The daughter of Tudor Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was reigning when The Spanish Armada was decisively defeated in 1588 and Raleigh’s first Virginian colony was founded. Shakespeare was also at the height of his popularity. Elizabeth never married and her status gave Virginia its name.
1559 – Tristan de Luna founded the first short-lived settlement Pensacola, Florida.
1565 – Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founds St. Augustine, Florida.
1579 – Francis Drake claims New Albion for England.
1584 – In support of Walter Raleigh’s colonizing project in Virginia, he prepared a report, known briefly as Discourse of Western Planting (written in 1584), which set out very forcefully the political and economic benefits from such a colony and the necessity for state financial support of the project. This was presented to Queen Elizabeth I, who rewarded Hakluyt with a prebend (ecclesiastical post) at Bristol Cathedral but took no steps to help Raleigh.
1585 – The Roanoke Colony is founded.
1588 – England and its Dutch allies defeat the Spanish Armada.
1589 – England and its Dutch allies defeat the Spanish Armada.
1589 – Richard Hakluyt, geographer of Christchurch College, Oxford. writes The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation, which envisages the colonisation of parts of the world including America.
The discoveries were to be made ‘by Sea or over Land, to the most remote and farthest distant Quarters of the earth at any time with the compasse of these 1500 yeeres: Devided into three severall parts, according to the positions of the Regions whereunto they were directed.
The third and last, including the English valiant attempts in searching almost all the corners of the vaste and new world of America…
James was the Stuart son of Mary Queen of Scots and the first king to rule over Scotland and England. He authorised a version of the Bible which caused problems with the Puritans and others towards the established church. It is the best-selling book of all time.
1605 – Gunpowder Plot was hatched: Guy Fawkes and his Catholic friends tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament, but were captured before they could.
1605 – George Weymouth explores New England.
1606 – The London Company and the Plymouth Company are granted charters.
1607 – Founding of the Jamestown Settlement. Attempted colony at Sagadahoc fails.
1607 – First settlement in Jamestown founding of the Virginia Colony on 13 May 1607.
1608 – Founding of Quebec City by Samuel de Champlain.
1609 – The Starving Time at Jamestown to 1610.
1609 – Henry Hudson explores the Hudson River.
1609 – The First English Baptist Church was created when John Smyth built one on Dutch soil, when he baptised himself and others in Amsterdam.
1609 – Henry Spelman Virginian colonist was sold to Indians by Captain John Smith and rescued a year later.
1609 – First white settlers in Virginia had to work in gangs and were punished severely for minor infractions. If missed church had to lie neck and heels at night and be a slave for a week. Third offence to be slave for a year and a day.
1609 – Admiral Newport gave Powhatan settlement a boy named Thomas Savage in exchange for an Indian servant.
1614 – Peace between the Virginia colony and the Powhatan Confederacy.
1617 – James I decrees that those prisoners sentenced to death may have their sentence commuted to transportation on condition that they are fit and able to work.
An open Warrant. Whereas it hath pleased his Majesty out of his singular Clemency and mercy to take into his princely Consideration the wretched estate of diverse of his Subjects who by the Laws of the Realm are adjudged to die for the sundry offences though heinous in themselves, yet not of the highest nature, so as his Majesty both out of his gracious Clemency, as also for diverse weighty Considerations Could wish they might be rather Corrected than destroyed, and that in their punishments some of them might live, and yield a profitable Service to the Common wealth in parts abroad, where it shall be found fit to employe them. For which purpose his Majesty having directed his Commission under the great Seal of England, … to Reprive and stay from execution such persons as now stand Convicted of any Robbery or felony (willfull murther, Rape, witchcraft, or Burglary only excepted) who for strength of body or other abilities shall be thought fit to be employed in foreign discoveries or other Services beyond the Seas…
1617 William Thiene is prosecuted for spiriting away over 800 people in one year.
1617 – William Thiene a shoemaker of East Smithfield is prosecuted for spiriting away 840 people in one year.
1617 – Robert Bayley, who plied his trade from St Katherine’s and St Giles, London, was described as ‘an old spirit, who had no other way of livelihood.’
1618 – The Virginia Company of London issues its “Instructions to George Yeardley,” which include the establishment of the General Assembly and the headright system. These instructions come to be known as the Great Charter.
1619 – First meeting of the Virginia House of Burgesses.
1619 – First Africans in Virginia.
