the Susan Constant, the Discovery and the Godspeed. They founded their colony on a narrow peninsula in the James River, constructing a wooden ...read more
Before Salem, the First American Witch Hunt
In late March 1662, John and Bethia Kelly grieved over the body of their 8-year-old daughter inside their Hartford, Connecticut, home. Little Elizabeth had been fine just days before when she returned home with a neighbor, Goodwife Ayres. The distraught parents, grasping at any ...read more
What happened to the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke?
The origins of one of the America’s oldest unsolved mysteries can be traced to August 1587, when a group of about 115 English settlers arrived on Roanoke Island, off the coast of what is now North Carolina. Later that year, it was decided that John White, governor of the new ...read more
Salem Witch Trials
The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a ...read more
Deerfield settlement razed in Queen Anne’s War
Deerfield, a frontier settlement in western Massachusetts, is attacked by a French and Native American force. Some 100 men, women, and children were massacred as the town was burned to the ground. The Deerfield raid was the bloodiest event of Queen Anne’s War, a conflict known to ...read more
The 13 Colonies
Traditionally, when we tell the story of “Colonial America,” we are talking about the English colonies along the Eastern seaboard. That story is incomplete–by the time Englishmen had begun to establish colonies in earnest, there were plenty of French, Spanish, Dutch and even ...read more
Jamestown Colony
On May 14, 1607, a group of roughly 100 members of a joint venture called the Virginia Company founded the first permanent English settlement in North America on the banks of the James River. Famine, disease and conflict with local Native American tribes in the first two years ...read more
The Boston Massacre
On the cold, snowy night of March 5, 1770, a mob of American colonists gathers at the Customs House in Boston and begins taunting the British soldiers guarding the building. The protesters, who called themselves Patriots, were protesting the occupation of their city by British ...read more
Pequot massacres begin
During the Pequot War, an allied Puritan and Mohegan force under English Captain John Mason attacks a Pequot village in Connecticut, burning or massacring some 500 Indian women, men, and children. As the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay spread further into Connecticut, they came ...read more