Timelines

European colonization of the Americas began with Christopher Columbus's voyage to the Caribbean in 1492. Throughout the 16th century, European powers established colonies driven by the desire for raw materials, trade, and religious conversion. These colonizers forcibly displaced and decimated indigenous populations and used enslaved African and Native American labor to build the colonies. By the 1600s, Spanish, English, French, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, and Russian powers had staked claims in various regions from Florida to Alaska. By 1732, England controlled thirteen colonies, which declared independence in 1776 to form the United States. The U.S. census of 1790 counted four million residents, excluding uncounted Native Americans.