1619 – Robert Coopy of North Nibley, Gloucester, England, age unknown, signs a three-year indenture on 7 September 1619 to work as a servant at the Berkeley Hundred in Virginia.
1619 – English migrants introduce the first African slaves to the colonies.
1620 – The Pilgrim Fathers sailed for America in their ship The Mayflower.
1620 – On 18 July 1620, the Virginia Company of London declares its intention to pay to ship 800 new settlers to Virginia, including tenants, apprentices, young women, and indentured servants.
1622 – Indian massacre in Virginia.
1624 – Virginia Company collapses and Virginia becomes a crown colony.
1624 – Dutch West India Company founds New Netherland.
1624 – Dorchester Company founded.
1624 – In a petition dated 30 March 1624 Jane Dickenson, indentured servant, pleads for her release from Dr. John Pott who she says treated her much worse than the Virginia Indians did when they imprisoned her.
The son of James I and Anne of Denmark, Charles He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland and became heir to the throne after the death of his elder brother Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. Believing in the divine right of kings, he squabbled with Parliament and levied taxes without parliamentary consent. He earned resentment from English Puritans and Scottish Presbyterians by marrying a Catholic and failing sufficiently to aid Protestants in the Thirty Years’ War. From 1642, he fought the armies of the English and Scottish parliaments in the English Civil War and was defeated in 1645. The Scots handed him to the English, he escaped and was eventually recaptured by Cromwell’s New Model Army to be executed for high treason in January 1649. The monarchy was abolished, replaced by republican Cromwell’s Commonwealth.
1625 – The General Court hears testimony in the case of an indentured servant, William Mutch, who was allegedly attacked by his master after he demanded his freedom dues, or a sum of money for completing his contract.
1626 – General Baptists start to have a greater influence and they become increasingly isolated from other independent groups including the Puritan grouping in the Church of England who were virtually all Calvinists.
1626 – Founding of Salem, Massachusetts (originally called “Naumkeag”).
1626 – Peter Minuit purchases Manhattan.
1628 – Dorchester Company reorganized as the New England Company.
1628 – Puritans subject a large number of white men to servitude.
1629 – New England Company reorganized as the Massachusetts Bay Company.
1630 – Puritans found Boston and ten other settlements in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1630 – John Winthrop preaches his City upon a Hill sermon.
1630 – First meeting of the Massachusetts General Court.
1630 – England’s population more than doubles, from 2.3 million in 1520 to 4.8 million.
1632 – George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore obtains charter to found the Province of Maryland.
1633 – Dutchman David Pieterson DeVries visits Virginia, appalled by the high mortality rate of new immigrants and the poor treatment of indentured servants.
1634 – Creation of the counties of Virginia.
1634 – First English settlers arrive in Maryland.
1634 – First English settlements begin in the Connecticut River Valley.
1635 – First meeting of the Maryland General Assembly.
1636 – Connecticut Colony founded.
1636 – Roger Williams founds the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
1636 – Harvard University founded.
1636 – Indians taken as slaves.
1637 – The Pequot War results in the killing of many of the Pequot people.
1637 – New Haven Colony is founded.
1637 – Anne Hutchinson expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1638 – Black slavery begins.
1638 – First mention of slavery in the laws of the Province of Maryland.
1638 – Delaware Colony established for Quaker, Catholic, Lutheran and Jewish migrants
1638 – Founding of New Sweden.
1639 – British Crown formally recognizes the Virginia Assembly.
1641 – First meeting of representatives in New Netherland.
1641 – William Andrews is sentenced to slavery in Massachusetts for assaulting his master.
1641 – Trade in people is now big business. Kidnapping, sentencing and coercion replace persuasion as the main means of getting people to Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Ruthless intermediaries now brazenly kidnap men, women and children on English city streets, holding them captive until departure.
1642 – Disputes over the form of government and religion lead to Civil War in England. Oliver Cromwell (Puritan sicne the 1630s) became Lord Protector, bishops courts were abolished, and many other changes affected records. Parish registers were poorly kept or destroyed which had a severely detrimental effect on these records for the second half of the 17th century. The Civil War brings a period of relative religious liberty for non-conformist to the Church of England. Puritans and Baptists allied themselves with the New Model Army against the King.
1642 – Virginia passes laws regulating the time served by servants without indentures, requiring servants to carry certificates, prohibiting masters from hiring servants without proper papers, and punishing servants who become pregnant.
