—The London company send out an expedition, which, accidentally discovering Chesapeake Bay, enter, and found a colony on James River, at Jamestown. The romantic Captain John Smith was one of the colonists. This was the first permanent English settlement in North America.
1608—Smith seeking, by orders from the London company, a passage to the Pacific ocean, up the Chickahominy, is taken prisoner by the Indians, condemned to death, and saved by Pocahontas.
—Quebec founded by the French under Champlain.
—The English Puritans, persecuted in England, take refuge in Holland.
1609—Lord Delaware is appointed Governor of Virginia, which receives a new charter, and a considerable accession of numbers.
—Part of the expedition, however, was shipwrecked, and the colony, embracing a large unruly and indolent element, is near perishing. Pocahontas repeatedly saves them from the Indians. Hudson river and Lake Champlain discovered.
1610—Lord Delaware, having been delayed, arrives (after the discouraged colonists had embarked to return to England) with supplies, and saves the settlement.
1613—Pocahontas marries John Rolfe, an Englishman.
—The Dutch erect a fort at New York.
1615—They build Fort Orange, near Albany.