1643 – The New England Confederation is founded.
1643 – War begins between the Native Americans and the Dutch settlers.
1644 – There are 54 Baptist congregations in England.
1644 – Parliament grants charter to the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
1644 – Saybrook Colony incorporated into the Connecticut Colony.
1644 – Second Native American Massacre.
1644 – The Plundering Time in Maryland.
1645 – Cromwell leads the New Model Army to victory over the Royalists at the Battle of Naseby in 1645.
1646 – Peter Stuyvesant becomes Director-General of New Netherland.
The Civil War lasts four years culminating in the defeat of Charles’ Royalist forces by Cromwell’s New Model Army. Parliament’s House of Commons tries Charles for treason against England and when found guilty he is condemned to death on 30 January 1649. The British monarchy is abolished and exchanged for a republic of the Commonwealth of England.
1649 – The Commonwealth is declared on 19 May 1649.
1649 – For the next two years, Cromwell proceeds to crush the Irish clans and Scots who had been loyal to King Charles.
1649 – George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers) commenced his preaching.
1649 – First Welsh Baptist Church is founded at Swansea, Glamorgan.
1651 – Lancaster County, Virginia, is formed from York and Northumberland Counties. The county seat is Lancaster. This suggests influence from various families such as the Barrows of Cartmel, Lancashire, also known as the County of Lancaster.
1651 – End of the English Civil War (1642–1651) between the Cavalier Royalists and Puritans.
1651 – In the wake of the English Civil War, Virginia acknowledges the authority of the Parliament of England.
1652 – The issuance of the pine tree shilling (a type of coin minted and circulated in the British American colonies) and the “Hull Mint.”
1652 – George Fox begins his Quaker ministry in Lancashire when he climbed Pendle Hill and experienced a vision of ‘a great people to be gathered.’
1652 – Swarthmore Hall, Lancashire, became the centre of the Quakers’ preaching campaign by male and female ministers who travelled all over the country and beyond with missionary zeal.
Puritan Oliver Cromwell, 54, from Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire had entered Parliament in 1629 and became active in events leading to the Civil War. He became Lord Protector in 1653 and his movement was responsible for removing the Monarchy. He died in 1658 and was succeeded by his son Richard.
1653 – North Carolina Colony established by Anglican and Baptist migrants
1653 – Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector. The meetings of the various non-conformist groups begin to increase in number. Justices of the Peace alone are empowered to solemnize marriages. The parish clerk to record births, marriages and deaths. Some parish registers are not kept at all. This condition lasted until 1660 and beyond for some non-conformists.
1654 – Bristol’s Common Council introduced an ordinance to prevent the ‘inveigling, purloining, carrying and stealing away’ of ‘boyes, maides and other persons, and transporting them beyond the seas & there selling or otherwise disposing of them for private gain & profit.’
1654 – Between 1654 and 1725, Quakers set sail mainly from counties of Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire.
1655 – Dutch take control of New Sweden. The Peach Tree War between Dutch settlers and the Susquehannock and allied tribes.
1655 – Maryland fights the Battle of the Severn.
1656 – First Quakers arrive in New England.
1656 – A law was introduced in the Colonies stipulating “that all Quakers shall for the first offence be sent to the house of correction and have one ear cut off; shall for the second offence undergo the same punishment; for the third offence, shall have their tongues bored, and shall be confined till sent away ‘at their own charges.’”
1657 – Many of the Quakers unwilling or unable to pay the expenses of their prosecutions and transportation were sold to any of the English plantations of Virginia or Barbados.
1657 – Jews allowed to become burghers of New Amsterdam.
1657 – Flushing Remonstrance lays groundwork for religious freedom in America.
1658 – The Whole Duty of Man outlining the duties of master and servant is published anonymously.
1658 – Death of Oliver Cromwell.
Richard, third son of Oliver Cromwell, became the ruling Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, for nine months until he resigned and fled to France under the pseudonym John Clarke until he returned to England in 1680.
1659 – Massachusetts passed a law which banished ‘all of the accursed sect of the Quakers’ upon pain of death and four Quakers were executed. These Quakers became known as the Boston Martyrs.
Son of Charles I, the ‘Merry Monarch’ took the throne after years of exile during the Puritan Commonwealth following the death of Oliver Cromwell and the flight of Richard Cromwell to France. The years of his reign are known as the Restoration period.
1660 – The Restoration of Charles II in 1660 was only a change of persecutors for the Quakers, with their former tormentors now sharing some of their sufferings.
1660 – English parish registers resume recording events in a conventional manner.
1660 – Ill treatment of Non-conformists leads to rebellious behaviour. Those who were not willing to take an oath of allegiance to the King were assumed to be seditious.
1660 – The main seventeenth century sects in England were Baptists, Presbyterians and Independents. The Society of Friends, or Quakers, was much smaller but had a big influence. These denominations had evolved various interpretations of scripture, worship, the family unit and church government.
1660 – William Berkeley restored as governor of Virginia.
1660 – First of the Navigation Acts enumerates exports from the colonies.
1660 – Execution of Quaker Mary Dyer.
1660 – Baptist congregations had increased to over 130 making them too well-established to be seriously disrupted by the persecution they would face.
1660 – Two weeks after the restoration of Charles II, soldiers appear at Swarthmoor and arrest George Fox on charges of treason. He is imprisoned at Lancaster Castle dungeon for 20 weeks. Margaret Fell left Swarthmoor in the summer of 1660 to visit the King and secure Fox’s release accompanied by fellow Quaker Anne Curtis (whose father was executed for Royalist sympathies during Cromwell’s time). They secure Fox’s removal from jail to London to answer the charges there. The King personally freed him..
1661 – Forty servants in York County, Virginia, conspire to rebel against their masters due to insufficient meat in their diets.
1661 – Virginia regulates interaction between colonists and local Indians.
1661 – Virginia passes laws requiring “suffitient” diet and clothing for servants crossing the Atlantic, prohibiting “cruell” treatment upon arrival..
1662 – Virginia passes two laws stipulating that the children of servants who become pregnant should be handed over to the church, and that their mothers should serve the parish for two years to repay that ‘debt.’
1662 – Crown confirms the charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut.
1662 – New Haven Colony incorporated into the Connecticut Colony.
1662 – Half-Way Covenant in New England.
1662 – The Act of Uniformity (“The Quaker Act”).
Oaths were required for various matters including for business, court, property and probate matters. Friends might be called upon to swear in order to serve a number of offices from alderman to constable.
It was against Quaker testimony to be truthful in word and deed. It was also against Quaker principles to pay tythes to the Church as not only did they not support it but they also saw it as corrupt.
The Quaker Act of 1662 was introduced to help the church to enforce action against the Quaker’s refusal to comply.
Charles II, 1662: An Act for preventing the Mischiefs and Dangers that may arise by certaine Persons called Quakers and others refusing to take lawfull Oaths.
Recital that Quakers have maintained that the taking an Oath is unlawful, and refused to take Oath; and that they met together to the endangering the public Peace.
Any Person maintaining such Doctrines, refusing to take lawful Oath; or by printing, & maintaining such Doctrine; if such Persons depart from their Habitations, and assemble to the Number of Five, &c; First Offence, Penalty; Second Offence, Penalty; Distress; If no Distress, or Non-payment of Penalty; Imprisonment for First Offence; For Second Offence; Penalties how employed; Third Offence, Abjuration of the Realm, or Transportation.
And if any person after he in form aforesaid hath been twice convict of any of the said offences shall offend the third time and be thereof in form aforesaid lawfully convict that then every person so offending & convict shall for his or her third offence abjure the Realme or otherwise it shall and may bee lawfull to and for His Majestie His Heires and Successors to give order and to cause him her or them to be transported in any Ship or Ships to any of His Majesties Plantations beyond the Seas.
And be it further enacted, that if any person against whom judgment of transportation shall be given in manner aforesaid, shall make escape before transportation, or being transported as aforesaid, shall return into this realm of England, dominion of Wales, and town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, without the special licence of his majesty, his heirs and successors, in that behalf first had and obtained, that the party so escaping or returning, shall be adjudged a felon, and shall suffer death as in case of felony, without benefit of clergy, and shall forfeit and lose to his majesty all his or her goods and chattels for ever; and shall further lose to his majesty all his or her lands, tenements and hereditaments for and during the life only of such offender, and no longer.
1663 – The Act of Uniformity led to about 2,000 Presbyterians and Independents vicars and rectors being driven from their parishes as nonconformists to face persecution at the hands of the authorities.
1663 – In the Colony of Virginia, the House of Burgesses passes a law declaring that, with respect to slavery, children take the status of their mother.
1663 – Crown grants proprietary charter creating the Province of Carolina.
1663 – Nine indentured servants in Virgina plotted to arm themselves and march to Governor Sir William Berkeley’s home to demand their freedom. Their pans were scuppered and four conspirators were hanged for their actions.
1664 – Royal commission investigates conditions in New England.
1664 – As part of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, England captures New Netherland and renames it the Province of New York.
1664 – Conventicle Act. This resulted in the imprisonment and fining of dissenters, although the possibility of execution was a very real one. The Conventicle Act also stipulated that fines of £5 could be charged for meeting in groups of five or more, failure to pay leading to three months prison. Larger fines and transportation could be levied for those who refused to comply. All fines, imprisonment or transportation would be cancelled for any Quaker who relented and took the Oath but the Quakers would not yield. A refusal to take the oath in court was punishable by fines and transportation.
1664 – Bristol merchant Lott Richards sells “one Servant boy by name William [F]reeman being about eleven yeares old and haveing noe indenture” to John Barnes for a term of eight years.
1666 – Great Fire of London.
1667 – Plague had been around in England for centuries but in 1665 the Great Plague devastated the country, though the effects were felt mainly in towns and, worst of all, in London. The plague was only finally brought under control in 1666 when the Great Fire of London burned down the areas most affected.
1669 – The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina are drawn up.
1670 – Charleston, South Carolina is founded, originally as Charles Town.
1672 – Third Anglo-Dutch War (to 1674).
1674 – East Jersey and West Jersey chartered.
1675 – The General Court in Virginia orders the black indentured servant Phillip Gowen to be freed, finding that his master cheated him.
1676 – In “An act lymiting masters dealing with their servants,” Virginia directs masters not to make bargains with their indentured servants in an attempt to trick them into extended terms of service.
1676 – Bacon’s Rebellion quashed. Metacomet defeated. William Penn and the Quakers purchase West Jersey.
1677 – Colonists in North Carolina rebel against Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper. Edmund Andros, Governor of New York, negotiates the Covenant Chain with the Iroquois.
1679–81 – Debate over the Exclusion Bill in England.
1680 – Destruction of the Westo people in South Carolina. Charleston, South Carolina relocated to its current location. Province of New Hampshire becomes a royal colony.
1680 – Over the past 50 years 75,000 people (mainly men) immigrate to the Chesapeake Bay colonies, 50,000 of whom are indentured servants.
1681 – William Penn granted charter to establish Province of Pennsylvania. Edward Randolph appointed customs collector for New England. City of London loses its charter.
1682 – Philadelphia founded. Plant cutter riots in Gloucester County, Virginia.
1683 – Province of New York holds first assembly and issues the Charter of Liberties.
1683 – Institution of quo warranto proceedings against the Province of Massachusetts.
The second surviving son of Charles I and younger brother of Charles II. James had been exiled following the Civil War and served in both the French and Spanish Army. Although James converted to Catholicism in 1670, his two daughters were raised as Protestants. James became very unpopular because of his persecution of the Protestant clergy and was generally hated by the people. Following the Monmouth uprising (Monmouth was an illegitimate son of Charles II and a Protestant).
1685 – Articles of misdemeanor drawn up against provinces of Rhode Island and Connecticut.
1685 – Creation of the Dominion of New England.
1686 – Greater toleration shown by James II in 1686.
1686 – Edmund Andros becomes Governor General of the Dominion of New England.
1686 – First German Pietists arrive in Pennsylvania.
1687 – New England protests against arbitrary taxes. Reverend John Wise jailed.
1688 – Province of New York added to the Dominion of New England.
1688 – On the 5 November 1688, William of Orange sailed his fleet of over 450 ships, unopposed by the Royal Navy, into Torbay harbour and landed his troops in Devon. Gathering local support, he marched his army, now 20,000 strong, on to London in The Glorious Revolution.
William was married to Mary, James II’s Protestant daughter. Many of James II’s army had defected to support William, as well as James’s other daughter Anne. the Bloody Assizes of Judge Jeffries, Parliament asked the Dutch prince, William of Orange to take the throne.
William and Mary were to reign jointly, and William was to have the Crown for life after Mary died in 1694. James plotted to regain the throne and in 1689 landed in Ireland. William defeated James at the Battle of the Boyne and James fled again to France, as guest of Louis XIV. William landed in England and James fled to France where he died in exile in 1701.
1689 – The English Bill of Rights was passed and many of its principles would later feature in the U.S. Constitution.
1689 – Dominion of New England overthrown in Boston.
1689 – Proprietary government overthrown in Maryland.
1689 – War breaks out with Kingdom of France, beginning the Nine Years’ War in Europe; beginning of King William’s War in the colonies.
1689 – George Keith controversy divides Pennsylvania Quakers.
1689 – The Glorious Revolution and the Toleration Act. Non-conformity was permitted allowed to go its own way.
1689 – Particular Baptists published the ‘London Confession of Faith of 1689’ which became the standard of doctrine and practice.
1690 – Schenectady, New York devastated by French and Native American troops.
1690 – Massachusetts Bay Colony becomes first colony to issue paper money.
1690 – Spain begins to colonise Texas.
1690 – By this year, enslaved Africans and African Americans account for nearly all of elite Virginia’s bound workforce and only 25 to 40 percent of the remaining workforce.
1691 – The Province of Carolina passes a law for the better ordering of slaves.
1692 – First of the Salem witch trials.
1693 – Rice culture introduced in the Province of Carolina.
William reigned from 13 February 1689 as co-monarch with his wife Queen Mary II until her death on 28 December 1694, after which William ruled as sole monarch.
1696 – Board of Trade established.
1697 – Treaty of Ryswick signed, ending King William’s War.
1699 – Parliament bans export of colonial woolens.
1699 – Free black people ordered to leave the Colony of Virginia.
1700 – Neutrality treaty between the Iroquois and New France. William Kidd arrested in Boston.
1701 – William Penn issues his last frame of government.
1701 – Delaware Colony granted charter, separating it from Pennsylvania.
1701 – Yale University founded.
1701 – Act of Settlement, Britain.
Anne was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland between 8 March 1702 and 1 May 1707. On 1 May 1707, under the Acts of Union, the kingdoms of England and Scotland united as a single sovereign state known as Great Britain. She continued to reign as Queen of Great Britain and Ireland until her death in 1714.
1702 – East Jersey and West Jersey merge, becoming the Province of New Jersey.
1702 – Beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession in Europe.
1702 – Queen Anne’s War in the colonies.
1702 – Province of Carolina attacks St. Augustine.
1704 –The Province of Carolina allows the arming of slaves during time of war.
1705 – The House of Burgesses passes the Virginia Slave Codes.
1707 – Acts of Union
1707 – Benjamin Church fails to take Port Royal.
1710 – Francis Nicholson takes Port Royal.
1711 – The British fail to take Quebec City.
1711 – North Carolina begins the Tuscarora War in fighting with the Tuscarora people.
1712 – New York Slave Revolt of 1712.
1713 – Treaty of Utrecht ends Queen Anne’s War.
King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714, he was the first British monarch of the House of Hanover born to Ernest Augustus and Sophia of Hanover. After the deaths in 1714 of his mother, and his second cousin Anne, Queen of Great Britain, George ascended the British throne as Anne’s closest living Protestant relative under the Act of Settlement 1701. Jacobites attempted, but failed, to depose George and replace him with James Francis Edward Stuart, Anne’s Catholic half-brother. During George’s reign, the powers of the monarchy were reduced by the influence of a prime minister and government.
1715 – South Carolina begins the Yamasee War against the Yamasee people.
1718 – Blackbeard killed by naval forces of the Colony of Virginia.
1719 – Rebellion against proprietary officials in South Carolina.
1720 – New France builds Fort Niagara. Slaves become the majority of the population in South Carolina.
1723 – Colony of Virginia passes an act to deal with slave conspiracies.
1727 – British build Fort Oswego.
King of Great Britain and Ireland, a German Duke of Hanover, he was the most recent British monarch born outside Great Britain. George participated at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743, and thus became the last British monarch to lead an army in battle. In 1745 supporters of the Catholic claimant to the British throne, James Francis Edward Stuart (‘The Old Pretender’), led by James’s son Charles Edward Stuart (‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’), attempted and failed to depose George in the last of the Jacobite rebellions.
1729 – Proprietary rights to South and North Carolina are surrendered.
1730 – For the first time, the majority of slaves in Chesapeake, Virginia were born in the New World.
1732 – The Province of South Carolina attempts to ban the import of slaves. The Province of Georgia is founded.
1735 – The Province of Georgia bans slavery.
1739 – Outbreak of the War of Jenkins’ Ear. The Stono Rebellion in the Province of South Carolina is crushed.
1740 – The Plantation Act is passed to encourage immigration to the colonies and regularize colonial naturalization procedures. Battle of Cartagena de Indias, where the colonists are called “Americans” for the first time. James Oglethorpe fails to take St. Augustine. South Carolina enacts the Negro Act of 1740.
1741 – The New York Conspiracy of 1741 is suppressed. Jonathan Edwards preaches “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, a key moment of the First Great Awakening.
1745 – New Englanders take Louisbourg.
1746 – Princeton University founded, with Jonathan Dickinson as its first president.
1747 – Founding of the Ohio Company.
1748 – Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, ending the War of the Austrian Succession.
1750 – Thomas Walker passes through the Cumberland Gap.
1750 – Reversing itself, the Province of Georgia decides to permit slavery.
1754 – Outbreak of French and Indian War. French build Fort Duquesne.
1754 – Albany Congress, where plans of colonial union are unveiled.
1754 – Columbia University founded as King’s College by George II Royal Charter.
1755 – Braddock Expedition.
1755 – Expulsion of the Acadians.
1756 – Beginning of Seven Years’ War in Europe.
1756 – Battle of Fort Oswego.
1757 – Siege of Fort William Henry.
1758 – Siege of Louisbourg; Battle of Fort Frontenac;
1758 – Battle of Fort Duquesne.
1758 – The first black Baptist church is founded in Lunenburg, Virginia.
1759 – Battle of the Plains of Abraham. St. Francis Raid.
King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland He was a monarch of the House of Hanover but, Georges I and II, he was born in Great Britain and spoke English. His reign saw a series of military conflicts throughout Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia. Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years’ War, becoming the dominant European power in North America and India but many of Britain’s American colonies were lost in the American War of Independence. Further wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France from 1793 concluded in the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In 1807, the transatlantic slave trade was banned from the British Empire. George suffered mental illness in his later years.
1760 – Battle of the Thousand Islands, after which Jeffery Amherst receives the surrender of New France.
1761 – February: Writs of Assistance challenged in Massachusetts.
1761 – Ban on colonial land grants.
1763 – February: Treaty of Paris ends the French and Indian War.
1763 – George Grenville becomes First Lord of the Treasury.
1763 – Beginning of Pontiac’s War.
1763 – Royal Proclamation.
1763 – Conestoga Native Americans killed by the Paxton Boys.
1764 – The British Parliament passes the Sugar Act and the Currency Act.
1764 – Brown University founded as College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
1765 – Stamp Act is passed.
1765 – Quartering Act is passed.
1765 – Virginia House of Burgesses passes the Virginia Resolves.
1765 – Riots in Boston.
1765 – Stamp Act Congress held in New York City. The Stamp Act due to come into effect.
1766 – The New York Assembly refuses to implement the Quartering Act.
1766 – The Declaratory Act is passed, repealing the Stamp Act.
1767 – March: Boston makes first attempt at a nonimportation agreement. June: Townshend Acts passed. November: Publication of Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania begins.
1768 – February: Massachusetts sends circular letter to the other colonial assemblies. March: Second nonimportation agreement is reached. June: Bostonians riot when HMS Romney seizes the Liberty. September: A convention of Massachusetts towns is held.
1769 – February: Parliament passes resolve calling for harsher treatment of the American colonists.
1770 – March: The Boston Massacre. April: The Townshend duties are repealed on all goods except tea.
1772 – June: Gaspée Affair. October: Committee of correspondence established in Boston.
1773 – March: Virginia Intercolonial committee of correspondence established. December: The Boston Tea Party.
1774 – March: Boston Port Act passed. May: Massachusetts Government Act passed. September–October: First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia.
1775 – March–April: Parliament passes the Restraining Acts. April: Battles of Lexington and Concord. Second Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia. August: Proclamation of Rebellion.
1776 – January: Publication of Common Sense. April: American ports opened to all nations. May: Continental Congress authorizes the drafting of new state constitutions. July 4: Adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence.
1776 – American Revolution to 1781.
1783 – September: Britain signs the Treaty of Paris, recognizing American independence. November 25: The British evacuate New York, marking the end of British rule, and General George Washington triumphantly returns with the Continental Army.